Donald Trump live updates: President ‘named twice’ to FBI by Jeffrey Epstein accuser as he peddles Gabbard’s Obama conspiracy

Just when Ellen DeGeneres thought she was safe from the Trump administration in the English countryside, it turns out the vice president and his family will be staying in the very same beauty spot this summer!

Madeline Sherratt has the story.

The president posted this on Truth Social last night about his old enemy, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, who led the impeachment push against him during his first term and whom Trump has resented ever since, frequently taunting him as “Pencil Neck” and “Shifty Schiff.”

Is this why he’s so mad at him right now?

The phrase “Trump and Epstein” is trending on X at the time of writing, which gives some indication of how much of a problem this is becoming for the president.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin gave an interview to political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen yesterday and had this allegation to make about the Justice Department’s efforts to suppress the Epstein files.

Former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, meanwhile, argues that Trump’s efforts to distract by calling on the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardian to revert to their old names betrays how “scared to death” he is by all of this.

Donald Trump has posted a bizarre AI video of former president Barack Obama being arrested and thrown in jail.

Trump, still mired in controversy over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, posted the TikTok clip on his Truth Social platform on Sunday in which the Democrat is seen declaring in a rally speech that “no one is above the law.”

He is then seen being handcuffed by law enforcement during an Oval Office sitdown with a grinning Trump, created using real footage of the two men meeting at the White House in November 2016 when the Republican was president-elect and Obama about to leave office.

Joe Sommerlad has the story:

A Justice Department request to unseal grand jury transcripts in the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is unlikely to produce much, if anything, to satisfy the public’s appetite for new revelations about the financier’s crimes, former federal prosecutors say.

Attorney Sarah Krissoff, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, called the request in the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell “a distraction.”

“The president is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,” Krissoff told the Associated Press.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made the request Friday, asking judges to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and Maxwell.

The request came as the Trump administration continues to face backlash after a recent Department of Justice and FBI memo stated that there was no evidence that the disgraced financier, who socialised with royalty and celebrities and was accused of running a large network of underage girls for sex, had a “client list.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has pressed the Trump administration to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, claiming the convicted sex offender and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell didn’t act alone.

DeSantis, who ordered a state investigation into Epstein’s case in August 2019, told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade on Sunday evening that “there were obviously other people involved” but still “no one’s been brought to justice.”

“If you want to talk about what happened at that island, New York City, all these things, that is all federal,” the governor added. “So, what I would say is just release it and let people see.”

President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal after the newspaper published the president’s alleged birthday card to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – but what will he have to prove to win the case?

The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court on Friday names the paper’s owners, including right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch, as well as the paper’s parent companies, Dow Jones and News Corp, and two Wall Street Journal reporters, claiming they defamed Trump.

Weeks after the White House attempted to dismiss the so-called Epstein files as a Democratic “hoax,” the Journal published Trump’s alleged 50th birthday card message to Epstein. The 2003 note was described as including a sexually suggestive drawing and a birthday wish that read: “may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Isabel Keane has the story: