Hillary Clinton Halts Deposition on Epstein as Boebert Leaks Photos

Hillary Clinton was supposed to testify behind closed doors Thursday to the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Representative Lauren Boebert and conservative influencer Benny Johnson briefly blew that up.

At noon Thursday, Johnson posted a photo from the hearing on X showing Clinton seated at a table with a quizzical expression on her face. He captioned it with a siren emoji followed by “BREAKING: The first image of Hillary Clinton testifying under oath about Jeffery Epstein to the Republican Oversight Committee.

“This is the first time Hillary has had to answer real questions about Epstein. Clinton does not look happy,” the post said, and credited the photo to Boebert.

That photo was followed by another with a full view of the hearing showing most of the participants, and with Boebert’s name tag visible in the front of the image.

After Clinton and her advisers learned of the posts, the hearing was paused, as Boebert’s photos were unauthorized. The deposition has since resumed, but Clinton asked that press be allowed into the room after the leaked photos, a request that was denied.

Clinton had pushed for public hearings for herself and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, but was turned down earlier this month by Republican Representative James Comer, the committee chair, who said that open hearings are “more for entertainment than substance,” accusing the Clintons of “trying to play the victim card.”

President Trump wasn’t a big fan of the Clintons testifying before Congress. A former president and first lady (and senator and secretary of state) testifying before lawmakers means that it wouldn’t be a big deal if Trump himself gets called to testify about Epstein, a subject Trump is trying desperately to ignore. Trump’s Republican allies may have pushed for the Clintons to answer their questions, but their efforts could put him in a bind.

This story has been updated.

A group of MAGA activists are working with the White House to convince President Trump to declare a national emergency over allegations of Chinese election interference—a move they say would allow him to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines.

Florida attorney and former Trump boarding school classmate Peter Ticktin told The Washington Post he has had “certain coordination” with the White House regarding the 17-page executive order draft that his group wants Trump to sign.

Ticktin’s draft hinges on the debunked claim that China successfully interfered in the 2020 election on behalf of former President Joe Biden. Trump to this day still believes that this election was somehow stolen from him, and now the Chinese government seems to be the next scapegoat.

“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” Ticktin told the Post. “But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes.... That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”

“The stage is largely being set by the revelations coming out of foreign powers being involved in influencing the 2020 election,” said Jerome Corsi, a progenitor of the birtherism claims Trump has made against former President Barack Obama. “If there was a provable foreign intrusion, that would be a national security emergency and the order could be issued under his powers as commander in chief.”

While Trump has already signed an executive order requiring proof of citizenship on voter registration forms and revoking funding from states that accept mail-in ballots, a presidential election emergency has never been challenged in the Supreme Court.

The vice president made a surprising claim on Fox News Wednesday while discussing his new role leading the administration’s so-called “war on fraud.”

“I think it’s unfortunate that nobody has ever tried to take a systematic look at how much fraud there is in the federal government,” JD Vance said.

Sorry, what?

There are some of us old enough to remember Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which purported to investigate claims of fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government. The agency managed to slash thousands of federal jobs without meaningfully reducing spending—while making it easier for fraudsters to take advantage of Americans. Musk, who was appointed as head of DOGE after donating a whopping $288 million to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, used his position to boost his many businesses, win big off of Trump’s tariffs, and dismantle the agencies that regulate his companies.

Vance said that there was no way to know a “top-line number” on how much fraud there was, because no one had ever bothered to investigate, but still baselessly claimed that “billions and billions of dollars” in Medicaid funding were being used on undocumented immigrants.

Vance’s so-called “war on fraud” is a thinly veiled excuse to go after Trump’s political opponents and punish blue states—all while the president has already enriched himself to the tune of $1.4 billion at the taxpayer’s expense.

More than a dozen schemes have popped up in Minnesota’s safety net programs in recent years, many of them involving members of the state’s Somali population. It’s worth noting that the government had already investigated federal fraud in Minnesota. During the Biden administration, more than 90 Minnesotans were charged, at least 60 of whom were ultimately convicted. Both red and blue states have participated in benefits abuse, but not everyone has had sweeping federal cuts inflicted on them.

Senior Justice Department prosecutor Colin McDonald told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that the recent crackdown on alleged fraud in Minnesota would serve a blueprint for a new DOJ office focused on protecting taxpayer dollars from scams.

Speaking to Fox News later that day, Vance claimed that the entire administration would be enlisted in the war on fraud, and would employ “a whole host of tools that we have that have never been used.”

Fed up with the Trump administration repeatedly violating court orders in immigration cases, a federal judge said Thursday that he is prepared to make officials in the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security testify under oath.

U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi ordered the immediate release of Diana Elizabeth Cartagena Hueso, a 29-year-old immigrant from El Salvador with no criminal record. In his ruling, Quraishi pointed to several cases in his federal district in New Jersey where the government has “largely frustrated” court efforts to protect the rights of immigrant detainees. Quraishi said that earlier this month, “the U.S. Attorney’s Office conceded to violating 72 orders issued in immigration habeas cases in this district alone.”

“That number by itself is objectively appalling, but at least one judge has indicated that it was underreported,” Quaraishi wrote in his ruling. “The Government’s continued actions after being called to task can now only be deemed intentional. The undersigned will not stand idly by and allow this intentional misconduct to go on. It ends today.”

Quaraishi went even further, warning the U.S. Attorney’s Office and DHS that if any other unauthorized detentions and arrests of immigrants came before him, he would order officials to show cause and schedule hearings where they would have to testify under oath.

Such a move would be a big step, as it has rarely been done during the current Trump administration. In the few times it has happened, the government has cried “uncle” and released the immigrant in question, as was the case with Juan Tobay Robles in Minnesota last month. If more judges attempt this approach, it could compel the Trump administration to follow court orders or it would have to explain its cruel and arbitrary mass deportation procedures to federal judges. Maybe then, administration goons like Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem would actually follow the law.

The Texas Senate race is making Republicans nervous.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary, and the race is so close that an expensive runoff election is possible. A runoff could draw resources away from other close elections around the country and aid Democratic efforts to flip the seat.

Republican donors have poured over $60 million into the state to defeat Paxton, who is also running against Representative Wesley Hunt. But Paxton is still the front-runner in the race despite the fact that he didn’t even air any TV ads until the middle of February, with the election on March 3. If none of the candidates get more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff would take place 10 weeks later.

Paxton has been hammered by attack ads airing his many scandals since he was first elected attorney general in 2014. In 2015, he was indicted by a grand jury on securities fraud and faced civil action from the Securities and Exchange Commission over it. Paxton also faced a whistleblower lawsuit in 2020 from seven aides in his office accusing him of abuse of office, bribery, and other crimes. He escaped trial in both cases, though he was ordered to pay a hefty settlement to his aides.

The Texas House still impeached him in 2023, only for the state Senate to acquit him of any wrongdoing. Last year, his wife, state Senator Angela Paxton, filed for divorce on “biblical grounds,” referring to her husband’s extramarital affair. Many Republicans feel that all of this would be easy fodder for the Democratic challenger, whether that’s Representative Jasmine Crockett or state Representative James Talarico.

“Honestly, if you look at the polling in a general election setting, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that the seat [flips], depending on who the Democrats nominate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Politico. Paxton, meanwhile, enjoys strong support from the MAGA right over his efforts to fight the results of the 2020 election and sue Pfizer over the Covid-19 vaccine, among other conservative credentials.

Internal polling from the National Republican Senatorial Committee has Paxton losing to Talarico by three points and Cornyn defeating Paxton by the same margin. If Crockett is the Democratic nominee, she would lose to Cornyn by seven points and Paxton by one, according to the poll.

Neither fear nor polling has helped Cornyn’s standing, and President Trump hasn’t offered his help, either, saying earlier this month of the Republican candidates that “I’m friendly with all of them. I like all of them, all three.” One thing is for certain: The Republican primary is going to be close, and the winner will have a tall order: Democrats are turning out in their own Senate primary in record numbers.