(WASHINGTON) — A senior Department of Justice official is meeting with longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday in Tallahassee, Florida, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The meeting between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Maxwell is occurring in downtown Tallahassee at the U.S. attorney’s office, which is located inside the federal courthouse, sources familiar with the matter said.
Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022. She is serving her sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee.
Blanche arrived at the federal courthouse around 9 a.m. ET. He shook his head and said “no” when asked if he had anything to say ahead of his meeting with Maxwell.
Maxwell’s attorneys were also seen entering the federal courthouse in Tallahassee.
“We’re looking forward to a productive day,” David O. Markus, Maxwell’s appellate lawyer, told ABC News. He declined further comment.
The Justice Department said earlier this week that the meeting between Blanche and Maxwell would occur “in the coming days.”
“President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. If Ghislaine Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche said in the statement posted by Attorney General Pam Bondi on X earlier this week.
Maxwell’s attorney confirmed earlier this week that they were in discussions with the government about the visit, saying in a statement that “Ghislaine will always testify truthfully.”
Separately, on Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer issued a subpoena for Maxwell for a deposition to occur at the prison on Aug. 11.
“The facts and circumstances surrounding both your and Mr. Epstein’s cases have received immense public interest and scrutiny,” Comer wrote in a statement Wednesday.
(WASHINGTON) — Despite a setback to President Donald Trump’s megabill Thursday morning, the president is set to hold an event in the East Room of the White House to rally Republicans behind his tax legislation.
“Later this afternoon, here at the White House, the president will host a ‘One Big, Beautiful Event’ in the East Room to rally Republicans to get the one big, beautiful bill across the finish line. At that event, he will be joined by everyday Americans from across the country, who will massively benefit from the common-sense policies and provisions within this bill,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during the briefing Thursday afternoon.
Among the special guests expected at the event are delivery drivers, a barber from Arkansas, law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents, Leavitt added. Border czar Tom Homan is also expected to deliver remarks.
This event will “show the American people how this bill works for them and how there are provisions in this bill that will change their lives,” she said.
Earlier Thursday, the Senate parliamentarian rejected key Medicaid provisions in the bill — a major blow to Senate Republicans and their plan to slash costs in the budget package.
When asked if there is enough time for Congress to work through the issues that come up with the parliamentarian’s ruling, the White House remained adamant that the president expects to sign it next week on Independence Day.
“We expect that bill to be on the president’s desk for signature by July Fourth. I know that there was a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian this morning. Look, this is part of the process. This is part of the inner workings of the United States Senate. But the president is adamant about seeing this bill on his desk here at the White House by Independence Day,” she said.
This comes as frustrated Republican senators balked at the parliamentarian’s ruling — with some seeking to rework the language in order to get it passed.
When asked what the president is doing to push his legislation across the finish line, Leavitt indicated that the president is hosting meetings at the White House.
(WASHINGTON) — A district judge ruled on Wednesday that the government’s deportations of eight men convicted of violent crimes to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative of this Court’s order” after ruling earlier this week that the Department of Homeland Security maintain custody of the migrants.
Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, had issued an order on Tuesday directing the government to maintain custody of anyone covered by his preliminary injunction who is in the process of being removed to South Sudan or any other country “to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”
“It was impossible for these people to have a meaningful opportunity to object to their transfer to South Sudan in that time frame,” he said, arguing that due process was not possible since the migrants received their notices of removal on the evening of May 19 and then taken out of the detention facility the next morning.
DHS confirmed the eight migrants were placed on a deportation flight from Texas headed to war-torn South Sudan on Monday, officials said ahead of the hearing, though they cautioned this would not be the migrants’ final destination.
Ahead of the hearing, DHS held a news conference in Boston on the deportations in which Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told reporters that “no country on earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric.”
“A local judge in Massachusetts is trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters who present a clear and present threat to the safety of the American people and American victims,” McLaughlin said. “While we are fully compliant with the law and court orders, it is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try and to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States of America.”
When asked where the eight men are, McLaughlin said she “can’t disclose where their current whereabouts are right now” but that they were still in DHS custody. Officials declined to identify their final destination, citing security concerns.
“I would caution you to make the assumption that their final destination is South Sudan. As far as that agreement goes, I would definitely refer you to the State Department’s more specifics,” she added.
Officials said the men’s countries of origin refused to accept them, so DHS in partnership with the State Department found a country that would accept them through a “safe third-country agreement.”
“I can say that their home countries refuse to take these individuals back,” acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said.
“ICE detention isn’t punitive. We detain and remove after six months or 180 days. If we don’t have a country that’ll take their citizens back, we do have an option to find a safe third country,” Lyons said.
However, McLaughlin argued to reporters that the eight migrants were given due process.
“We are following due process under the U.S. Constitution. These individuals have been given and their lawyers have been given plenty of prior notice. As far as those actual agreements, we can get back to you with more information from the State Department,” she said.
Murphy said the violation will now need to be remedied.
In response, plaintiffs’ attorney Trina Realmuto argued during the court hearing that the plane should be returned to the U.S. and the men should be afforded the due process that she said “can only take place on U.S. soil.”
Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Department of Justice, asked the court to fashion as narrow a remedy as possible and suggested that an option is for the due process required by the injunction to take place without bringing the plane back to the U.S. However, Ensign could not immediately answer Murphy’s question about whether that is possible.
ICE released names and other details regarding those deported on Wednesday. Several were convicted of first-degree and second-degree murder.
Kyaw Mya, a citizen of Burma, was convicted of lascivious acts with a child-victim less than 12 years of age. Nyo Myint, a citizen of Burma, was convicted of first-degree sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting.
Another was convicted of robbery, possession of a firearm and driving under the influence.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can move forward with a ban on transgender military service members for now, lifting a lower court injunction against the policy after a judge ruled it was an “unsupported, dramatic and facially unfair exclusionary policy.”
The court did not explain its decision other than to say the order would expire if the justices ultimately take up the case on the merits and issue a ruling striking it down.
Litigation continues in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated they would have denied Trump’s request for a stay.
During Trump’s first term, the high court took a similar course, lifting an injunction against a ban on transgender service members after it was challenged. President Joe Biden ended the policy and thousands of transgender members of the military have provided active service over the past four years.
The Pentagon has estimated more than 4,200 active service members have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria which is the military’s metric for tracking the number of transgender troops. Advocacy groups have put the actual number of trans service members much higher, around 15,000.
The Supreme Court’s decision means the military can begin discharging service members who are transgender and cease enlistment of transgender people.
The Trump administration argued that the president is owed broad deference in running the military and shaping the force, framing its policy as a “medical” exclusion. Solicitor General John Sauer claimed that gender dysphoria presented problems for unit cohesion and lethality; two federal judges found little evidence to support those claims.
At the end of April, the Trump administration made a new emergency request seeking an immediate stay of a nationwide injunction blocking the ban on openly transgender military service members.
Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Settle, a George W. Bush nominee, when issuing the preliminary injunction in the case on March 27, had written the Trump administration’s policy on transgender soldiers would be a “de facto blanket prohibition” that seeks “to eradicate transgender service.”
The case was filed by a group of seven transgender service members and one transgender person who wishes to enlist in the United States Marine Corps.
In a statement, advocates for the seven active-duty service members who brought the lawsuit called the ruling a “devastating blow.”
“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” said Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation which are providing legal representation for the transgender troops.
“Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down,” the foundation said.
During a trip to Stuttgart, Germany, in February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked by a service member at U.S. Africa Command why “four exceptional transgender soldiers” he’d served alongside over severn years needed to be removed.
Hegseth responded: “It’s an ongoing review, with our foot forward on readiness and deployability, readiness and deployability, which is what we have looked at. And there are any number of scientific ways that you can explain that letter as to why there are complications with trans soldiers in that with readiness and deployability.”
