Judge blocks Trump administration efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, largest abortion provider in US – live
"A federal judge says clinics nationwide must continue to get Medicaid funding
Dropped cases against LA protesters reveal false claims from federal agents
US immigration officers made false and misleading statements in their reports about several Los Angeles protesters they arrested during the massive demonstrations that rocked the city in June, according to federal law enforcement files obtained by the Guardian.
The officers’ testimony was cited in at least five cases filed by the US Department of Justice amid the unrest. The justice department has charged at least 26 people with “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers and other crimes during the protests over immigration raids. Prosecutors, however, have since been forced to dismiss at least eight of those felonies, many of them which relied on officers’ inaccurate reports, court records show.
The justice department has also dismissed at least three felony assault cases it brought against Angelenos accused of interfering with arrests during recent immigration raids, the documents show.
The rapid felony dismissals are a major embarrassment for the Trump-appointed US attorney for southern California, Bill Essayli, and appeared to be the result of an unusual series of missteps by the justice department, former federal prosecutors said.
The Guardian’s review of records found:
Out of nine “assault” and “impeding” felony cases the justice department filed immediately after the start of the protests and promoted by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, prosecutors dismissed seven of them soon after filing the charges.
In reports that led to the detention and prosecution of at least five demonstrators, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video.
One DHS agent accused a protester of shoving an officer, when footage appeared to show the opposite: the officer forcefully pushed the protester.
One indictment named the wrong defendant, a stunning error that has jeopardized one of the government’s most high-profile cases.
Trump claims he hasn't been 'overly interested' in furor about his links to Jeffrey Epstein
Asked about his denials that his name appears in the Epstein files and whether the attorney general would have to tell him if it did, Donald Trump said he hadn’t been “overly interested” in the whole affair and, as usual, blamed the Democrats.
I haven’t been overly interested.
You know, it’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion. I can say this. Those files were run by the worst scum on earth … The whole thing is a hoax. They ran the files.
He suggested that his enemies could have put material in the files that was fake, and added that if the Democrats had had damaging material to use against him, they would have used it before the election.
Referring to the Wall Street Journal’s report that he drew a picture of a nude woman as part of a lewd birthday letter for Jeffrey Epstein when they were close friends, Trump said:
I don’t do drawings. I’m not a drawing person. I don’t do drawings. Sometimes you would say, would you draw a building? And I’ll draw four lines and a little roof, you know, for a charity stuff. But I’m not a drawing person. I don’t do drawings of women, that I can tell you.
He also claimed his poll ratings had increased by 4.5 points since this “ridiculous Epstein stuff” has been in the news “because people don’t buy it”. (He is of course ignoring the fact that much of the criticism and pressure has come from his own furious support base and even the likes of House speaker Mike Johnson have called for the release of the files)."
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