Supreme Court allows California to move forward with new congressional map favoring Democrats

(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Rand Paul had strong words on Thursday for the heads of the federal agencies spearheading the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and across the U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons, Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott, and Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow were testifying in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

“Witness the thousands of people in the streets in Minneapolis and in Minnesota, and the millions of viewers who witnessed the recent deaths,” Paul, the committee’s chairman, said. “It’s clearly evident that the public trust has been lost. To restore trust in ICE and Border Patrol, they must admit their mistakes, be honest and forthright with their rules of engagement, and pledge to reform. I hope the leadership of ICE and Border Patrol here today will participate in a meaningful way.”

Paul and ranking member Sen. Gary Peters went frame by frame on videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old Minneapolis nurse killed in an encounter with federal agents last month. Federal officials initially said that Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun” and “attacked” officers carrying out immigration duties.

State and local officials said Pretti was lawfully carrying a gun, with a concealed carry permit, and video reviewed and verified by ABC News does not appear to show that Pretti drew his gun on the agents and instead was holding up a cell phone, not a gun, to record agents during the incident.

Another Minneapolis resident – Renee Good — was also shot and killed by federal agents in early January. Federal officials say that the agents acted in self defense after Good allegedly tried to ram them with her car, which local city officials and her family have disputed.

Paul said that it isn’t so much about the specifics of the investigation, but rather the training that CBP and ICE agents receive.

“No one in America believes shoving that woman’s head and face in the snow was de-escalation,” Paul said of video showing agents scuffling with Pretti and a woman moments before the shooting. “But your officer, you need to know they…had a verbal encounter with them. She did not place her hands on the officers. She wasn’t trying to get their weapon. It’s not great. I mean … I don’t like to see these encounters either, but is it appropriate for the officers to respond to a verbal, barrage of words or whatever? Is it proper, to physically throw a woman down or throw anyone down if the only action is verbal?”

Both Scott and Lyons agreed that it wasn’t de-escalation if the only action against the agents had been verbal.

“I understand you not wanting to make conclusions yet, but nobody believes you’re gonna because you made conclusions immediately,” Paul told the law enforcement leaders. “Not you. But people within the government made conclusions immediately that [Pretti] was a terrorist and an assassin … people aren’t believing there’s going to be an honest investigation.”

In the hours after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti committed an “act of domestic terrorism” and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called him a “would-be assassin” and a “terrorist.”

Paul added at the hearing, “I think it’s terrible police work, but there has to ultimately be repercussions.”

Scott said that he would not jump to conclusions and asked the nation to do the same. He said he was committed to releasing the officers’ body-worn-cameras once the investigation is complete.

“There’s body-cam video, that’s all being looked at,” Scott said. “And until all that evidence is evaluated, I can’t jump to a conclusion on either direction. I would ask America to do the same thing, but I am committed to transparency, to making sure all the information we have is made public when it’s appropriate.”

Paul said that he saw “nothing, not even a hint of something that was aggressive on [Pretti’s] part.”

“I don’t think this should take months and months and years and years. There needs to be a conclusion,” Paul said. “We need to have answers here and there needs to be an announcement. These are the new policies. This is how we’re going to interact with the public, because the public needs to know to, you know, if I go to a protest and I shout something at people, could I be killed?”

Scott also did not say whether the gun was accidentally discharged by officers in the Pretti case, citing an ongoing investigation.

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(WASHINGTON) — FBI Director Kash Patel is set to be questioned by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday afternoon amid several controversies involving the director.

Patel will testify alongside the other heads of the Department of Justice agencies such as the heads of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the United States Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

While it’s a hearing regarding the 2027 budget request, Patel is expected to face questions about a host of issues from the alleged misuse of FBI resources for travel to the story in The Atlantic that alleged he has had “bouts of excessive drinking” and job performance issues.

Patel said last month that he’s “never been intoxicated on the job,” following the report. Patel sued The Atlantic over the article, demanding $250 million in damages.

Asked about the article during an unrelated press conference last month, Patel railed against negative media coverage.

“I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia and when they get louder, it just means I’m doing my job,” Patel said.

In February, Patel joined in on Team USA hockey’s locker room celebrations in Italy shortly after the team won the gold medal — a move that drew scrutiny about his use of FBI resources to attend.

Patel, a hockey fan, was said to have had meetings in Italy prior to attending the game. Ben Williamson, an FBI spokesperson, said on social media that Patel’s trip had been previously scheduled. He added that “any other personal expenses would be reimbursed.”

During the hearing, Patel is also expected to tout his successes at the FBI.

“Whether it’s rebuilding our entire backbone infrastructure, caring more for our workforce, actioning the business side of the house, eliminating bureaucracy, integrating AI, procuring equipment, developing new private sector partnerships – we have delivered the changes you have been requesting for years… and we did it in just over 1 year,” Patel said in a message to the FBI last week. “Together, these reforms have truly transformed this FBI into the premier modern-day law enforcement organization we need to be.”

When Patel last testified on Capitol Hill in September 2025, he sparred with Democrats as he faced questions about the assassination of conservative activist and influencer Charlie Kirk and his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial, sold a $500 million stake to a member of the Emirati royal family shortly before his inauguration last January, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, sparking concerns over a potential conflict of interest. 

According to the Journal, which reviewed undisclosed corporate documents, a firm associated with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal who operates an enormous state investment fund, purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty, which is co-owned by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and his family, just four days before the Trump administration swept into office.

Months later, the Trump administration agreed to supply the UAE with highly coveted American-made AI chips despite the prior administration’s concern that they may fall into the hands of the Chinese.

David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, acknowledged the existence of the deal in a statement to ABC News, but insisted that “neither President Trump nor Steve Witkoff had any involvement whatsoever in this transaction” and that “any claim that this deal had anything to do with the Administration’s actions on chips is 100% false.”

“We made the deal in question because we strongly believe that it was what was best for our company as we continue to grow. The idea that, when raising capital, a privately-held American company should be held to some unique standard that no other similar company would be held is both ridiculous and un-American,” the statement continued.

David Warrington, the White House counsel, told ABC News in a statement that “the President has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” and that “President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious.”

But the Journal’s report adds yet another wrinkle to the U.S. decision to sell highly coveted advanced chips to the Emiratis.

As ABC News previously reported, shortly before the chips deal was announced, a UAE-backed investment firm called MGX announced last May that it would use a digital token minted by World Liberty Financial to finance a $2 billion investment in a crypto exchange Binance, a major boon for the firm.

Shiekh Tahnoon, who is the brother of the UAE’s president, also serves as MGX’s chairman. 

The Biden administration declined to provide the UAE with the chips, which power some of the most sophisticated weapons on the planet, for fear they might be redirected into China. 

Peter Wildeford, the head of policy at the AI Policy Network, a nonpartisan advocacy group, warned that could close the U.S.’s advantage in the AI race and compromise American security. 

“If China gets their hands on these chips at scale, they would be able to launch cyberattacks against the U.S., they could build autonomous weapons that could find and sink our Navy ships — they could close the military technology gap that’s currently keeping us safe,” he said. 

World Liberty has emerged as perhaps the most lucrative of the Trump family’s various business ventures, either in cryptocurrency or real estate. ABC News reported last year that the Trump family secured a roughly $5 billion windfall when trading of World Liberty’s digital token opened. 

According to the Journal, Shiekh Tahnoon agreed to pay half of his investment in World Liberty up front. Based on the ownership structure of the company at the time, that meant a payment of as much as $187 million into the Trump family’s coffers on the eve of his return to office. 

Ethics experts said the concept of a foreign government official secretly directing hundreds of millions of dollars to a company owned in part by the president has no known precedent — and raises a host of ethical and national security concerns.

“Maybe the President would have reached the same decision over the transfer of high techn [chips] to UAE if he wasn’t also getting money from them,” said Robert Weissman, the co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen. “But we’ve got no way to know that, and we do know there was a lot of opposition inside the government to do exactly what he has OK’d.”

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly maintained that the president “only acts in the best interests of the American public,” and said that no conflict of interest exists in part because the president’s assets are held in a blind trust managed by his children. Typically, a blind trust would operate with an independent trustee.

“President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Kelly added. “There are no conflicts of interest.”

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congressional Democrats leapt at new details in the report, characterizing the transaction as further evidence of alleged pay-for-play. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., alleged “mind blowing corruption,” in a post to X.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., issued a statement calling the deal “corruption, plain and simple.”

“Foreign countries are bribing our president to sell out the American people,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., claimed in a post to X.

Shortly before the chips deal was announced last May, a UAE-backed investment firm called MGX said it would use a digital token minted by World Liberty Financial to finance a $2 billion investment in a crypto exchange Binance. Tahnoon also serves as MGX’s chairman.

MGX is also one of the few companies with a major ownership stake in the new TikTok U.S. joint venture, with a 15% stake in the new entity.

ABC News’ Selina Wang contributed to this report.

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