We’re going to wrap up our politics coverage for today – thanks for reading. Here’s the latest on the Harvard story:
And our story on Mark Warner’s condemnation of the far-right Trump supporter Laura Loomer is here:
We’ll be back tomorrow – hopefully see you then.
Evening summary
It’s been a busy afternoon of US politics news. Here are some key events and links from the day:
Children in Florida will no longer be required to receive vaccines against preventable diseases including measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis.
The governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced on Wednesday the creation of a West Coast Health Alliance aimed at safeguarding access to vaccines.
A letter published on Wednesday from more than 1,000 past and present workers of the Department of Health and Human Services department (HHS) has demanded the resignation of Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse signaled their support on Wednesday for a bipartisan resolution to release all the files related to the convicted sex offender.
A so-called “missing minute” of CCTV footage, a key ingredient of conspiracy theories surrounding the prison death of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been found, contradicting the assertion of Pam Bondi, the attorney general, that it was recorded over.
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled Donald Trump’s administration unlawfully terminated about $2.2bn in grants awarded to Harvard University and can no longer cut off research funding to the Ivy League school.
Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, said he backed the president’s threat to send federal troops to his state.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, warned that the US military would continue to target vessels belonging to alleged Venezuelan drug cartels.
Updated
House Republicans have voted to establish a new subcommittee to reinvestigate the January 6 attack, a move that comes as Donald Trump has tried to rewrite the history of the most violent incident in US Capitol history.
Language to set up the Republican-led subcommittee was folded into a larger rule that passed along party lines. The new subcommittee follows Republican claims that the previous Democratic-led committee was biased against Trump.
The vote comes seven months after House speaker Mike Johnson first announced the new subcommittee in January, saying that it will “uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people”.
The new Republican-led subcommittee will be chaired by Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who will have full subpoena authority. When Loudermilk formally introduced the resolution to establish the subcommittee in July, Johnson said: “House Republicans remain intent on delivering the answers that House Democrats skipped over.”
JD Vance declines to weigh in on Minnesota gun laws
After JD Vance met with families of the victims of the Annunciation church shooting in Minneapolis, the vice-president told reporters he would not weigh in on debates about gun policy in the state.
Asked about Tim Walz, Minnesota governor, calling a special legislative session to consider potential new gun laws, Vance responded:
I’m not going to tell the Minnesota lawmakers or the governor exactly how they should respond to this tragedy … Obviously, there’s a strong desire across the political spectrum to do something so that these shootings are less common. I think that it’s important that they actually take steps … that are going to work. But besides that, I’m not an expert in Minnesota law. I won’t pretend to be. I would just say, take the concerns of these parents seriously. I think all of us, Democrat, Republican and independent, want these school shootings to happen less frequently.”
One mother of a victim who was recovering from surgery cited a proverb suggesting that “thoughts and prayers” are not enough, the AP reported: “When you pray, move your feet.” She continued: “Vice President Vance, you have enormous authority. Please use this moment to move your feet and transcend our political divides to promote peace and unity and hope. This is what the people of the United States will hold you accountable to.”
Vance has previously said he opposes certain gun safety restrictions, including legislation to ban certain semiautomatic rifles and “red flag” laws meant to remove guns from people deemed a threat, ABC reported last year.
Senator's intelligence meeting canceled after complaints from far-right conspiracy theorist
Mark Warner, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said a planned classified meeting with a key US spy agency was canceled after complaints from Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist.
Warner, a Virginia senator, said he believed the Pentagon called off his visit with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency due to posts from Loomer, an extremist and white nationalist who has reportedly influenced Trump on critical policy matters.
The Pentagon said the meeting would be rescheduled so Republican lawmakers could attend, according to the AP.
Warner, however, said it was “unprecedented and dangerous” for his visit to be canceled in response to Loomer’s criticisms. In a fundraising email, he said the meeting was arranged weeks prior: “Engagements such as these are a core part of my responsibility to provide oversight and support to our intelligence community. And they have never been questioned or politicized … until now.”
“This administration is taking its marching orders from Laura Loomer – a wackjob with a long history of outlandish fringe views, including 9/11 denialism, anti-Muslim harassment campaigns, and associations with white supremacists,” Warner continued.
Warner’s visit was not supposed to be publicized, as it was classified, the New York Times noted. In a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, the senator said: “Is congressional oversight dead? This is a dangerous time.”
Updated
White House says it will appeal against Harvard ruling
The Trump administration said it will appeal a judge’s ruling ordering the federal government to reverse cuts of more than $2.6bn in funding to Harvard, the AP reports.
Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, issued a statement attacking the federal judge, Allison Burroughs, who found that the US government’s cuts to the Ivy League university constituted illegal retaliation. The school lost its funding after it refused to capitulate to the administration’s demands to change policies and governance, part of Trump’s aggressive attacks on higher education.
“Just as President Trump correctly predicted on the day of the hearing, this activist Obama-appointed judge was always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” Huston said. “To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard university failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years. Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future.”
The White House’s continued attacks on federal judges who rule against the administration’s policies have drawn condemnation from Democrats and raised safety concerns for some judges and their families.
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A judge’s ruling today that the Trump administration can no longer cut off research funding to Harvard constitutes a major victory for the Ivy League university, which had brought a high-stakes case to defend its independence from the federal government.
Trump has aggressively targeted Harvard and other institutions by claiming they were failing to prevent antisemitism and promoting “radical left” ideologies.
At a cabinet meeting last month, the president told his education secretary not to negotiate with Harvard, saying, “They’ve been very bad,” and that he wanted Harvard to pay “nothing less than $500m” to restore billions in federal grants.
At Harvard, Trump has fought to ban international students and threatened the university’s accreditation.
Judge Allison Burroughs ruled Wednesday that the federal government had illegally terminated roughly $2.2bn in grants in retaliation for the university’s refusal to capitulate to the administration’s demands. The same judge sided with Harvard in another case, saying the Trump administration could not bar the enrollment of international students.
Three other Ivy League schools have made deals with the Trump administration to restore funding. More on today’s decision here:
NAACP sues Missouri over redistricting: 'Blatant effort to silence Black voters'
The NAACP has filed a lawsuit against the state of Missouri to block the red state’s special legislative session to redraw congressional maps and expand GOP representation.
The civil rights group said in a press release that it was suing to “stop an unlawful attempt to convene a special legislative session aimed at redrawing political maps in ways that would diminish the voting power of Black Missourians”.
The NAACP filed a similar lawsuit in Texas last month to block the state’s redistricting plan, which is expected to add five GOP seats to Congress.
Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, said in a statement:
This case is about defending democracy and protecting the voice of every voter. The Missouri legislature’s attempt to force a rushed, unconstitutional redistricting process in a special session is a blatant effort to silence Black voters and strip them of their fundamental rights. We will not stand by while elected officials manipulate the system to weaken our power and representation.”
The redistricting effort pushed by Mike Kehoe, Missouri’s GOP governor, followed calls by Donald Trump for the state to redraw its maps so it could “elect an additional Maga Republican in the 2026 midterm elections”. States traditionally have only redrawn maps every ten years based on the US census, but Republican efforts to add seats this year, in the middle of the decade, have sparked a redistricting battle with Democrats.
Judge sides with Harvard and orders Trump to reverse funding cuts
A federal judge in Boston has sided with Harvard university in its court battle with the Trump administration, ordering that the federal government reverse funding cuts, the AP reports.
The Trump administration had cut more than $2.6bn in research grants to the school as part of the president’s aggressive attacks on academic institutions.
Judge Allison Burroughs ruled Wednesday the cuts constituted illegal retaliation after Harvard had refused the White House’s demands to change its policies and governance, the AP reported.
Harvard’s complaint, filed in July, said:
This case involves the government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard. All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.
Federal agents reportedly practicing crowd control in Chicago
Hundreds of federal agents are arriving to the Chicago area for Donald Trump’s deployment, with some already “practicing crowd control with shields and flash-bang grenades”, according to a new report in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Roughly 230 agents, some who work for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are arriving from Los Angeles, the newspaper reported, with at least 30 of them training at a naval station near north Chicago.
JB Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor, has strongly condemned the deployment, which the president has claimed is meant to address crime. “Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not,” the governor said on Sunday. “I’m going to do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states. I think it’s very important for us all to stand up.”
More than 100 unmarked vehicles have been sent to the Navy training station, the Sun-Times reported.
The deployment of troops and other federal agents in LA caused widespread outrage and protests. Some demonstrations were met with teargas and other munitions. Border patrol agents with CBP were also accused of injuring protesters in LA and were found to have made false statements about demonstrators they arrested.
Louisiana governor says he will 'take Trump's help' in New Orleans
Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, said he backed the president’s threat to send federal troops to his state.
“We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!” Landry said on social media, responding to a White House post that said Trump was determining whether to send federal forces to Chicago or New Orleans “where we have a great governor”.
It’s unclear if Landry has formally requested that the president send in troops, and his office did not respond to questions from the Associated Press.
New Orleans, like other cities attacked by Trump, has seen a sharp decline in crime. JP Morrell, president of the New Orleans city council, criticized Trump’s threats of deployment in a statement, saying:
It’s ridiculous to consider sending the National Guard into another American city that hasn’t asked for it. Guardsmen are not trained law enforcement. They can’t solve crimes, they can’t interview witnesses and they aren’t trained to constitutionally police.
Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities has been condemned as authoritarian, with scholars saying the president was increasingly acting like a dictator.
Updated
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has denied, sort of, having conversations with the Trump administration about him being given a government job in exchange for dropping his re-election campaign.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that advisers to Donald Trump “have discussed the possibility” of giving Adams a position, in an attempt to thwart Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic socialist who is currently the frontrunner to be elected mayor in November.
According to the Times, “intermediaries” for Trump have spoken to “associates” of Adams about leaving the race. Adams, who has proved to be deeply unpopular among New York Democratic voters and is running as an independent candidate, is well behind Mamdani in the polls, and is draining support from Andrew Cuomo, another independent candidate.
There is a suggestion that if Adams, a centrist Democrat, and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, were to drop out of the race, Cuomo could consolidate enough support to challenge Mamdani. The Times reported that there have been talks in the Trump administration about also finding a job for Sliwa.
Sliwa did not respond when asked about the Times story, but the Adams campaign did reply to the Guardian.
“Mayor Adams has made it clear that he will not respond to every rumor that comes up,” said Todd Shapiro, a spokesman for Adams.
“He has had no discussions with, nor has he met with, President Donald Trump regarding the mayoral race. The Mayor is fully committed to winning this election, with millions of New Yorkers preparing to cast their votes. His record is clear: crime is down, jobs are up, and he has consistently stood up for working families. Mayor Adams is focused on building on that progress and earning four more years to continue delivering for the people of New York.”
On Tuesday a poll found Adams with 9% of the vote in the election – Mamdani was at 42%, Cuomo 26%, and Sliwa 17%. It’s worth noting that the Times story did not claim that Adams himself had discussed leaving the race with Trump.
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Rubio: US military will continue targeting vessels belonging to alleged Venezuelan drug cartels
Speaking in Mexico City, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, warned that the US military would continue to target vessels belonging to alleged Venezuelan drug cartels.
Arguing that previous interdiction efforts in Latin America have not worked, Rubio said: “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.”
“The president of the United States is going to wage war on narco-terrorist organizations,” Rubio said, adding that the strikes would continue, according to reporters covering the news conference. “It’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now.”
Rubio’s visit to Mexico, his first since taking office, comes after the US military launched what the president said was a “a kinetic strike” on a “drug-carrying boat” in the Caribbean Sea. Trump said 11 drug traffickers were killed in the attack.
Defending Tuesday’s military operation, Rubio said of the Venezuelan vessel: “This one was operating in international waters, headed towards the United States, to flood our nation with poison. And under President Trump those days are over.”
Updated
House Republicans help sink motion to censure Democratic congresswoman
A handful of House Republicans helped tank a motion to censure Democratic congresswoman LaMonica McIver of New Jersey stemming from her indictment by a federal grand jury earlier this year for allegedly assaulting law enforcement during an altercation at an immigration facility in her home state – charges she denies.
The censure, brought by Republicans congressman Clay Higgins, was expected to succeed in the GOP-led chamber where the once-rare form of public disapproval is now increasingly common. The House voted 215-207 to set aside the censure resolution, which would have stripped her of her position on the homeland security committee, a role the resolution claimed represented a “significant conflict of interest”.
Nearly a half-dozen Republicans sided with Democrats in voting to table the resolution.
Updated
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has crossed the pond and popped up at House judiciary committee, a guest of House Republicans.
His testimony was met with scalding derision by Democrats on the panel, who accused the far-right leader of being a a “Putin-loving free speech impostor” working to “ingratiate yourself with tech bros”. At one point, Congressman Hank Johnson, asked Farage to confirm that Reform currently has four MPs.
Farage, who missed prime minister’s questions to appear before the committee, testified to the “awful authoritarian” situation for free speech in the UK.
Florida surgeon general says state will eliminate vaccine mandates for children
Children in Florida will no longer be required to receive vaccines against preventable diseases including measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio and hepatitis, the state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, announced on Wednesday.
In a speech announcing the move, Ladapo likened vaccine mandates to “slavery”.
Ladapo, hand-picked for the role by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, is a long-time skeptic of the benefit of vaccines, and has previously been accused of peddling “scientific nonsense” by public health advocates.
In his Wednesday speech he said that every state vaccine requirement would be repealed, and that he expected the move would receive the blessing “of God”.
“All of them. All of them,” Ladapo said. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
In 2022, Ladapo altered data in a study about Covid-19 vaccines in an attempt to exaggerate the risk to young men who took one.
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West coast states form public health alliance in response to turmoil at CDC
The governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced on Wednesday the creation of a West Coast Health Alliance aimed at safeguarding access to vaccines, amid growing turmoil at the nation’s top public health agency under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr.
In a joint press release, governors Gavin Newsom of California, Tina Kotek of Oregon, and Bob Ferguson of Washington said the CDC had become a “political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science”.
“President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists – and his blatant politicization of the agency – is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,” the Democratic governors said in a joint statement, adding: “California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”
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Speaking on Capitol Hill earlier, Chauntae Davies, one of Epstein’s victims, says the disgraced financier bragged often about his friendship with Trump.
Epstein and Maxwell “were always very boastful about their friends – their famous or powerful friends”, she told reporters in Washington. “And his biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump.”
Davies added that Epstein kept an 8in x 10in framed photo of him and Trump on his desk. “They were very close,” she said.
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Vance meets with families of Minneapolis shooting victims
Vice-President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance have arrived in Minneapolis, where they will meet with the families of the victims of the Annunciation Catholic church shooting that killed two schoolchildren and injured nearly two dozen people last week.
The scene outside Annunciation Catholic Church, where the VP and Second Lady are currently paying their respects. Thousands of flowers line the walkway. Messages of love and hope are written in sidewalk chalk and painted on stones.
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) September 3, 2025
One reads: “God is our refuge and strength.” pic.twitter.com/wH0Az27B1a
“They will hold a series of private meetings to convey condolences to the families of those affected by the tragedy,” the White House said in a statement.
Updated
Trump’s attorneys are asking the US supreme court to reverse a $5m sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against him in the civil lawsuit brought by E Jean Carroll, Bloomberg News has reported.
According to a new filing, the president’s lawyers are asking the justices to extend the deadline for him to formally ask the court to toss out the verdict.
In 2023, a civil jury trial concluded that Trump had sexually abused Carroll, a former magazine columnist, in the 1990s, before he embarked on his political career, and then defamed her in 2022 when he denied the allegations as a hoax and said that she was “not my type”. Carroll was awarded $5m in damages.
The petition was due on 11 September, but Trump’s legal team has asked for an extension, until 10 November, Bloomberg wrote.
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The day so far
Here’s a look back at what’s gone on today so far:
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna said only two more Republican signatures are needed for the success of a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation compelling the release of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Donald Trump slammed the push for the files’ release as a “Democrat hoax that never ends” and mulled deploying federal agents into New Orleans to fight crime.
Republican congressman Thomas Massie criticized how House GOP leaders handled the Epstein issue.
At a separate press conference outside the US Capitol, Epstein survivors detailed abuse they suffered at the disgraced financier’s hands.
The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said that the US would carry out more strikes like the one that targeted a suspected drug trafficking boat and killed 11 people on Tuesday off the coast of Venezuela.
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans he alleged were part of a criminal gang.
Updated
Donald Trump teased the possibility of deploying federal resources into New Orleans to fight crime.
“We’re going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks. It’ll take us two weeks,” the president said.
New Orleans has a homicide rate that is among the highest in the nation, but lies in a Republican-governed state – unlike Los Angeles and Washington DC, where Trump deployed federal troops earlier this year.
Trump also confirmed that he was still sending federal agents into Chicago, saying: “We could straighten out Chicago”.
Updated
Trump calls clamor over Epstein files 'Democrat hoax that never ends'
Asked at the White House about the push in Congress to release the Epstein files, Donald Trump again accused Democrats of orchestrating the controversy, and attempted to change the subject to his own purported accomplishments.
“This is a Democrat hoax that never ends,” Trump said. Referring to the recent release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, he said: “Nobody’s ever satisfied.”
“They’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president,” Trump said. He went on to claim credit for making Washington DC a “totally safe zone” with “no crime, no murders, no nothing” – though crime, including murders and robberies, have continued since he deployed the national guard and took control of its police department.
Another boast from Trump: “I ended seven wars, nobody’s going to talk about it because they’re going to talk about the Epstein whatever.” It’s unclear which seven he is referring to, though his claims of having quelled recent fighting between Pakistan and India played a part in souring the relationship with New Delhi. He also has notably not ended the war in Ukraine – something he boasted, on the campaign trail, that he could do right after taking office.
Updated
The White House has referred to signing the discharge petition to release the Epstein files as a “hostile act”, and discouraged Republicans from supporting it.
Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman who introduced the petition and is one of four lawmakers from his party who signed it, replied:
I don’t know if that’s precedented in this country to have a president call legislators to say that they’re engaged in a hostile act, particularly when the so-called hostile act is trying to get justice for people who’ve been victims of sex crimes.
He also said that the fact that there was little new in the case documents released yesterday may spur more lawmakers to sign the petition:
What people are waking up and discovering right now is the folks who stayed up all night to go through the 34,000 individual pages have found that they’re so redacted as to be useless and that many of them were already available.
A reality check on the discharge petition that could force a vote in the House on legislation to release the Epstein files.
The petition needs two more signatures – which will probably have to come from Republicans – to reach the majority threshold to compel the vote. But even if the petition receives that support and the bill passes the House, the legislation will still need to be approved by the Senate, where Republican majority leader John Thune has given no indication he will put it up for a vote.
Should it pass the Senate, it faces another obstacle: Donald Trump. He’s condemned the furor over the Epstein files as a distraction created by the Democrats, and could veto the legislation. That would punt the issue back to Congress, where the bill would need two-thirds majority support to overcome his veto – a tall order.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene is among the most outspoken conservatives in Congress, but has made a rare pact with the Democrats by signing the discharge petition that could force a vote on legislation to release the Epstein files.
“This is an issue that doesn’t have political boundaries. It’s an issue that Republicans and Democrats should never fight about. As a matter of fact, it’s such an important issue that it should bring us all together,” she said at the press conference convened by the petition’s sponsors outside the Capitol.
“The truth needs to come out, and the government holds the truth. The cases that are sealed hold the truth. Jeffrey Epstein’s estate holds the truth. The FBI, the DoJ and the CIA holds the truth. And the truth we are demanding comes out on behalf of these women, but also as a strong message to every innocent child, teenager, woman and man that is being held captive in abuse. This should never happen in America, and it should never be a political issue that divides us.”
Updated
Massie criticizes House Republican leaders for handling of Epstein case
Republican congressman Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of the discharge petition to force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files, criticized how speaker Mike Johnson has handled the issue.
Yesterday, Johnson backed a resolution that will direct the House oversight committee to continue its investigation of the government’s handling of the investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“The speaker of the House just offered a fig leaf to my colleagues. They’re going to vote on a non-binding resolution today that does absolutely nothing,” Massie said.
He also downplayed the effectiveness of the oversight committee’s investigation, which is being led by Republican chair James Comer:
I appreciate the efforts of my colleague James Comer, who’s leading the Oversight Committee. They may find some information, but they’re allowing the [department of justice (DOJ)] to curate all of the information that the DOJ is giving them.
If you’ve looked at the pages they’ve released so far, they’re heavily redacted. Some pages are entirely redacted, and 97% of this is already in the public domain.
Massie said the best way to bring transparency to the case is for lawmakers to sign his discharge petition and allow a vote on his bill to release the files:
I’m calling on my colleagues to be one of the next two who sponsors this discharge petition. I think it’s shameful that this has been called a hoax. Hopefully today we can clear that up. This is not a hoax. This is real.
Updated
Only two more Republicans needed to force House vote on Epstein files release, congressman says
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna says the House will be compelled to vote on legislation to release the Epstein files if two more Republicans sign on to a petition he has introduced along with Republican congressman Thomas Massie.
“We need just two more signatures to force the release,” Khanna said. So far, they have received the signatures of 212 Democrats and four Republicans: Massie, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
Those lawmakers are some of the most conservative in their party, but Khanna praised their support of the discharge petition, which can force a vote on legislation in the House if it is signed by a majority of lawmakers.
“We’ve got to stop the partisanship on this issue. This is an issue where they both have shown real courage and leadership, and I appreciate them joining us today,” Khanna said of Greene and Massie.
The bipartisan press conference from representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna just started.
They’ll be providing an update about their petition to get a resolution, urging the release of the Epstein records, on the House floor for a vote.
The area outside the Capitol, known as the House Triangle, is packed with reporters and demonstrators. Signs calling Donald Trump “a pedophile” are raised alongside placards that accuse the Republican party of a cover-up.
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The House oversight committee yesterday released about 30,000 pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, but, as the Guardian’s Dani Anguiano reports, most of the information in them was already public:
The US House of Representatives oversight committee on Tuesday released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the department of justice.
The release comes as the Trump administration has been embroiled in months of controversy over its decision not to release additional files in the case. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and was alleged to have abused hundreds of girls.
The 33,000 pages included years-old court filings related to Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as what appears to be bodycam footage from police searches and police interviews. The files appear to contain information that is already public knowledge.
The records were posted online as the Trump administration was facing renewed attention on the investigation into Epstein. With Congress back in session this week, Democratic and Republican representatives had planned to hold press conferences to demand greater transparency from the administration in the case.
Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Epstein and part of his rich and powerful social circle, has, in recent weeks, tried to avoid the subject. Earlier this year he sued the Wall Street Journal for its reporting on his relationship with Epstein on a birthday note Trump was alleged to have written to him. The president has called the recent Epstein controversy a hoax.
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This “Stand with Survivors” rally, outside the Capitol today, aims to center those who suffered at the hands of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It’s separate from the bipartisan press conference by lawmakers calling for the complete release of the Epstein files that is scheduled to begin at 10.30am.
“We are here to say, we see you, we believe you and we will not stop until justice is served,” said Skye Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April after years of speaking out about the abuse she experienced at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein.
“Ghislaine Maxwell must remain in a maximum security prison for the rest of her sentence. No leniency, no deals, no special treatment,” he added. “The Epstein documents must be unsealed. Every name, every detail, no more secrets, no more protection for those who preyed on the vulnerable.”
Signs at the rally are dotted among the crowd, many echoing messages of support for survivors: “We love you” and “we believe you”. While others are more pointed, reading “guardians of the pedophiles” under pictures of Donald Trump and Epstein together.
Teresa Helm, who was trafficked and groomed by Ghislaine Maxwell, told the crowd here that change was a foot. “Systems built with a root of corruption, violence and deceit always crumble,” she said. “Now is the time to sift through and get rid of the perpetrators and bad actors.”
Updated
Epstein survivor describes abuse as lawmakers push for release of case files
Survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and their advocates are rallying outside the Capitol to push for the release of documents related to the government’s investigation of the disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker.
“Our call to action is crystal clear,” said Lauren Hersh, national director of anti-trafficking group World Without Exploitation, who called to “release the files” related to the case.
Liz Stein spoke at the rally to describe the abuse she faced by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell:
I was once bright, fun, outgoing and kind. I loved people and people genuinely enjoyed being around me, but after meeting Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it felt like someone shut off the lights to my soul. Instead of pursuing my dream of going to law school after graduation, overcoming the terror and the trauma that was inflicted on me by these sex traffickers, overcoming that, became my decades long, full-time career.
The rally came as a bipartisan group of House lawmakers attempt to force a vote on legislation to release files related to the case, over the objections of Donald Trump, who was once friendly with Epstein, and Republican speaker Mike Johnson:
Hundreds of current and former employees of the department of health and human services are calling on secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to quit, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports. Here’s why:
A letter published on Wednesday from more than 1,000 past and present workers of the health and human services department (HHS) has demanded the resignation of Robert F Kennedy Jr, insisting the health secretary’s attacks on vaccines endangered the lives of all Americans.
The hard-hitting letter, addressed to Congress members, blames Kennedy for turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the firing of the agency’s chief and replacement by a Donald Trump loyalist with no medical or scientific background.
It comes two days after nine former CDC officials wrote in a New York Times guest essay that Kennedy’s leadership, and ousting of the CDC director, Susan Monarez, months after he appointed her, was “unacceptable” and “unlike anything we have ever seen”.
The letter posted on Wednesday by a group calling itself Save HHS assails Kennedy for “endangering the nation’s health by spreading inaccurate health information”.
It cites the resignations of other leading health officials, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of CDC’s national center for immunization and respiratory diseases; Daniel Jernigan, the agency’s director for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases; and Debra Houry, its chief medical officer.
The Democratic vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee Mark Warner said the Trump administration cancelled his visit to a government facility after pressure from far-right activist Laura Loomer.
Warner said he was going to visit the headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in his home state of Virginia, but the administration disinvited him after Loomer launched “a campaign of baseless attacks” against him and the agency’s director, Trey Whitworth.
“This nakedly political decision undermines the dedicated, nonpartisan staff at NGA and threatens the principle of civilian oversight that protects our national security. Members of Congress routinely conduct meetings and on-site engagements with federal employees in their states and districts; blocking and setting arbitrary conditions on these sessions sets a dangerous precedent, calling into question whether oversight is now allowed only when it pleases the far-right fringe,” Warner said in a statement.
“This should concern Republicans as well as Democrats: if routine oversight can be obstructed for political reasons, no member of Congress is immune.”
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The Trump administration’s deployment of warships towards Venezuela prompted concerns in the country that the United States was planning an invasion. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Tom Phillips and Patricia Torres:
As US warships carrying cruise missiles and marines powered towards Venezuela’s coastline this week, supporters of the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, warned a dastardly imperialist plot for an Iraq-style invasion was afoot.
“No one will lay their hands on this land!” Maduro thundered, calling on patriots to help repel the supposed regime change operation by joining his “Bolivarian militia”.
Donald Trump’s allies posted incendiary social media messages, warning the Venezuelan autocrat the end was nigh. “Your days are seriously numbered,” Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, proclaimed, urging Maduro to buy “a one-way ticket to Moscow”.
Another Trump supporter, Congressman Carlos Gimenez, celebrated “the largest military presence we have ever had off the coast of Venezuela” and told Maduro to accept “his time is up!”
Hegseth says US will carry out more strikes on suspected drug traffickers
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said that the US will continue to use force against suspected drug traffickers, hours after the military destroyed a boat in the Caribbean that was thought to be carrying drugs from Venezuela.
In an interview with Fox News this morning, Hegseth said:
This is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike. Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated Narco terrorist will face the same fate.
The US military said the strike killed 11 drug traffickers, days after the US deployed several warships into the Caribbean on what it said was a mission to stem the flow of narcotics into the United States. Here’s more:
As part of the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations, the defense department will soon have hundreds of military judges work on immigration cases, the Associated Press reports:
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the federal justice department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by the Associated Press.
The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys – both military and civilians – to the justice department “as soon as practicable” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the memo, dated 27 August.
The effort comes as Donald Trump’s presidential administration cracks down on immigration across the country, ramping up arrests and deportations. Immigration courts are also already dealing with a huge backlog of roughly 3.5m cases that has ballooned in recent years.
However, numerous immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily after taking deferred resignations offered by the administration, according to their union. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) said in July that at least 17 immigration judges had been fired “without cause” in courts across the country.
That has left about 600 immigration judges, union figures show, meaning the Pentagon move will double their ranks.
Missouri takes up Trump's redistricting effort in Republican push to win more US House seats
Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a special session to redraw the state’s US House districts as part of president Donald Trump’s effort to bolster Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress in next year’s elections, AP reports.
The special session called by Republican governor Mike Kehoe is scheduled to begin at 12pm on Wednesday and will run at least a week.
Missouri is the third state to pursue the unusual task of mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage.
Republican-led Texas, prodded by Trump, was the first to take up redistricting with a new map aimed at helping Republicans pick up five more congressional seats.
But before Texas even completed its work, Democratic-led California already had fought back with its own redistricting plan designed to give Democrats a chance at winning five more seats.
California’s plan still needs voter approval at a 4 November election. Other states could follow with their own redistricting efforts.
The flagship podcast of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), the Christian denomination that claims US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, as a member, has functioned as a platform for the promotion of Christian nationalist and other far-right positions.
CrossPolitic, whose hosts are close associates of Idaho-based pastor Douglas Wilson, has in recent weeks hosted a theocratic Canadian pastor who has called for his country to be absorbed by the United States, and a self-styled “patriot professor” who has backed the rise of Russia and China and the decline of liberal democracies and endorsed the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda.
The podcast’s themes and guests, and the prestige of its hosts in CREC circles, raise further questions about the extent to which Hegseth’s views on US foreign and defense policy have been shaped by a religious movement that directly opposes liberal democracy and democratic principles including individual women’s suffrage.
One of the podcast’s guests even voiced support for the need for a modern US version of Oliver Cromwell, an English authoritarian and religious zealot who governed England as a dictator after the country’s 17th-century civil war.
US secretary Rubio visits Mexico amid crackdown on cartels
Secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet with Mexican leaders on Wednesday during his first trip to the country since taking office, as the Trump administration pursues a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration and drug cartels and seeks to counter China’s influence in Latin America.
Washington’s top diplomat will visit Mexico City and Ecuador in his latest trip to the region, where he will meet with counterparts and the presidents of the two countries, Reuters reported.
Rubio, the first Latino US secretary of state, traveled to countries in Central America and the Caribbean during his first overseas trip after taking office as the administration sought to shift back focus to Latin America.
The trip to Mexico and Ecuador comes after the US. military attacked a vessel from Venezuela in the Caribbean on Tuesday that US officials said was carrying illegal drugs. It was the first known operation since the Trump administration’s recent surge of warships to the region that has raised tensions between Washington and Caracas.
The visit comes as Trump has also intensified his campaign to deport migrants in the US illegally, sending federal agents into major US cities and pushing for high daily arrest quotas.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin was not conspiring with China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un against the United States, and suggested that perhaps president Donald Trump was being ironic with his criticism.
Trump said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” with Putin, and suggested in a post on Truth Social that Xi, Putin and Kim were conspiring against the United States.
“May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration,” Trump posted.
“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Asked about the Trump remarks by Russian state television, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said that Trump may have been being ironic.
“I would like to say that no one has been conspiring, no one has been plotting anything, no conspiracies,” Ushakov said.
US House committee releases more than 33,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein files
The US House of Representatives oversight committee on Tuesday released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the department of justice.
The release comes as the Trump administration has been embroiled in months of controversy over its decision not to release additional files in the case. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and was alleged to have abused hundreds of girls.
The 33,000 pages included years-old court filings related to Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as what appears to be bodycam footage from police searches and police interviews. The files appear to contain information that is already public knowledge.
The records were posted online as the Trump administration was facing renewed attention on the investigation into Epstein. With Congress back in session this week, Democratic and Republican representatives had planned to hold press conferences to demand greater transparency from the administration in the case.
Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Epstein and part of his rich and powerful social circle, has, in recent weeks, tried to avoid the subject. Earlier this year he sued the Wall Street Journal for its reporting on his relationship with Epstein on a birthday note Trump was alleged to have written to him. The president has called the recent Epstein controversy a hoax.
The White House has urged Republican lawmakers not to support a discharge petition from Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, which would force the release of all of the Epstein files.
The Trump administration illegally deployed thousands of national guard troops in Los Angeles earlier this summer amid widespread protests against its immigration enforcement actions, a federal judged said on Tuesday.
Judge Charles Breyer ruled in a case brought by the state of California that Donald Trump’s administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on raids.
In the order, set to take effect on 12 September, Breyer cited the president’s threats to send national guard troops to other cities across the country, “thus creating a national police force with the president as its chief”.
In a statement, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, praised the court’s ruling as a win for democracy and constitutional limits on presidential power, declaring: “No president is a king — not even Trump.”
On social media, he marked the legal win with a Trumpian-style post: “DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN,” adding, “The courts agree – his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL.”
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, dismissed the ruling as judicial overreach and accused a “rogue judge” of trying to “usurp” Trump’s authority to respond to unrest and violence in American cities.
“President Trump saved Los Angeles, which was overrun by deranged leftist lunatics sowing mass chaos until he stepped in,” Kelly said in a statement, vowing the legal fight was not over. The administration was expected to appeal the decision.
Donald Trump has dismissed speculation that he is in ill health, saying he was busy on the Labor Day weekend giving media interviews and visiting his Virginia golf course.
“I was very active over the weekend,” Trump, 79, told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Asked about rumours on social media that he may have died, he called them “fake news”.
The president complained that he had done several news conferences last week “then I didn’t do any for two days and they said ‘there must be something wrong with him’.”
“It’s so fake. ‘Is he OK, how’s he feeling, what’s wrong?’”
Speculation about his health swirled on X over the weekend, with posts citing his lack of a public schedule late last week and a JD Vance interview in which the vice-president told USA Today he was confident the president was “in good shape” but suggested he was prepared to step in if anything happened to Trump.
Trump to welcome Polish president Nawrocki to White House today
President Donald Trump will welcome Polish president Karol Nawrocki back to the White House on Wednesday after backing the conservative nationalist in Polish elections, with their meeting likely to focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine and energy security.
Trump extended the invitation days after Nawrocki was sworn in early in August and then intervened to ensure he joined a key telephone call on Ukraine with European leaders instead of his rival, centrist Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, Reuters reported.
The president hosted Nawrocki at the White House in May, backing him at a crucial moment in the Polish election. Nawrocki went on to defeat the candidate of Tusk’s pro-European, centrist party a month later.
Wednesday’s talks are expected to center on stalled negotiations to end the war and Poland’s security concerns, amid signs that Trump has grown frustrated with Russian president Vladimir Putin for failing to move forward on ending the war.
Trump cannot use Alien Enemies Act to deport members of Venezuelan gang, appeals court rules
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog for today. I am Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans he alleged were part of a criminal gang.
In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the Trump administration from removing a group of Venezuelans under the seldom-used 18th-century law, Reuters reported.
The fifth circuit is the first federal appeals court to rule directly on a March 14 presidential proclamation invoking the 1798 law to justify rapid deportations.
Circuit judge Leslie Southwick, writing for the two-judge majority, rejected the Trump administration’s assertion that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had engaged in a “predatory incursion” on US soil.
The act gives the government expansive powers to detain and deport citizens of hostile foreign nations, but only in times of war, or during an “invasion or predatory incursion.”
Southwick was appointed by former president George W Bush. He was joined by circuit judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, an appointee of president Joe Biden. Circuit judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented.
The Trump administration could ask the entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case. It is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court.
“The Trump administration’s use of a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who represented the Venezuelans. “This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”
It comes as Trump claimed that the US military had killed 11 drug traffickers from Venezuela during a “a kinetic strike” in the Caribbean Sea.
Trump trailed the announcement during an address at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the US had “just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out … a drug-carrying boat”.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
A judge has found the Trump administration’s use of national guard troops during southern California immigration enforcement protests was illegal. Judge Charles Breyer ruled on Tuesday that the administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on immigration raids. The judge did not require the remaining troops withdrawn, however.
The US House of Representatives oversight committee released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein from the justice department. The 33,000 pages included years-old court filings related to Epstein and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell as well as what appears to be body-cam footage from police searches and police interviews.
Donald Trump has dismissed speculation that he is in ill health, saying he was busy on the Labor Day weekend giving media interviews and visiting his Virginia golf course. “I was very active over the weekend,” Trump, 79, told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Asked about rumours on social media that he may have died, he called them “fake news”.
Trump made his first public appearance in a week on Tuesday to announce that the US Space Command (Spacecom) headquarters, which is tasked with leading national security operations in space, would be in the Republican stronghold of Alabama. Flanked by Republican senators and members of Congress at a White House news conference, Trump said Huntsville, Alabama, would be the new location of the space command.
Trump will welcome Polish president Karol Nawrocki back to the White House on Wednesday after backing the conservative nationalist in Polish elections, with their meeting likely to focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine and energy security. Trump extended the invitation days after Nawrocki was sworn in early in August and then intervened to ensure he joined a key telephone call on Ukraine with European leaders instead of his rival, centrist Polish prime minister Donald Tusk.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin was not conspiring with China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un against the United States, and suggested that perhaps president Trump was being ironic with his criticism. Trump said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” with Putin, and suggested in a post on Truth Social that Xi, Putin and Kim were conspiring against the United States.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is expected to say Britain has become an “authoritarian censorship regime” on a trip to the US after the arrest of Irish writer Graham Linehan. He is due to speak about free speech at the House Judiciary Committee later today.
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