US seizes tanker off coast of Venezuela, Trump says
U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion with farmers in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 08, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump is expected to announce a $12 billion farm aid package, which includes one-time payments to those affected by the administration’s trade policies. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. has seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday, amid escalating tensions between the administration and the South American nation.
“It’s been a very interesting day, from the standpoint of news. As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,” Trump said as he kicked off a roundtable event at the White House.
“Large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually. And other things are happening, so you’ll be seeing that later and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people,” Trump continued.
The oil tanker that was seized is referred to as a VLCC, or Very Large Crude Carrier, two sources told ABC News. VLCC’s are large oil tankers and can carry up to around 2 million barrels of oil.
The vessel was bound for Cuba, the sources said. The U.S. Coast Guard conducted the seizure, according to two sources.
Trump stayed mum when pressed for more details on the tanker during the roundtable event, but claimed it happened for “very good reason” and that photos would be released later.
When asked what happens to the oil on the ship, Trump said that the U.S. will likely keep it. Pressed further on who owns the tanker, Trump declined to respond.
Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world, and oil exports are the government’s main source of revenue.
The U.S. hadn’t overtly interfered in oil exports during its pressure campaign on Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro’s regime until now.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — One of the preeminent U.S. attorney’s offices in the country is facing mounting turmoil in the wake of the move last week by a Trump-installed prosecutor to indict former FBI Director James Comey.
Two top attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia have been fired from their jobs in recent days, sources told ABC, and lawyers in the office believe their removals were driven by political vengeance on behalf of President Donald Trump.
The office’s top national security official, Michael Ben-Ary, was informed Wednesday of his termination just hours after a MAGA-aligned activist posted on social media about his past work in the office of former Biden-era Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, sources told ABC News.
Ben-Ary, who had risen through ranks of federal law enforcement over the past 20 years, was the lead attorney on the case of Mohammad Sharifullah — an alleged plotter who is accused of assisting ISIS-K in the bombing of Abbey Gate whose case and extradition to the U.S. was announced by Trump in a joint address to Congress earlier this year. Sharifullah is set to stand trial in early December.
Another prosecutor, Maya Song, the former deputy to Erik Siebert — who was ousted two weeks ago under pressure from Trump — was fired last Friday by Siebert’s replacement Lindsey Halligan, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Song had opted to accept a demotion as a line prosecutor in the wake of Siebert’s resignation after he resisted pressure to bring charges against both Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, sources previously told ABC News.
It’s not immediately clear whether Song was given a specific rationale for her removal, but it followed a torrent of criticism from right-wing influencers who had similarly highlighted her previous service during the Biden administration under Monaco.
In a Truth Social post last week, Trump demanded Microsoft immediately fire Monaco from her recently announced role as the company’s president of global affairs, citing what he alleged was her direct involvement in the prosecutions he faced after leaving his first term in office.
Ben-Ary and Song’s removals are likely to further sink morale inside the already embattled office, sources told ABC. The office, considered among the most important prosecutorial offices in the country, handles the bulk of the federal government’s most sensitive national security cases.
ABC News has reached out to the DOJ, Ben-Ary and Song for comment.
Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., leaves the U.S. Capitol after the last votes before August recess, on Wednesday July 23, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(FLORIDA) — A Florida judge issued a protective order against Republican Rep. Cory Mills after he was accused by a former girlfriend of threatening to release sexually explicit videos of her, according to court documents.
The judge ordered the congressman to refrain from contacting Lindsey Langston, who was named Miss United States in 2024 and is a Republican state committeewoman from Columbia County.
Langston alleged in July that Mills threatened to release videos of her after their breakup earlier this year and that he threatened to harm any future partners, according to a report obtained from the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.
In the order, the judge wrote that Langston has “reasonable cause to believe she is in imminent danger of becoming the victim of another act of dating violence” and said the evidence supported Langston’s assertion that Mills had caused her “substantial emotional distress” and that Mills offered “no credible rebuttal” to her testimony.
The order, which remains in place until January 2026, prohibits Mills from contacting Langston in any way and from coming within 500 feet of her residence or place of employment.
In her first comments since the judge’s decision, Langston said she now “feels like I’m able to live my life again.”
“I do feel that justice was served, and I can’t even describe the relief that I felt once I got the phone call that I had been issued the injunction for protection. I felt like I’m able to live my life again,” Langston said on a Zoom call Wednesday with reporters, sitting next to her attorney.
Mills previously said in a statement to ABC News, “These claims are false and misrepresent the nature of my interactions,” and accused a former Florida primary opponent of “weaponizing the legal system to launch a political attack against the man who beat him.”
In the order, the judge said he did not find Mills’ testimony to be “truthful.”
“The court, considering the totality of the testimony and the circumstances, does not find the Respondent’s testimony concerning the intimate videos to be truthful,” the judge wrote.
Speaker Mike Johnson, on Wednesday, was asked about allegations against Mills and told reporters, “I have not heard or looked into details of that. I’ve been a little busy. We have a House Ethics Committee; if it warrants that, I am sure they’ll look into it.”
“You have to ask Rep. Mills about that,” the Speaker added when pressed. “I mean, he’s been a faithful colleague here. I know his work on the Hill. I mean, I don’t. I don’t know all the details of all the individual allegations and what he’s doing in his outside life. Let’s talk about things that are really serious.”
Langston’s attorney Bobi Frank said Wednesday that her client plans to cooperate with any future investigations, including with the House Ethics Committee, and said she had been in contact with “other individuals” involved the matter and alleged that “Miss Langston is not alone.”
Sen. Mark Warner speaks to reporters as he walks into the Senate Chamber, Dec. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Friday that the type of munitions used by the military in a Sept. 2 boat strike — including on survivors in a second strike — were “anti-personnel” and designed to ensure the people on board did not survive, not just stop the drug shipment.
In question has been whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to the military was to kill the people on board, stop the drug shipment — or both.
Warner, who has received classified briefings on the strike, also said that U.S. intelligence identified all 11 people on board and each person killed was linked to the drug trade, although the level of their involvement was unclear.
“It’s one thing to be a ‘narco-terrorist’ and another thing to be a fisherman that’s getting paid 100 bucks [who a] couple times a year, runs on one of these boats to supplement his income,” Warner said at a Defense Writers Group event, sponsored by George Washington University.
The Trump administration has defended the military operation as legal because it considers drug cartels “foreign terrorist organizations” that pose an imminent threat to Americans. Since Sept. 2, the military has launched 22 strikes against vessels accused of smuggling illicit narcotics, killing 87 people.
Many legal experts say President Donald Trump’s argument that criminal organizations selling drugs to Americans are “terrorists” is a stretch, although it will likely take months for a federal judge to weigh in.
Warner and other lawmakers have called on the administration to release the full video of the Sept. 2 strikes, which some Democrats have called a potential war crime because it killed two survivors. Lawmakers say they were told the military admiral who ordered the strike said they believed the survivors still posed a threat and were granted legal authority to kill them.
Warner said he wants other documentation too, including the legal opinion that justified the Sept. 2 strike. Warner said the legal opinion shared with lawmakers in a classified briefing was drafted Sept. 5 — three days after the initial boat strike — and was not shared with Congress until late November.
“I have real questions … Was it altered between Sept. 2 and Sept. 5 because of some of the actions that took place?” he asked.
Warner said he is reluctant to call the Sept. 2 strikes a “war crime” until he has more information, and said he would like to see congressional hearings.
“I am very reluctant, unlike some of my folks, to get to assertions of illegality by Americans or war crimes, because once you make that claim, you can’t take it back,” he said. “And what it would do to morale, what it would do to how Americans view our military, what it would do to how the world views us, is really chilling.”
Hegseth has not held a press briefing to answer questions about the campaign since it begun and he has not testified publicly.
He has defended the administration’s efforts to attack alleged drug boats.
“We’ve only just begun striking narcoboats and putting narcoterrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” he said at a Cabinet meeting earlier this month.
Hegseth has also expressed support for Adm. Mitch Bradley, the four-star officer who ordered the Sept. 2 military strikes, and his decision that day.
“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat. And it was the right call. We have his back,” Hegseth added.
Bradley is being asked by lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill next week to testify.
An aide to the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, said the panel is working to arrange a classified briefing for its members.
