Trump says US still actively pursuing oil tanker linked to Venezuela that fled from Coast Guard
In a screen grab from a video released by Secretary Kristi Noem, the US Coast Guard apprehends an oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela, on Dec. 20, 2025. (@Se_Noem)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. is still actively pursuing a sanctioned oil tanker linked to Venezuela, but that he’s confident the vessel will be seized.
“It’s moving along and we’ll end up getting it,” Trump said while unveiling a new class of battleships from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “Yeah, we’re actually pursuing it. Can you imagine? Yeah, because it came from the wrong location. It came out of Venezuela, and it was sanctioned.”
The U.S. Coast Guard over the weekend was “in active pursuit of a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion,” an official told ABC News.
“It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order,” the official said at the time.
The tanker, named Bella 1, was not filled with cargo and en route to get oil when U.S. authorities attempted to board it, an official told ABC News on Monday.
Trump said the United States will keep the oil and ships after seizing sanctioned tankers.
“We’re keeping it. We’re keeping the ships also,” he said.
On President Nicholas Maduro, Trump said it would be “smart” for him to step down when asked if the administration’s ultimate goal in Venezuela is to force him from power.
“Well, I think it probably would. I can’t tell him. That’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it would be smart for him to do that. But again, we’re going to find out,” Trump said. Though the president also warned, “if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’s ever able to play tough.”
The Bella 1 tanker fled into the Atlantic Ocean and was not flying a legitimate national flag, giving the Coast Guard the jurisdiction to attempt to seize it.
These details were first reported by the New York Times.
The action came after the U.S. Coast Guard seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday, just ten days after the seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker.
Unlike that first vessel seized, the tanker seized Saturday is not on any sanctions list maintained by the U.S., EU, U.K. or U.N., according to Kpler, a data firm that tracks transportation and logistics networks.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed Saturday’s operation in a post on social media, saying that the Coast Guard “apprehended” the tanker with support from the Department of Defense in a pre-dawn action. She said the tanker had last made port in Venezuela.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region,” Noem said in the post. “We will find you, and we will stop you.”
Last week, President Trump threatened to impose what he called “a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers” traveling to and from Venezuela – a move that could devastate the Venezuelan economy, since oil exports are the lifeblood of Maduro’s regime.
In response to Trump’s announcement, Maduro said Venezuela would continue to trade oil and that Trump’s “intention” is regime change.
“This will just not happen, never, never, never – Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never,” Maduro said.
The U.S. has amassed the largest military presence in the Caribbean in decades, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier.
The Pentagon also has so far struck 28 alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing at least 100 people, without providing any public evidence that the boats were carrying illegal drugs or identifying those killed.
Jubilant Sykes sings with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” at Carnegie Hall, October 24, 2008. Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images
(SANTA MONICA, Calif.) — A Grammy-nominated opera singer was stabbed to death inside a California residence, and the 71-year-old’s son has been arrested in connection with the killing, police said.
Jubilant Sykes was killed in a home in Santa Monica on Monday, police said. Officers responded to the residence after a 911 caller reported an assault in progress and found Sykes with “critical injuries consistent with a stabbing,” the Santa Monica Police Department said in a statement on Tuesday.
Sykes’ son, 31-year-old Micah Sykes, was found in the home and taken into custody without incident, police said. He will be booked for homicide, police said.
“The circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation,” police said.
Officers responded to the home around 9:20 p.m. on Monday and the 911 caller directed them inside, police said.
First responders with the Santa Monica Fire Department pronounced Sykes dead at the scene, police said.
Police said the weapon was recovered at the scene, though did not provide additional details.
The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
“This appears to be an isolated incident occurring within a private residence, and there is no ongoing threat to the community,” police said.
Sykes performed on the Grammy-nominated 2009 recording of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass,” with the Morgan State University Choir and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media aboard Air Force One on November 25, 2025 in flight en route to Florida. The Trumps are traveling to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The new prosecutor chosen to take over the Fulton County election interference case against President Donald Trump and others has requested that the criminal case be dismissed.
“In my professional judgment, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years,” wrote Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in August 2023 to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
The charges, which were brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis following Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to win the state, allege that the defendants solicited state leaders throughout the country, harassed and misled a Georgia election worker, and pushed phony claims that the election was stolen, all in an effort for Trump to remain in power despite his election loss.
Defendants Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro and Scott Hall took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Willis was subsequently disqualified from the case following accusations of impropriety regarding her relationship with a fellow prosecutor, leaving a council of Georgia attorneys to assign an independent prosecutor to take over the case and determine its fate.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Trump, arrives home as the FBI searches his house August 22, 2025 in Bethesda, Maryland. The FBI conducted a court-authorized search of Bolton’s home. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton was indicted by a grand jury Thursday on charges that he allegedly unlawfully transmitted and retained classified documents.
The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Maryland, charges Bolton with eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information as well as 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.
Prosecutors accuse Bolton of using a non-government personal email account and messaging application to transmit at least eight documents to unauthorized individuals that contained information classified at levels ranging from Secret to Top Secret.
Seven of the transmissions allegedly occurred during the time when Bolton was serving at Trump’s national security adviser in 2018 and 2019, while another document was allegedly sent by Bolton just days after President Donald Trump removed him from the administration in September of 2019.
“For four decades, I have devoted my life to America’s foreign policy and national security. I would never compromise those goals,” Bolton said in a lengthy statement, saying the indictment is part of a pattern of “Donald Trump’s retribution” against him since leaving Trump’s first administration and publishing a tell-all book.
“I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power,” Bolton said in the statement.
The move to indict Bolton comes on the heels of the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James as President Donald Trump continues what critics call a campaign of retribution against his perceived political foes.
Federal agents in August searched Bolton’s Maryland residence and Washington, D.C., office, related to allegations that Bolton possessed classified information.
Prosecutors say one document listed in the indictment “reveals intelligence about future attack by adversarial group in another country.” Others allegedly contain information about foreign partners sharing sensitive information with the U.S. intelligence community; intelligence related to a foreign adversary’s missile launch plans; intelligence on leaders of a U.S. adversary; and one that detailed plans of covert action by the U.S. government.
The indictment accuses Bolton of abusing his position as national security adviser by sharing “more than a thousand pages” of information in “diary-like entries” about his day-to-day activities with two recipients identified only as “Individual 1” and “Individual 2,” who prosecutors say are Bolton’s relatives.
Sources told ABC News that the relatives referred to in the indictment as ‘Individual 1’ and ‘Individual 2’ are Bolton’s wife and daughter.
Bolton’s wife was present at their home the day the search was executed nearly two months ago.
It was not immediately clear which is believed to be Individual 1 or 2.
Prosecutors further allege that Bolton unlawfully retained documents, writing and notes containing national defense information ranging to levels of Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information at his home in Maryland, stored both as paper files and on a number of personal devices.
The indictment says that at some point after Bolton left office as national security adviser, a cyber actor believed to be associated with Iran hacked his personal email account and gained access to the classified information he had previously emailed to his relatives.
What Bolton and his attorneys say
Bolton has denied ever unlawfully removing classified materials from his time in government and has said no such information was published in his 2020 memoir “The Room Where It Happened.”
In his statement on Thursday, Bolton said his book was “reviewed and approved by the appropriate, experienced career clearance officials.”
Regarding the 2021 email hack, Bolton said the FBI “was made fully aware.”
“These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct,” Bolton said in the statement, referring to Trump. “Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom.”
Bolton’s attorneys have denied he ever mishandled classified information and said documents investigators found in their search of his home and residence were no longer considered classified.
“The underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago,” Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career — records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021. We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information.”
“There is one tier of justice for all Americans,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a DOJ statement announcing the indictment. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
The 10 documents the indictment says were unlawfully retained by Bolton were allegedly seized during the searches of his home and office in August, and contained similar information to the documents Bolton is alleged to have unlawfully transmitted during his time as national security adviser.
The investigation is being run out of the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland, unlike the Comey and James probes which are being conducted by the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, who sources say brought the Comey and James charges against the advice of career prosecutors.
Comey, who was indicted on charges of lying to Congress, and James, who is charged with mortgage fraud, have both denied wrongdoing.
Last month, a federal judge unsealed a redacted version of the affidavit that had been assembled by prosecutors in order to execute their court-authorized search of Bolton’s home. Most of the document concerned allegations surrounding the publication of Bolton’s book, which the first Trump administration unsuccessfully sued to block.
The federal judge overseeing that lawsuit expressed grave concerns over whether Bolton had included highly classified information in his book that could potentially compromise national security.
On the day that Bolton’s home and office were searched, Trump said that he was “unaware” of the searches but went on to call Bolton a “sleazebag.” Referencing the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago home in his own classified documents case, Trump told reporters that having your home searched is “not a good feeling.”
Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back.
After Trump was reelected president last November, the case was dropped due to a long-standing Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
Trump, asked about Bolton in a June 2022 Oval Office interview with Fox News, said, “He took classified information and he published it, during a presidency. It’s one thing to write a book after. During. And I believe that he’s a criminal, and I believe, frankly, he should go to jail for that, and that probably, possibly will happen. That’s what should happen.”
