Bondi argues Trump Jan. 6 pardons don’t create double standard with crackdown on LA protests
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(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Pam Bondi rejected that President Donald Trump’s pardons for hundreds of rioters who assaulted police during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol creates a double standard with the administration’s aggressive response to violence at immigration protests in Los Angeles.
“Well, this is very different,” Bondi said Wednesday in an on-camera gaggle with reporters at the White House. “These are people out there hurting people in California right now. This is ongoing.”
Trump’s and other officials’ attempts to stoke outrage over videos showing attacks on law enforcement in Los Angeles has been the subject of some mockery on social media — with Democrats and other critics of the administration posting comparisons to the assaults law enforcement were subject to on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob descended on the Capitol.
More than 140 officers suffered injuries during the Jan. 6 riot as they were beaten by objects ranging from baseball bats and hockey sticks to rocks and even an American flag.
Trump’s pardons for nearly all of the 1,600 people charged in connection with the assault on the Capitol extended to more than 450 charged with assaulting or impeding officers — 300 of whom still had not had their cases fully adjudicated.
The dismantling of the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 investigation further halted investigations of roughly 60 people suspected of assaulting police during the riot who had yet to be charged, according to statistics released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington prior to Trump taking office.
During Bondi’s confirmation hearing prior to Inauguration Day, she said she believed any pardons for Jan. 6 defendants should be evaluated on a “case-to-case basis” and suggested she would be opposed to pardons for people accused of assaulting law enforcement officers.
“Let me be very clear in speaking to you: I condemn any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country,” Bondi said at the time.
Bondi has not publicly commented on Trump’s pardons since then, though FBI Director Kash Patel did notably distance himself during his confirmation hearing from Trump’s pardons for violent Jan. 6 offenders.
“I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement,” Patel said. “And I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”
In her gaggle with reporters Wednesday, Bondi repeatedly dodged questions about the administration’s views on the legal standards that must exist in order to invoke the Insurrection Act.
She instead pointed to what she argued appears to be improved conditions on the ground that shouldn’t warrant such aggressive intervention by the administration.
“Right now in California, we’re at a good point,” Bondi said. “We’re not scared to go further. We’re not frightened to do something else if we need to.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday will embark on a four-day tour of the Middle East, stopping in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a trip underscoring the deepening economic ties between the United States and the Gulf kingdoms.
Traveling to a region facing ongoing diplomatic, political and security challenges — including Iran’s nuclear program, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and war between Israel and Hamas, and the fate of Syria following a brutal 14-year civil war — Trump is expected to focus on business development and trade agreements on his trip, following commitments from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States and on joint investments over the next several years.
On Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s trip will “focus on strengthening ties” between the U.S. and the Gulf nations.
“President Trump will return to reemphasize his continued vision for a proud, prosperous and successful Middle East where the United States and Middle Eastern nations are in cooperative relationship and where extremism is defeated in place of commerce and cultural exchanges,” she said.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged to invest $600 billion in the United States over four years after Trump’s November victory, and the United Arab Emirates have also committed to a $1.4 trillion U.S. investment package over the next decade. Business and technology leaders will be convening in Riyadh around Trump’s trip for a Saudi-U.S. investment forum.
ABC News has also reported that the Trump administration is preparing to accept a luxury Boeing jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family for use as a presidential aircraft before being transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation after his term ends.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to ABC News’ reporting, saying in a statement that “any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws.”
The president’s family has also traveled to the region and has expanded its business interests in the Middle East: The Trump Organization has partnered with developers on new projects in Saudi Arabia, Doha and the United Arab Emirates, and is involved in a cryptocurrency venture connected to a fund with ties to the Emirati government.
Leavitt on Friday dismissed questions about the president’s family’s business dealings in the region ahead of his trip and said Trump “has actually lost money for being president of the United States.”
“The president acts with only the interests of the American public in mind, putting our country first and doing what’s best for our country — full stop,” she said.
“It’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit. He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service,” she later added.
Trump also began his first term in office with a visit to Saudi Arabia, in a break with his predecessors who had visited traditional U.S. allies and major trade partners on their first official foreign trips.
That trip to Saudi Arabia — which also included stops in Israel and later in Europe — focused on encouraging local partners to redouble efforts to fight “extremism” and terrorist groups, and work to marginalize Iran.
Since then, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have improved relations with Iran, and are now supportive of the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts to address Iran’s nuclear program.
“Both the Saudis and the Emiratis have decided that their priority is economic investment and getting away from energy, and that war with Iran is like a big danger to all of that. So they’ve completely shifted on Iran,” Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East specialist who worked in the Obama and Biden administrations, told ABC News.
The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza also looms over Trump’s trip, given Israel’s plans to expand military operations in Gaza.
In Riyadh, Trump is expected to join a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting before he travels to Qatar.
While the president has aimed to ink a regional diplomatic agreement expanding on the Abraham Accords of his first term, the war in Gaza has effectively frozen efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, experts told ABC News.
“From the Saudi perspective, it makes it harder” to improve diplomatic relations with Israel, Zineb Riboua, a fellow with Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. “Because of what has happened and what is currently happening [in Gaza], they are struggling.”
Trump could hear from Arab leaders about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, given the U.S.’s ongoing military support for Israel, and Israeli plans to expand its campaign in Gaza to root out Hamas.
In February, Trump proposed that the U.S. “take over” Gaza and help rebuild it, a plan that was rejected by Arab leaders, who put forward their own counterproposal that the U.S. and Israel have opposed.
There have also been disputes between the U.S., Israel and Arab nations over how to administer humanitarian aid blockaded by Israel to Palestinians in Gaza.
Though the trip is Trump’s first planned foreign trip, he traveled to Rome and the Vatican in April to attend the funeral of Pope Francis.
On the sidelines of that trip, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the two countries worked to cement a minerals deal.
Saudi Arabia has hosted bilateral peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, underscoring the kingdom’s growing political influence, in addition to its economic and commercial importance in the region.
Trump “sees the Gulf as they see themselves, as a real fulcrum of global power,” Jon Alterman, the Middle East Program Chair at Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News.
“A lot of people in the world think the Gulf is an outlier. A bunch of small, wealthy states that rely on the United States for security, protection. The Gulf sees itself differently, and the president is suggesting he sees the Gulf differently,” Alterman said.
Trump could receive a lavish welcome from the Gulf monarchs in the region, similar to the royal treatment he received when he visited Saudi Arabia in 2017.
The Saudis rolled out the red carpet for his arrival, greeting him at the airport with a military jet flyover and later awarding him a gold medal — the nation’s top civilian honor — and treating him to a traditional sword dance.
Trump’s trip also comes on the heels of Hamas announcing that they will be releasing Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, a dual US citizen, which will be part of steps taken to achieve a ceasefire. Hamas said that they have been in contact with American officials over the last few days over the efforts to try and achieve a ceasefire deal.
President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, Sunday evening, confirming that Alexander will be released from Hamas. Trump did not specify when Alexander was expected to be released, but said, “This is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether former President Joe Biden’s administration sought to conspire to cover up his mental state while in office, prompting a response from Biden.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
The move by the White House represents a significant escalation, as it is a directive to the Justice Department to formally investigate.
It goes beyond the review into Biden’s last-minute pardons before leaving office.
Biden responded to Trump’s memo to Bondi and the Department of Justice, calling an investigation “nothing more than a mere distraction” and defending his decision-making ability. In a statement he says any suggestion he was not in control is “ridiculous and false.”
“This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations,” Biden said in a statement sent to ABC News.
The president directed the U.S.’s top law enforcement official, in coordination with his White House counsel, to investigate “the circumstances surrounding Biden’s supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office,” according to a statement from the White House.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump unveiled the framework for a trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, marking the first such accord with any nation since the White House suspended some of its far-reaching “Liberation Day” tariffs last month.
The Trump administration will adjust 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, and will lower auto tariffs from 25% to 10% on the first 100,000 British vehicles sent to the U.S., Trump said.
The agreement left in place 10% tariffs that the U.S. slapped last month on imported goods from nearly all foreign countries.
In exchange, the U.K. will ease trade barriers targeting a set of products, including ethanol, beef and machinery, among other products, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. That additional market access amounts to $5 billion worth of trade, the White House said.
The U.S. also secured a $10 billion purchase of Boeing airplane parts and a “secure supply chain” for pharmaceuticals, according to information shared by Trump on social media on Thursday.
The U.K. will fast-track U.S. imports through customs inspection, Trump said.
The U.S.-U.K. agreement left some details to be worked out later, setting the two countries on a path toward a wider deal, Trump said.
Addressing reports at the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump touted the agreement.
“This deal is working out for both countries,” Trump said, noting the “final details are being written up.”
In remarks made over a speaker phone on Trump’s desk, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said negotiations between the two sides moved toward an agreement in recent weeks.
“This is a really important deal,” Starmer said. “There are no two countries that are closer than our two countries.”
Starmer acknowledged some details still need to be “ironed out.”
The roughly $68 billion in imported goods from the U.K. last year accounted for about 2% of U.S. imported goods, U.S. data showed. The U.S. exported nearly $80 billion worth of products to the U.K. last year, which accounted for almost 4% of U.S. goods exports.
Dozens of nations face potential so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” but the U.K. is not among them, since the U.K. buys more than it sells to the U.S. The White House paused the reciprocal tariffs until July, as it seeks to strike trade agreements with dozens of countries.
Testifying before a House subcommittee on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration had commenced negotiations with 17 of the top 18 U.S. trade partners, excluding China. Those countries account for the vast majority of U.S. foreign trade, Bessent said.
Bessent is set to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, for initial trade negotiations with China on Saturday. The U.S. last month imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting 125% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.
On Thursday, Trump said the negotiations between the U.S. and China would be “very substantive,” voicing a willingness to lower the tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump’s tariff escalation last month roiled markets and triggered recession warnings on Wall Street.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned Trump’s tariff policy could cause higher inflation and an economic slowdown.
“If the large increase in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation and a slowdown of economic growth,” Powell said Wednesday.
Still, key indicators suggest the economy remains in “solid shape”, Powell said.
