U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks to reporters alongside U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.,  during a pen and pad meeting with reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In a rare rebuke to President Donald Trump, Senate Republicans joined Democrats in advancing a war powers resolution to halt U.S. military action in Venezuela without congressional authorization.

Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska split with their party to act as a check on the administration’s use of military forces — as did Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the measure’s co-sponsor with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Trump in response slammed the vote on his own social media platform, writing that the Republicans who voted in favor “should never be elected to office again.” The White House said in a statement he would likely veto the resolution if it reaches his desk.

The move marked a significant moment after Republicans on Capitol Hill have largely smoothed the path for Trump’s agenda throughout the past year.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., also unexpectedly supported the measure, which advanced on a 52-47 vote. Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, did not vote.

The joint resolution directs the “removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.” 

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky have introduced their own bipartisan war powers resolution in the House. A previous effort failed to advance in the House in December.

Trump looks toward next vote

Trump in his social media post said the Republicans joined Democrats in trying to curb his authority as the chief executive.

“This Vote greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security, impeding the President’s Authority as Commander in Chief. In any event, and despite their ‘stupidity,’ the War Powers Act is Unconstitutional, totally violating Article II of the Constitution, as all Presidents, and their Departments of Justice, have determined before me. Nevertheless, a more important Senate Vote will be taking place next week on this very subject,” he posted on Truth Social.

Thursday’s vote advanced the legislation over a procedural hurdle to discharge the bill from committee. The bill still requires additional Senate debate and votes before it would head to the House. 

The vote came days after U.S. special forces launched a surprise overnight attack on Venezuela’s capital of Caracas on Saturday, capturing the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple appeared in federal court Monday on federal drug and conspiracy charges.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello claimed Wednesday that more than 100 were killed in the raid, according to numerous media outlets that posted a video of his statement. The Cuban government announced on Facebook Monday that 32 of its citizens were among the dead.

Seven U.S. troops were injured in the incursion, according to the Pentagon. Two are still recovering, while five have returned to duty, a Defense Department official said.

GOP senators’ explanations

Young issued a statement saying that while he supported the U.S. ouster of Maduro, any further military action must be approved by Congress.

“Today’s Senate vote is about potential future military action, not completed successful operations. The President and members of his team have stated that the United States now ‘runs’ Venezuela. It is unclear if that means that an American military presence will be required to stabilize the country. I — along with what I believe to be the vast majority of Hoosiers — am not prepared to commit American troops to that mission. Although I remain open to persuasion, any future commitment of U.S. forces in Venezuela must be subject to debate and authorization in Congress,” Young said.

Collins similarly said she supported Maduro’s capture by U.S. special forces, but expressed concern about Trump’s vague comments regarding the U.S. role in the South American country going forward.

“The resolution I have supported today does not include any language related to the removal operation. Rather, it reaffirms Congress’s ability to authorize or limit any future sustained military activity in Venezuela, while preserving the President’s inherent Article II authority to defend the United States from an armed attack or imminent threat. I believe invoking the War Powers Act at this moment is necessary, given the President’s comments about the possibility of ‘boots on the ground’ and a sustained engagement ‘running’ Venezuela, with which I do not agree,” Collins said in a statement.

Hawley wrote on social media shortly after the vote: “With regard to Venezuela, my read of the Constitution is that if the President feels the need to put boots on the ground there in the future, Congress would need to vote on it. That’s why I voted yes on this morning’s Senate resolution.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered a classified update to members of Congress Wednesday on Capitol Hill on the ongoing U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. Democrats said they remained unsatisfied with the information shared during the meetings.

White House defends actions

In a statement of administration policy released by the White House after Thursday’s Senate vote, officials defended the apprehension of Maduro as a “law enforcement operation” that was supported by military strikes.

The legislation “should be rejected, like the previously rejected Resolutions, as it once again fails to recognize the ongoing national security threats posed by the Maduro-led Cártel de los Soles and other violent drug-trafficking cartels. If S.J. Res. 98 were presented to the President, his advisors would recommend that he veto the joint resolution,” according to the statement.

Vice President JD Vance suggested during the White House press briefing Thursday that the measure would be unenforceable and that the vote would not curtail the administration’s actions.

“Every president, Democrat or Republican, believes the War Powers Act is fundamentally a fake and unconstitutional law,” he said. “It’s not going to change anything about how we conduct foreign policy over the next couple of weeks, the next couple of months and that will continue to be how we approach things ahead.”

A similar measure failed to gain enough Republican support in early November, in a 49-51 vote. Murkowski was the only other Republican to join Paul in approval.

Paul and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., first cosponsored the initial effort in October, which at the time failed, 48-51. 

The U.S. launched a bombing campaign off the coast of Venezuela in September, striking small vessels in the Caribbean Sea that the administration alleges were operated by “narco-terrorists.” The death toll from the strikes reached over 100 in December.

Kaine forced Thursday’s procedural vote under the War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam War-era statute that gives Congress a check on the president’s use of the military abroad. 

Dems say vote will restrain Trump, despite veto

Kaine, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff told reporters following the vote that the result would allow debate over the matter to proceed in public, rather than only in the secure facilities where lawmakers have been briefed.

“We’re going to have a fulsome debate on this issue of the kind we haven’t been allowed to have for a very long time,” Kaine said.

The senators added that the more the public hears about the administration’s plans for Venezuela, including Trump’s comments published Thursday in The New York Times that U.S. forces may occupy the country for “much longer” than a year, the less popular it would become.

“The more the American people hear about what’s going on in Venezuela and the more they learn about it, the less they are going to like it, the more fiercely they’re going to oppose it,” Schumer said.

While Kaine acknowledged Trump would likely veto the measure, he said Trump also vetoed a similar bill Congress passed in 2020 to restrain military action in Iran but backed down from an aggressive posture against Iran.

“He vetoed it, we couldn’t override it,” he said. “But what we noticed is the president then backed off for the remainder of his first term because he heard the voices of the American public through the votes of Congress, saying, ‘We do not want more war right now, Mr. President.’ And I think that’s one thing this president is very sensitive to.”

The Democratic senators added that they believed the vote would restrain the administration from taking military action in Colombia, Greenland and Mexico, as administration officials have suggested.

McConnell parts way with Kentucky colleague

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, opposed the legislation and released a lengthy statement afterward. He said the president “was well within this authority in his decision to bring Nicolas Maduro to justice” and cited past military incursions without formal congressional approval by presidents from both parties.

McConnell continued later in the statement: “Successfully returning Venezuela to its role of stable, prosperous, democratic neighbor is a noble goal … but an ambitious one. It doesn’t come without risk. And it’s worth making the clear case to the country.”

Former Democratic Rep. Max Rose, now with VoteVets, issued a statement Thursday calling the vote “stunning.”

“They stood up and said that Trump does not have the authority to use our military any which way he wants, and if he wants to go further, he’ll have to come to Congress to allow Americans to have their say,” said Rose, an Afghanistan war veteran and senior adviser to the political action committee that endorses veterans to run for office.

“It is sad that it has come to the point where a simple affirmation of the ‘declare war’ clause of the Constitution is news, but it is nonetheless a good day when Republicans join Democrats in telling Donald Trump that this is not ‘his military’ as much as he wants it to be his. It belongs to America,” he continued.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

A small crowd of far-right activists marched on the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026 in a nonviolent protest. They followed the path of the march five years ago, when rioters attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden's presidential election win. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Five years after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, the struggle to define the event and assign blame carried on in events across the city Tuesday that remained nonviolent, though still disturbing.

A crowd of no more than a few hundred of President Donald Trump’s supporters commemorated the deadly attack with a somewhat subdued march from the Ellipse to the Capitol that was in stark contrast to the riot five years ago.

Inside the Capitol, U.S. House Democrats gathered in a small meeting room, apparently unable to secure larger accommodations for an unofficial hearing that largely rehashed the findings of a House committee that spent 2022 investigating the attack.

Trump, meanwhile, addressed House Republicans three miles west at the Kennedy Center. In an hour-plus address, he blamed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence on Jan. 6, 2021 and recommended the GOP lawmakers pass laws to make election fraud more difficult. Trump’s claim that his 2020 election loss was due to fraud sparked the 2021 attack.

“Our elections are crooked as hell,” he said, without citing evidence.

House Dems blast pardons 

Inside the Capitol, at a morning event that U.S. House Democrats organized and in which Republicans didn’t take part, lawmakers and experts criticized Trump’s pardons of people involved in the 2021 attack, one of his first acts after returning to office last year.

They also decried his continued recasting of the events of the day.

White House officials launched a webpage Tuesday that blamed the attack on Democrats, again including Pelosi, and restated the lie that initiated the attack: The 2020 election that Trump lost was marred by fraud and should not have been certified.

“Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6,” the page reads. “…In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters.” 

Pelosi at the hearing on Tuesday condemned Trump’s version of the attack. 

“Today, that president who incited that insurrection continues to lie about what happened that day,” the California Democrat said.

Other Democrats and their invited witnesses also described the pardons as signaling that the president accepted — and even encouraged — his supporters to pursue illegal means of keeping him in power. 

Brendan Ballou, a former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor who resigned shortly after Trump’s 2025 pardons, told the panel the executive action sent Trump supporters the “clear message” they were above the law.

“The January 6 pardons also fit into a broader narrative of what’s going on with this administration, that if people are sufficiently loyal and willing to support the president, either in words or financially, they will be put beyond the reach of the law,” he added. “It means that quite literally for a certain group of people right now in America, the law does not apply to them.”

Former ‘MAGA granny’ testifies

Homeland Security Committee ranking Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi led the panel discussion, with Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland and several others also sitting in on it.

The first panel of witnesses included Ballou, other experts and Pamela Hemphill, a former Trump supporter from Idaho who traveled to the nation’s capital five years ago to “be part of the mob” in support of the president before becoming an advocate for reckoning with the day’s violence.

An emotional Hemphill, 72 and once known as “MAGA granny,” apologized to U.S. Capitol police officers.

“Once I got away from the MAGA cult and started educating myself about January the 6th, I knew what I did was wrong,” Hemphill told the panel. “I pleaded guilty to my crimes because I did the crime. I received due process and the DOJ was not weaponized against me. 

“Accepting that pardon would be lying about what happened on January the 6th,” she added.

She explained her decision to decline Trump’s blanket pardon of offenders convicted of crimes related to the attack, saying it papered over the misdeeds of people involved in the riot. She implored others not to accept revisions of the narrative about what happened in the attack.

Subsequent panels included current and former House members, including two, Republican Adam Kitzinger of Illinois and Democrat Elaine Luria of Virginia, who sat on the committee tasked with investigating the attack.

Flowers for Ashli Babbitt

The crowd of marchers, which included pardoned Jan. 6 attack participants, gathered in the late morning to retrace their path to the U.S. Capitol five years ago.

Organizers billed the march as a memorial event to honor Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by U.S. Capitol Police during the riot in 2021 as she attempted to break into the House Speaker’s lobby.

Far-right activists celebrating the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol marched in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Rioters in 2021 attempted to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win. (Video by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

The crowd of roughly a couple hundred walked from the Ellipse, where Trump spoke to rallygoers in 2021, to just outside the Capitol grounds, where police contained the small crowd on the lawn north of the Reflecting Pool. 

Law enforcement officers permitted Babbitt’s mother, Michelle Witthoeft, and a few others to walk closer to the Capitol to lay flowers at roughly 2:44 p.m. Eastern, the time they say Babbitt died.

A group of counterprotesters briefly approached the demonstration, yelling “traitors.” Police quickly formed two lines between the groups, heading off any clashes.

Proud Boys former leader on-site 

Among the crowd was former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Trump commuted Tarrio’s sentence upon taking office for his second term.

While looking on at marchers, Tarrio told States Newsroom he was “just supporting.”

“It’s not my event. I’m just trying to help them with organizing and marching people down the street, I guess. But we’re here for one purpose, and that’s to honor the lives of Ashli Babbitt and those who passed away that day.”

When asked if marchers were also honoring the police officers who died in the days and months after the attack, Tarrio said he mourned “any loss of life” but added “I heard some suicides happened. I don’t know. I haven’t really looked into that. I’ve been in prison.”

U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick suffered injuries during the riot, according to the Capitol Police. He died the following day from natural causes, according to the District of Columbia Office of the Medical Examiner.

Four responding police officers died by suicide in the following days and months.

As the march continued, a group of Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers on bicycles stopped Tarrio and asked him to confirm the march route to avoid any “confusion.”

When counterprotesters began to heckle the Jan. 6 attack supporters, Tarrio waved the marchers forward, “C’mon, c’mon, keep moving.”

Jan. 6 rioter Rasha Abual-Ragheb, 45, of New Jersey, addressed the crowd earlier and thanked “Daddy Trump” for her pardon. Abual-Ragheb, who pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating and picketing in the U.S. Capitol, showed off a tattoo on her arm reading “MAGA 1776.”

Willie Connors, 57, of Bayonne, New Jersey, stood on the edge of the crowd with a yellow “J6” flag tied around his neck. Connors said he didn’t enter the Capitol during the 2021 attack, but said he was in the district that day to protest the 2020 presidential election, which he falsely claimed was “robbed” from Trump.

“Donald Trump, I’ll take the bullet for that man. He’s my president,” Connors said. 

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, speaks following a hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Dec. 22, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

GREENBELT, Md. — U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis will retain an order keeping the wrongly deported El Salvador national Kilmar Abrego Garcia out of federal custody for the rest of the year, the judge said at a Monday hearing.

In the first hearing that Abrego Garcia was present for after his release last week, Xinis pressed U.S. Department of Justice attorneys to say by Friday how they planned to proceed, including whether they would seek a new warrant to arrest Abrego Garcia. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia would then be able to respond to the government next week, with a decision coming in the new year. 

Xinis expressed frustration with the Trump administration Monday, as she has throughout the monthslong case that has highlighted the nationwide crackdown on immigration.

She said she would “happily” consider a lawful request from the administration to detain Abrego Garcia under a different section of law than the one she has already rejected. But the government has not given her the assurance that they would pursue a different authority to detain him again.

“But the problem is, you want me to lift the (temporary restraining order) so that we don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “Why should I give the respondents the benefit of the doubt in this case? Why should I do that here? Show your work. That’s all.”

DOJ lawyer Ernesto Molina objected to a restriction on the government’s ability to detain Abrego Garcia.

“There’s no period during which an alien cannot be detained under the appropriate circumstances,” he said.

Move to Costa Rica?

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told reporters following the hearing that Abrego Garcia, who is married to and the father of U.S. citizens, would be with his family for the holidays.

“As of right now, Mr. Abrego Garcia is going to return to his home with his wife and his children and his family members in Maryland,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “And he will be at home through Christmas and New Year.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg also blamed the federal government for keeping Abrego Garcia in the country, rather than allowing him to self-deport to Costa Rica.

Costa Rica has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia, who entered the United States without legal authorization in 2011. The Trump administration has rejected deportation to the Central American country, instead proposing he be removed to several African nations to which he has no relationship.

Abrego Garcia “remains willing” to move to Costa Rica, Sandoval-Moshenberg told Xinis. If not for the government’s actions to pursue criminal charges in Tennessee and to reserve the right for future immigration enforcement in Maryland, Abrego Garcia would now be out of the country, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

“It’s the government that’s preventing him from doing so,” he said. “He’s literally in a double bind. …. He’s got two ankle bracelets.”

Abrego Garcia after his deportation was imprisoned in a brutal prison in El Salvador and returned to the United States to face criminal charges in Tennessee stemming from a 2022 traffic stop. After he was ordered released from U.S. marshals’ custody by a federal judge, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him again at an appointment at the Baltimore, Maryland, ICE field office.

In mid-December, he was released from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania. He had remained there since September. 

Former President Bill Clinton, rock star Mick Jagger and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are seated at a table in this undated photo released as part of the Epstein files on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, by the Department of Justice. Clinton has denied any connection to Epstein's alleged crimes. (Photo from Department of Justice)

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice began releasing thousands of records Friday related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but questions remained over whether officials will meet the requirements of a law overwhelmingly backed by both Republicans and Democrats and signed by President Donald Trump.

The department posted four data sets of images and documents just after 4 p.m. Eastern.

The trove reviewed by States Newsroom reporters contains numerous images of Epstein with celebrities, including the late pop star Michael Jackson, rock legend Mick Jagger, illusionist David Copperfield and former President Bill Clinton. Many other faces in photos are redacted. The photos were released without dates or context. 

A reproduction of Epstein’s contact list included entries for Trump, his late former wife, Ivana Trump, and his daughter, Ivanka Trump.

An array of photos of Trump with several women appeared amongst the files, according to a preliminary scan by the New York Times. But the Times also said most of the images already had been made public. 

Trump, who is prolific on social media, had not yet commented in the hours after the files were released. During an earlier press conference on prescription drugs Friday, the president declined to take any questions.

Trump had a well documented friendship with Epstein, a hedge fund manager who enjoyed a circle of wealthy and influential friends — though Trump maintains he had a falling out with Epstein and was never involved in any alleged crimes.

Since July, when Justice officials announced no further files would be released, Trump had resisted loud protests, even from his base, that all investigative material in the government’s possession should be made public. Trump repeatedly called the files a “Democrat hoax,” despite the investigation occurring during his first administration.

Files in the first dataset include images of lavishly furnished rooms, including one that appears to have a taxidermied tiger, as well as bathrooms with framed photographs of women whose faces have been redacted.

Photos in the second data set reveal Epstein seated at a table with Jagger, and another of Clinton lying in a hot tub or spa with the top of his chest visible. Another photo was of Clinton with the late pop star Michael Jackson.

Clinton was also photographed with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated on his lap and with his arm around her. In another, Clinton and Epstein stand side by side, smiling at something off camera and dressed in shiny party shirts.

A spokesperson for Clinton posted on social media that the former president was unaware of Epstein’s illegal activities and cut the financier off socially before allegations were public. The spokesperson, Angel Ureña, also redirected attention back to Trump.

“This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever,” he wrote about the Trump White House. “So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”

In a Dec. 10 letter from Clinton’s lawyer obtained by the New York Times, the former president denies being connected to any alleged crimes Epstein committed. 

Photos in the third dataset document Epstein’s travels to Europe, desert locations and island locales. Most photos of people other than Epstein, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and Clinton are redacted.

The last dataset also included a completely redacted 119-page grand jury file from New York federal court. Both Epstein and Maxwell were prosecuted in New York, and the Justice Department requested the sealed records be made public.

Maxwell was convicted and sentenced for her role in the scheme to traffic teenage girls for sex.

The fourth trove of files appeared to relate to law enforcement and attorneys’ investigation into potential sex abusers, such as coordinating interviews and crafting timelines. A portion of the documents related to a 2019 grand jury were completely blacked out. 

Following the Justice Department’s release Friday afternoon, both Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, released scathing statements.

“Unfortunately, today’s document release by @AGPamBondi and @DAGToddBlanche grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law that @realDonaldTrump signed just 30 days ago,” Massie posted on X.

Document release to continue

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News Friday morning the department will “release several hundred thousand documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with, with all of the investigations into, into Mr. Epstein.” 

But Blanche also said the release will carry over into “the next couple of weeks,” which would be past the Friday deadline set in the law.

The law, unanimously supported by the Senate and approved by the House 427-1, requires the Justice Department to publicly disclose “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or Maxwell.” 

‘ALL the Epstein files’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement Friday slamming the department’s admission that it will not meet the law’s deadline. Trump signed the bill into law on Nov. 19.

“The law Congress passed and President Trump signed was clear as can be — the Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some. Failing to do so is breaking the law. This just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi are hellbent on hiding the truth,” Schumer said, alleging a “cover up.”

“Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out,” the New York Democrat continued.

Schumer later criticized in a separate statement the late afternoon release as “just a fraction of the whole body of evidence.”

House Democrats Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., released a joint statement Friday stating they “are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law.” Garcia and Raskin are, respectively, the ranking members of the House Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary committees. 

Massie, who pushed to bypass Republican leadership to pass the legislation, published a 14-minute video on social media Thursday night regarding how the public should interpret whether the Justice Department follows the statute.

“How will you know if they’ve released all the materials?” Massie said. “Well, one of the ways we’ll know is there are people who covered this case for years, and I’ve talked to them in private, then they know what some of the material is that’s back there.”

The Kentucky Republican said he’s been in contact with victims’ lawyers who claim federal investigators are in possession of names that should be contained in the files.

“If we get a large production on December 19, and it does not contain a single name of any male who’s accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape, or any of these things, then we know they haven’t produced all the documents. It’s that simple,” Massie said.

In a press conference Tuesday led by several Senate Democrats, Schumer said the lawmakers have been “preparing for any scenario” and warned “there will be serious legal and political consequences” if the Trump administration withholds documents required by law to be released.

‘New information’ on Epstein cited  

The brief text of the law does not outline penalties if the deadline is not met.

Types of documents cited in the law include flight logs, plea agreements and immunity deals, and any internal DOJ communications about Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The law states documents cannot be delayed, redacted or withheld “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Victims’ identities must be redacted, and written justification is required for any information withheld, according to the law.

Carve-outs also exist for any material relating to ongoing investigations. 

The department announced new investigations on Nov. 14 into Epstein’s ties to Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and prominent investor Reid Hoffman. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Nov. 19 during a press conference that “information has come forward, new information, additional information.”

House Democrats release more photos

Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have been releasing a trickle of private files from Epstein’s estate that were handed over in response to a congressional subpoena. Committee Democrats disclosed dozens more images Thursday.

The public disclosure of the digital files, released via a cloud folder without context, follows the committee Democrats’ announcement Dec. 12 that it had received 95,000 more images from Epstein’s estate. 

Among those images was a photo of Trump surrounded by women whose faces had been redacted, and an image of apparent packaged condoms with Trump’s face on them and a sign reading “I’m HUUUUGE!” Another image, which featured an apparent “Bill Clinton” autograph, shows the former president posing with Epstein, Maxwell and others.

The latest batch of private records released included photos of Epstein with guests at meals and multiple photos of Epstein talking with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon across a sizable wooden desk in what appears to be an office with antique books and collectibles. Another photo shows Epstein dressed in traditional sheikh-style garments. 

A few images of the New York Times’ David Brooks surfaced in the latest batch as well. Epstein is not in the frame with Brooks, an opinion columnist. The Times released a statement to media outlets Thursday that “Mr. Brooks had no contact with (Epstein) before or after this single attendance at a widely-attended dinner” in 2011.

Other images feature former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates standing with a woman whose face has been redacted by the committee, and a solo photo of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

“Oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people,” Garcia said in a statement Thursday. “As we approach the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession. We must end this White House cover-up, and the DOJ must release the Epstein files now.” 

President Donald Trump addresses the nation in an address from the Diplomatic Room of the White House on Dec. 17, 2025. (Photo by Doug Mills - Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As Americans continue to face rising prices ahead of year-end holidays, President Donald Trump blamed inflation and health care costs on his predecessor during a prime-time speech Wednesday in which he also claimed to have fixed the issues.

Trump “inherited a mess” and has turned the United States into the “envy of the entire globe” by imposing an immigration crackdown, tariffs and tax breaks, he said. 

“Over the past 11 months, we have brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history. There’s never been anything like it, and I think most would agree I was elected in a landslide,” Trump said.

Standing before a backdrop of Christmas decorations, Trump also promised $1,776 checks would arrive for members of the United States military by Christmas.

And he continued to blame Democrats for health care costs that are projected to skyrocket next month when tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans expire.

Nearly a year into his second term, Trump remains fixated on blaming former President Joe Biden even as his own approval ratings sink, according to numerous recent polls.

A plaque below Biden’s photo in Trump’s newly installed “Presidential Walk of Fame” display reads “Sleepy Joe Biden,” according to reports from journalists present at the White House Wednesday.

“When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word ‘affordability,’” Trump said.

Consumer price index data released Thursday for September through November show the overall cost of goods rose 2.7% over the past 12 months, after rising 3% for the 12 months recorded at the end of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Trump took office in January 2025, it was 3% over the previous 12 months. The bureau did not analyze data for October 2025 because of the government shutdown.

In recent weeks, Trump has said “affordability” is a “hoax.”

Yet the bulk of Trump’s somewhat hastily scheduled address — the White House announced it Tuesday — focused on lowering costs for housing, electricity and health care.

Trump announced he will send a $1,776 “warrior dividend” to every U.S. servicemember. The amount is in honor of the year of the country’s  founding, Trump said. Checks are “already on the way,” he said.

That could add up to as much as $2.6 billion, according to a White House estimate Wednesday night that 1.45 million service members would receive the payment.

Health care costs

He also touted trumprx.gov, where he said Americans can find “unprecedented price reductions” on prescription drugs starting in January.

“These big price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of health care,” Trump said.

He boosted a Republican plan on Capitol Hill to fund individual health savings accounts, or HSAs, in annual amounts of $1,000 to $1,500 depending on age and poverty level. An HSA is not health insurance.

“I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care. You’ll get much better health care at a much lower price,” Trump said.

Four House Republicans defected Wednesday to sign a Democrat-led petition to bypass Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and force a floor vote in January on extending health insurance premium subsidies for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

‘My favorite word’

Trump spent several minutes addressing the economy, stating that prices on groceries and fuel are coming down. Both claims are false, according to government data.

“I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down fast,” Trump said.

The latest consumer price index for September showed gasoline prices rose 4.1% over the past 12 months, and “was the largest factor in the all items monthly increase,” increasing 1.5% over the previous month.

Food prices rose faster than overall inflation in recent months, according to the government’s latest data. Food prices in August were 3.2% higher than a year ago, according to the data.

Still, Trump claimed an economic turnaround that he credited to his international trade policy.

“Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs — my favorite word ‘tariffs’ — which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us, but not anymore,” he said.

The U.S. ended fiscal year 2025 with a deficit reaching nearly $1.8 trillion, or roughly 6% of the domestic economy’s gross domestic product.

Trump unilaterally imposed a global 10% tariff on all foreign goods in April, plus higher tariffs on many major trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal.

The U.S. collected nearly $195 billion in customs duties in fiscal year 2025, up from $77 billion in fiscal 2024, according to the U.S. Treasury’s monthly statement.”

Americans have lost faith in Trump’s ability to handle the economy, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll published Wednesday.

Trump received a 36% approval rating on his economic strategy, the lowest rating over the past six years that the survey has asked voters the question.

A Fox News poll released Nov. 19 found 76% of respondents saw the economy negatively. Of all voters polled, 41% approved and 58% disapproved of Trump’s performance. That’s down from the conservative news network’s poll of Biden’s approval ratings during the same point in his presidency, which the network says was 44%.

Mum on Venezuela

The president did not spend much time addressing his military campaign off the coast of Venezuela, despite declaring just 24 hours beforehand that the U.S. had formed a “blockade” in the Caribbean Sea.

Trump posted on his own social media platform Truth Social Tuesday night that Venezuela is “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”

The campaign, which has become top of mind for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, is about preventing drug smuggling to the U.S., Trump and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said.

Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration to release unedited footage of a Sept. 2 strike that killed two shipwrecked individuals who were clinging to what was left of a boat after an initial strike.

Members of the National Guard patrol near Union Station on Aug. 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that National Guard troops can remain in the District of Columbia while the judges take up the case that began when the district sued the Trump administration for deploying roughly 2,000 troops to the nation’s capital.

Pointing to the district’s special status as a federal territory, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found President Donald Trump would likely succeed in his administration’s argument to keep federalized National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

Wednesday’s ruling means the guard troops from the District of Columbia and nine states will continue patrolling Washington, D.C., through February, unless the appeals judges find a lower court order against the mobilization to be correct.

Guard members have been deployed to the district from South Carolina, West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, and South Dakota. 

Judge Patricia Millett, appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote the decision, in which Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both appointed during Trump’s first term, concurred.

“Because the District of Columbia is a federal district created by Congress, rather than a constitutionally sovereign entity like the fifty States, the Defendants appear on this early record likely to prevail on the merits of their argument that the President possesses a unique power within the District — the seat of the federal government — to mobilize the Guard,” Millet wrote.

Trump mobilized the District of Columbia National Guard and several state guards to the capital under Title 32 status, meaning their members can assist local law enforcement.

District court order 

Judge Jia Cobb, for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, found the administration’s deployment of more than 2,000 guard troops in the city illegal but stayed her Nov. 20 decision until Dec. 11 to give the administration time to appeal and remove the guard members from the district’s streets.

The Trump administration asked the federal appeals court to grant an emergency stay by Dec. 4, which the judges did.

U.S. senators who oversee armed services policy heard testimony from high-level Department of Defense officials on Dec. 11 regarding the Trump administration’s National Guard deployments to five U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C.

Guard member shooting

Wednesday’s decision comes three weeks after two West Virginia National Guard members were shot on Nov. 26 just blocks from the White House. U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, underwent surgery for critical injuries and remains hospitalized.

Prosecutors charged the suspected shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who was living in Washington state, with first-degree murder, among other charges. 

On the day of the shooting, the Trump administration filed an emergency motion to stay Cobb’s order that found Trump’s guard deployment to the district was illegal.

Trump initially mobilized 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital in August after declaring a “crime emergency.” 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio speak to reporters on Dec. 16, 2025, following a closed-door briefing with all senators about U.S. military action in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators left a closed-door meeting Tuesday with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio split over the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug-running vessels near Venezuela, particularly an early September follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to boat wreckage.

Hegseth and Rubio delivered the all-member briefings to Senate and House lawmakers on Capitol Hill as the death toll from U.S. military strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean has surpassed 90, and as U.S. Navy ships are amassed off the coast of Venezuela.

Controversy over the possibility of war crimes during the Sept. 2 follow-on strike that killed shipwrecked survivors drew attention after The Washington Post reported details last month, calling into question Hegseth’s orders.

Hegseth told reporters Tuesday he briefed members on a “highly successful mission to counter designated terrorist organizations, cartels, bringing weapons — weapons, meaning drugs — to the American people and poisoning the American people for far too long. So we’re proud of what we’re doing.”

Dems decry edited video

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Hegseth again refused to show unedited footage, which Schumer described as “deeply troubling,” of a second strike on Sept. 2 that killed two people who survived the initial strike. 

“The administration came to this briefing empty handed,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said. 

“If they can’t be transparent on this, how can you trust their transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean? Every senator is entitled to see it. There is no problem with (revealing) sources and methods” because the senators will view it in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a secure area of the Capitol where classified information is generally shared.

Schumer added that an “appropriate version” of the video should be disclosed to the public.

Senate Republicans downplayed loud concerns from Democrats, pointing to former President Barack Obama’s numerous counterterrorism drone strikes in the Middle East.

“We’ve been using the same technique for 24 years, and nothing has changed except the hemisphere,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla.

Public release called for

Hegseth told reporters the unedited video will be shown to members of the Senate and House committees on the Armed Services Wednesday, alongside Admiral Frank Bradley, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, who oversaw the strikes.

Hegseth did not address why the department declined to show the unedited video to all 100 senators. 

He did say, “Of course, we’re not going to release a top-secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public.”

Several Democratic senators have called for the video to be publicly released.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he was told during the meeting that the video won’t be released because of “classification concerns.”

“It is hard to square the widespread, routine, prompt posting of detailed videos of every strike, with a concern that posting a portion of the video of the first strike would violate a variety of classification concerns,” Coons said.

Coons added “it’s increasingly important that the national security team of the Trump administration increasingly respect and recognize the role and power of Congress.” 

He highlighted a provision in Congress’s annual defense authorization bill that compels Hegseth to release the video or lose 25% of his travel budget. The massive defense bill is expected to pass this week.

Body count from boat strikes rising

U.S. Southern Command posted a video on social media Monday night of the military’s latest strikes on three boats “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters” in the eastern Pacific. The strikes killed eight people, according to the post.

President Donald Trump has officially promoted his military actions in the Caribbean as a fight against drug trafficking and overdose deaths in the United States, particularly from illicit fentanyl. 

On Monday Trump issued an order declaring the powerful synthetic opioid as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction.”

The smuggling routes for illicit fentanyl and the chemicals used to make it follow the path from China to Mexico to the U.S., and is highlighted as such in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment.

The administration has designated several drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, including “Cartel de los Soles,” an alleged Venezuelan group that the Department of State described as spearheaded by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has hinted at a land invasion of the South American country.

When asked by States Newsroom on Tuesday whether Hegseth addressed during the meeting what type of drugs were alleged to be in the targeted boats, Mullin and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said cocaine.

“We’ve always heard it’s mainly cocaine. It doesn’t matter. It’s drugs,” Mullin said.

Sullivan said “it’s the same groups” smuggling the cocaine as the ones smuggling fentanyl.

Cocaine mixed with illicit fentanyl has become “an increasing public safety concern” over the last eight years, according to the National Drug Threat Assessment. 

Overall, all U.S. drug overdose deaths have decreased in recent years, according to the assessment and latest data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island speaks during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Dec. 11, 2025, as Chairman Roger Wicker looks on . The hearing examined the Trump Administration's deployment of the National Guard across the United States. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers who oversee armed services policy split along party lines Thursday when examining the deployments of the National Guard to cities across the country under what President Donald Trump describes as a crime-fighting strategy.

Members of the Senate Committee on the Armed Services questioned for nearly two-and-a-half hours high-level Department of Defense officials, including the Pentagon’s No. 2 lawyer and the head of U.S. Northern Command who oversees National Guard troops under federal deployment.

The hearing on Capitol Hill came less than one month after a gunman shot two West Virginia National Guard members in broad daylight outside a Washington, D.C., Metro station just blocks from the White House.

U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is recovering from critical injuries. A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with American troops in Afghanistan has been charged with first-degree murder. 

Senators on the panel expressed bipartisan messages of support and gratitude for Beckstrom, Wolfe and their families, but divisions were apparent over why and on what grounds Trump deployed the guard to five U.S. cities since June: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Ore.; Chicago and Memphis, Tenn.

Trump also threatened to send the guard to other places, including New York City, Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans.

Trump first federalized the California National Guard in early June, deploying them to Los Angeles against the wishes of Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats. 

A California federal district judge ruled Wednesday the Trump administration must return the troops to Newsom.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled Nov. 20 — six days before Beckstrom and Wolfe were attacked — that Trump’s deployment of the guard in the district was illegal. A federal appeals court has allowed the service members to remain in the district while the appeal plays out. 

Other cases, including challenges to Trump’s deployment of the guard to Oregon and Illinois, have also been tied up in court.

Countering crime

Sen. Roger Wicker, Armed Services Committee chair, opened the hearing by saying, “In recent years violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” citing the Department of Justice.

For that reason, he said, Trump “ordered an immediate and coordinated response by deploying the National Guard to some of our nation’s most dangerous cities.”

“Not surprisingly, Democratic governors and left-wing pundits have decried these deployments,” the Mississippi Republican said, dismissing any concerns as “manufactured and misguided.”

While capturing accurate crime statistics is challenging — as many crimes go unreported — murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery all decreased nationwide in 2024, according to the FBI’s latest crime statistics.

Data also show U.S. property and violent crime plunged between 1993 and 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. 

However, the analysis showed attitudes about crime split according to party affiliation.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., argued Thursday that guard deployments to cities across the U.S. are not out of the ordinary.

He asked Charles Young III, principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense, to explain how the process works.

Young, pointing to a stack of books on the table, said the examples are “voluminous.”  

“Rather than bringing in troops from the regular Army or the active component … the Founding Fathers wanted to resort to utilizing the National Guard because they were citizens and from the communities that were involved. And these books that I have here are just books on the role of federal military forces in domestic disorders,” he said.

‘Is that a legal order?’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Army National Guard veteran who said she pushed for the hearing, slammed Trump’s guard deployments when she delivered the Democrats’ opening remarks.

Duckworth said Beckstrom’s death and Wolfe’s injuries “should never have happened in the first place.”

“Military service involves risks, and our service members accept those risks knowingly, selflessly. So we better be damn sure that the mission is the right one,” said Duckworth, who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm in Iraq when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade

Duckworth and other Democratic senators on the panel questioned the legality of Trump’s guard deployments and alleged the president was using the show of force to curtail public demonstrations and free speech.

Duckworth recalled Trump’s Sept. 30 speech to military generals in Quantico, Virginia, when he said the administration should use American cities as “training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military because we’re going into Chicago very soon.” 

In that same speech, Trump said Democratic-run cities are “in bad shape,” and “it’s a war from within.” 

Harking back to reports that Trump asked former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper about shooting protesters in 2020, Duckworth asked, “Let’s say the president issued such an order. He said so. Is that a legal order?”

“Senator, orders to that effect would depend on the circumstances,” Young replied.

“We have a president who doesn’t think that the rule of law applies to him, and he wants to show force,” Duckworth responded.

Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s ranking member, delivered a similar line of questioning, asking Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, “If the president declared an organization, a terrorist organization … and you were ordered to attack them on U.S. soil, would you carry out that order?”

“Sen. Reed, as with any order I get, I would assess the order, consult the legal authorities to ensure that it was a lawful order, and I would, if I had questions, I would elevate that to the chairman and the secretary, as they welcome at all times,” Guillot said. 

“And if I had no concerns and I was confident in (the) lawful order, I would definitely execute that order.”

Reed noted that Guillot was present for Trump’s speech in Quantico.

“The president essentially indicated that you should be prepared to conduct military operations in the United States against this enemy within. Are you doing that?” he said.

“Sir, I have not been tasked to do anything that reflects what you just said,” Guillot replied.

Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he didn’t believe testimony delivered Thursday by Mark Ditlevson, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense, that Trump is “clearly doing the right thing” and the guard is working in conjunction with local authorities.

King, of Maine, said the testimony “was borderline humorous.”

“That didn’t happen in Illinois or in California,” King said. “We’re talking about a broader issue here that I think is extremely dangerous, and the reason it’s particularly dangerous in the present moment is we have a president who has a very low bar as to what constitutes an emergency.”

Cities targeted

Trump deployed thousands of guard troops to Los Angeles after local immigration raids sparked protests that city officials said local law enforcement were able to handle without assistance.

In D.C., he based his deployment on a “crime emergency” and the deployment of troops on the district’s streets happened as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out weeks of raids, traffic stops and other actions as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. 

District residents protested the deployment, and opposition posters, stickers, flags and graffiti sprang up across the city.

Trump justified sending the guard to Portland after falsely claiming the city was “burning down.”

District of Columbia and Tennessee officials have worked with the administration to bring the guard to their cities, which grants the troops power to assist local law enforcement. 

Illinois, Oregon and California officials have not agreed to work with the guard, which results in an order restricting members to only duties of protecting federal property.

Trump previously activated the National Guard to the nation’s capital in response to protests during the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A 2026 America the Beautiful Annual Pass to gain entry to U.S. national parks. (Photo from federal court documents)

WASHINGTON — A public lands advocacy group sued the Trump administration in federal court Wednesday over the inclusion of President Donald Trump’s face on the forthcoming National Park annual pass.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that alleges the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture violated the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, which requires department officials to feature an image on the annual pass chosen from a public photo contest.

The 16-page complaint alleges the administration has replaced a contest-winning photo of Montana’s Glacier National Park on the annual pass for U.S. residents with a graphic featuring the images of George Washington and Trump commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The photo of Glacier National Park will still be featured on the administration’s newly created, more expensive non-resident pass, according to the lawsuit.

“The Interior Department’s bait-and-switch betrays the expectations of the thousands of people who participate in the contest and is directly at odds with the public participation mandates of the statute,” according to the complaint. “It also undermines the stability of this well-established program and the conservation, recreational, and educational outcomes (the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act) provides.”

The White House and the Department of Interior did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

‘Treasured’ national parks

In a statement, the center’s Executive Director Kierán Suckling said, “Blotting out the majesty of America’s national parks with a closeup of his own face is Trump’s crassest, most ego-driven action yet.” 

“The national parks are treasured by Americans of every stripe. Their timeless power and magnificence rise above even the most bitter political differences to quietly bring all Americans together. It’s disgusting of Trump to politicize America’s most sacred refuge by pasting his face over the national parks in the same way he slaps his corporate name on buildings, restaurants, and golf courses. The national parks are not a personal branding opportunity,” Suckling said.

Passes in recent years have featured photos of Everglades National Park, Wupatki National Monument, Sequoia & Kings Range National Park, San Juan National Forest, Redwood National Forest, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Acadia National Park, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and Nantahala National Forest. 

Passes for non-residents to be $250

The America the Beautiful annual pass is $80 for U.S. residents and provides entry to every national park and special fee areas of national forests, wildlife refuges and other national lands. 

The new nonresident annual pass is priced at $250.

Sales of the pass generated $119.4 million in revenue in 2023 that went back into the care and maintenance of the parks, according to data included in the court filing.

Then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City.  (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A Manhattan federal judge granted an order Tuesday to unseal grand jury records in the case of Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking minors among other offenses in 2021.

Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote in a 24-page order that unsealing the documents fell within the scope of a new law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. The law compels the U.S. Department of Justice to release nearly all investigative files in the government’s case against Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked the court to release the records after Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation last month requiring disclosure of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or (co-conspirator Ghislaine) Maxwell.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi must release the material by Dec. 19 in accordance with the law, which lawmakers dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

Law covers grand jury material

Engelmayer described the act’s language as “strikingly broad” and wrote Congress was “undeniably aware” that grand jury materials in Maxwell’s case were in possession of the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.

“Its decision not to exclude grand jury materials despite knowledge as to their existence, while expressly excluding other categories of materials (such as classified information), indicates that the Act covers grand jury materials,” Engelmayer wrote.

The order comes days after a Florida federal judge reached a similar conclusion Friday and ordered the unsealing of federal grand jury materials related to the government’s investigation of Epstein from 2005 to 2007.

Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge for soliciting a minor for prostitution but avoided a federal probe when then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta cut a deal with state prosecutors. Acosta was later appointed secretary of Labor during Trump’s first administration.

Florida interview

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence. The Trump administration recently transferred the sex offender to a minimum security prison shortly after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed her in a Tallahassee, Florida, facility as pressure to release the Epstein files ramped up in Congress and among Trump’s base.

According to transcripts, Maxwell told Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein but denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes. The president has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because Epstein had poached young female staffers from the club.

Maxwell was convicted in December 2021, after a one-month jury trial, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor.

The Justice Department maintains Epstein had over 1,000 victims.

Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter participates in a privacy roundtable at CES 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Jan. 7, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to expand presidential power after hearing a case Monday on whether President Donald Trump can hire and fire members of independent federal agencies without cause.

The high court’s decision, expected by the end of the term in late June, could heighten presidential influence over agencies created by Congress that oversee monetary policy, nuclear safety, consumer advocacy and trade, among other major policy areas.

The court’s conservative supermajority speculated that Congress could wield more and more power over the executive branch regarding how independent multimember agencies are structured, for example establishing term limits for commissioners.

Oral arguments centered on a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent protecting the five-member panel atop the Federal Trade Commission from being fired for reasons other than “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance.” 

The 1935 decision, referred to by its short title Humphrey’s executor, upheld the Federal Trade Commission Act’s removal protection provision after President Franklin D. Roosevelt fired FTC Commissioner William Humphrey before his seven-year term ended. He died shortly after, and his executor sued and won.

Slaughter fired in March

Monday’s case stems from Trump’s March firing of Rebecca Slaughter, an FTC commissioner since 2018, when she was named during Trump’s first term. President Joe Biden reappointed her and the Senate unanimously confirmed her for a second term in 2023.

Trump fired Slaughter on March 28 in an email that said her “continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with my administration’s priorities.” Slaughter sued and won in federal district court and at the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued to the justices Monday that Congress is “shaving away from the president’s control.”

The conservative justices homed in on Sauer’s argument.

In an exchange between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Slaughter’s counsel, Amit Agarwal, Barrett said, “If we decide this case in your favor, we don’t know what a Congress in 15 or 20 or 30 years might do.”

Agarwal responded, “We haven’t seen this problem materializing at all.”

“The real world danger that is imminent right now, that we know will happen, and that is that if petitioners get their way, everything is on the chopping block,” he said.

A few minutes later, Justice Brett Kavanaugh challenged Agarwal’s argument that if the president wants a structural change to an independent agency, he or she can work with Congress.

“You’ve mentioned many times, you can just go to Congress to fix this. Well, once the power is taken away from the president, it’s very hard to get it back in the legislative process,” Kavanaugh said.

Agarwal disagreed and argued that “exactly the opposite” has happened, in that Congress has ceded power to the executive branch over time.

Debate over stability in agencies

Kavanaugh also took issue with Agarwal’s argument that statutory guardrails baked into laws that govern independent agencies provide stability across administrations.

Agarwal pressed back, calling it “a problem on steroids” if independent agencies were completely shaken up every time a presidential administration changes and staggered terms were ignored.

“The whole point of this structure is to guarantee a modicum of stability that private, regulated entities can depend upon, and that is jeopardized by at-will presidential removal,” Agarwal said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of three liberal justices, said the administration’s appeal to justices could “open the door for the president to come in, each new president, and clean house in terms of all of the individuals who are running that agency.”

“Notwithstanding their expertise and knowledge and experience and the things that they are doing to promote the mission of the agency,” Jackson said. “And presumably the president could install whoever he wanted in those positions.”

Argawal responded: “Think about it in terms of commissions like the Federal Elections Commission. Would anyone want those sensitive election-related determinations to be under the plenary control of a political actor? 

“Think about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Can’t Congress and the president come together and say those types of technical determinations that could have massive implications for the public in all kinds of ways, should be made by a multimember body of experts?” he continued.

But during his rebuttal, Sauer warned of a scenario where “Congress could reconstruct virtually the entire executive branch outside the president’s control.”

Fed firing up next

The arguments lasted two-and-a-half hours and could be a preview of oral arguments in January that will center on Trump’s firing of Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook.

The seven-member board governing the central bank sets U.S. policy, including interest rates. Trump has slammed Federal Reserve leadership for months for not lowering interest rates at a faster pace.

The case comes on the heels of a federal appeals court decision Friday that Trump “permissibly removed” members earlier this year from the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The FTC was established in 1914 under President Woodrow Wilson to protect consumers from unfair business practices.

Sauer, formerly the Missouri solicitor general, was previously the president’s own defense lawyer and argued on Trump’s behalf before the Supreme Court last year on the question of presidential immunity. 

Members of the National Guard stationed outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 18, 2025. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Thursday paused a lower court’s order to remove the National Guard from the streets of Washington, D.C., eight days after two members were attacked in broad daylight in the district.

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted the Trump administration’s request that the Nov. 20 decision finding the Guard presence illegal to be stayed “pending further order of this court.” 

“The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” wrote Judges Patricia Millett, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao.

Millett was appointed by former President Barack Obama, and Katsas and Rao were appointed during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Roughly 2,000 National Guard troops in D.C. were originally expected to remain in the district through February, according to the lower court’s order.

Appeal considered after shooting

The stay comes just over a week after two West Virginia National Guard members were shot on Nov. 26 just blocks from the White House. U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, underwent surgery for critical injuries and remains hospitalized.

The suspected shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who was living in Washington state, pleaded not guilty from his hospital bed during a virtual hearing in D.C. Superior Court Tuesday. Lakanwal is charged with first-degree murder while armed,  possession of a firearm, and assault with the intent to kill. 

The Trump administration filed the emergency motion to stay the lower judge’s order on the day of the shooting. The administration requested the circuit court issue a decision by Dec. 4.

Judge Jia Cobb, for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, found the administration’s deployment of more than 2,000 guard troops in the city illegal but stayed her Nov. 20 decision until Dec. 11 to give the administration time to appeal and remove the guard members from the district’s streets.

Guard armed

Trump initially mobilized 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital in August after claiming a “crime emergency” in the district, despite a documented three-decade low in crime.

Many were instructed they would be carrying service weapons, The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 17. The White House effort was accompanied by a heightened U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in the district.

Trump also federalized the district’s police force for 30 days as part of a district-wide crackdown. While the federalization of the police force expired, Trump has kept the National Guard in the district.

Since then, Republican governors from Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia, among others, have agreed to send their own Guard members to the district. 

The mobilization had been tied up in court for months.

Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke on the arrest of Brian J. Cole Jr. from Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. Standing behind Bondi, from left to right, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Anthony Spotswood, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Darren Cox. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities arrested a Virginia man Thursday morning who they say was involved in planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committee offices on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, according to the Department of Justice.

FBI agents took Brian J. Cole Jr., 30, into custody “safely and successfully,” in Woodbridge, Virginia, Attorney General Pam Bondi said at an afternoon press conference at DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Cole is a resident of Woodbridge, a distant suburb of Washington, according to charging documents.

Bondi would not comment on a motive.

The arrest marked a breakthrough in the five-year-old case. Bondi claimed Thursday it could have been solved earlier as “evidence has been sitting there collecting dust.”

Officials did not offer details about which piece or pieces of evidence led them to the suspect, but said the FBI scoured 3 million lines of data and sifted through 233,000 sale records of black caps the suspect used on the ends of the pipe bombs he created.

“Let me be clear: There was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work, working as a team along with ATF, Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police Department, and, of course the FBI,” Bondi said.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the operation Thursday morning was “flawless.”

“I’m proud to stand here before you and say, we solved it. He will have his day in court,” Patel said. 

Cole is charged with transporting explosive devices across state lines and attempting malicious destruction by means of explosive materials, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.

Pirro said pinpointing the suspect was “like finding a needle in a haystack.”

Bondi said additional charges could be forthcoming but declined to provide details. The investigation is “very active and very ongoing” and search warrants were being executed Thursday, she said. 

Purchases at Home Depot, Lowe’s

According to the FBI, Cole placed pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 5, 2021. 

Charging documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia detail Cole’s purchases in 2019 and 2020 at Home Depot and Lowe’s of materials to produce the pipe bombs.

Investigators also obtained cell phone provider records that revealed Cole’s phone connected to multiple cell towers in the vicinity of the DNC and RNC on the night of Jan. 5, 2021, according to the court filings.

Additionally, investigators say they tracked a transaction Cole made at a restaurant within steps of the RNC less than a month before he allegedly planted the bombs.

Authorities had publicized several video clips of a masked individual in a gray hooded sweatshirt carrying a backpack to transport the pipe bombs. The FBI increased its reward to $500,000 in January 2023, up from $100,000, for information leading to an arrest.

Reports of explosives on Jan. 6

The bombs did not detonate. Police received reports of an explosive device near the RNC headquarters around 1 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 6, 2021. Roughly 15 minutes later, authorities were alerted to another explosive device a few blocks away in the vicinity of the DNC, according to the charging documents.

The national party headquarters are within a five-minute walk of each other and within close proximity to the U.S. Capitol. Then Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was inside the DNC when the pipe bomb was discovered, Politico reported in 2022.

The FBI’s Darren Cox, assistant director in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office, said “Fortunately, these bombs did not explode, although they certainly could have.” 

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement Thursday that the committee is “grateful to the law enforcement officers who have dedicated years to investigating the pipe bombs planted at the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters on the eve of the January 6th insurrection.” 

“Those responsible for this horrific act must be brought to justice, and political violence should never be accepted in America,” Martin said.

RNC Chair Joe Gruters issued a statement Thursday blaming the administration of former President Joe Biden for not finding and arresting the suspect, and credited current administration officials “who prioritized this case and delivered long-overdue answers to the American people.”

“For four years, the Biden administration allowed a terrorist to walk the streets while DOJ leadership was busy targeting parents at school board meetings, Catholics at church, and enforcing their DEI agenda instead of getting a potential mass murderer off the streets,” Gruters said. 

Bongino role

Several conspiracy theories swirled for years on far-right internet spaces about the pipe bomb case.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who previously accused the FBI of covering up the pipe bomb investigation, thanked President Donald Trump and Bondi at the Thursday press conference for giving him “latitude” to solve the case.

“I spoke with Ms. Bondi very early, maybe day two, and I said, ‘We’re going to get this guy.’ She said, ‘Yes, you are.’ And we did,” said Bongino, who until early 2025 hosted the podcast “The Dan Bongino Show.”

Robin Galbraith, 61, of Maryland, and Donna Powell, 67, of Washington, D.C., held signs outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, ahead of a U.S. House vote on releasing the Epstein files. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is pressing Attorney General Pam Bondi for a briefing this week to review the contents of the Epstein files ahead of the Justice Department’s legally binding public release date later this month.

Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., sent a letter to Bondi Wednesday urging “transparency and clarity” as the department prepares to release evidence collected during the federal investigation of the sex offender. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

“We write as the bipartisan lead sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act to express our shared interest in supporting the Department of Justice’s efforts to carry out the provisions of this critical new law,” the lawmakers wrote. 

“In light of the short 30-day deadline to release the Epstein Files, we are particularly focused on understanding the contents of any new evidence, information or procedural hurdles that could interfere with the Department’s ability (to) meet this statutory deadline.”

The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved legislation, 427-1, to compel the Justice Department to publicly release the material. The Senate agreed unanimously. President Donald Trump, after months of calling the files a “hoax,” signed the bill into law on Nov. 19, starting the clock for the Dec. 19 release deadline.

Epstein surrounded himself with influential politicians and celebrities, and had a well-documented friendship with Trump.

‘New information’ emerges

The lawmakers highlighted in the letter that the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a memo in July stating that the department would not be publicly releasing any further information or material related to the Epstein investigation as officials “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

But on Nov. 14, the department announced the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan would begin “new investigations” into any connections between Epstein and former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and prominent investor Reid Hoffman.

Bondi said Nov. 19 during a press conference that “information has come forward, new information, additional information.”

“In the interest of transparency and clarity on the steps required to faithfully implement the Epstein Files Transparency Act, we request a briefing either in a classified or unclassified setting, to discuss the full contents of this new information in your possession at your convenience, but not later than Friday, December 5th, 2025,” the lawmakers wrote to Bondi.

The law has a carve-out to exempt the release of any material that is part of an ongoing investigation.

In response to States Newsroom’s request for comment, Department of Justice spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre wrote in an email, “I can confirm receipt of the letter but will decline to comment further.”

‘Never-before-seen’ Epstein island photos 

The letter to Bondi comes as Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released “never-before-seen” photos and videos of Epstein’s residence on Little Saint James, a small private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The committee requested the images from the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice as part of the lawmakers’ ongoing inquiry into Epstein’s activities.

“These new images are a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island. We are releasing these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our investigation and to help piece together the full picture of Epstein’s horrific crimes. We won’t stop fighting until we deliver justice for the survivors,” committee ranking member Robert Garcia said in a statement.

Some of the files, released publicly in a cloud folder, contain images of furnished bedrooms, bathrooms, a room with masks on the wall and what appears to be a dental exam chair, a telephone with a list of names on speed dial, some redacted, and a chalkboard with notes, some redacted, containing what appear to be the words “power” and “deception.”

Videos reveal a large compound with an inground swimming pool and winding stone walkway toward the sea, as well as short clips of bedrooms and at least one medicine cabinet.

The Republican-led committee investigation began in August and is separate from the new law requiring the Justice Department’s disclosure of evidence. 

Committee Republicans did not publish a press release as of Wednesday afternoon on the Democrats’ release of the images and videos.

Last month, committee Democrats released select emails provided by Epstein’s estate. Within hours, committee Republicans released a cache of 23,000 pages of correspondence.

The committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has issued several subpoenas, including one to the Department of Justice for all Epstein investigation files. Others include subpoenas to interview Epstein’s co-conspirator and convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and several former attorneys general.

Epstein had over 1,000 victims, according to the FBI.

Epstein, a former hedge fund manager who claimed he only managed assets for billionaires, pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting sex from a minor and soliciting prostitution. 

He avoided a federal investigation when the then-U.S. attorney in Miami, Alex Acosta, cut the plea deal with Florida prosecutors.

Acosta would later become Trump’s Labor secretary in 2017.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, right, looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting of his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House on Dec. 2, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Tuesday he did not witness a controversial — and potentially illegal — second strike in early September that killed two survivors clinging to a burning alleged drug-running boat off the Venezuelan coast.

The secretary’s exact order in the Sept. 2 strike has been under scrutiny after The Washington Post reported Friday that Hegseth gave a verbal directive to “kill everybody” that in turn led the commanding admiral to order a follow-on strike to kill two alleged drug smugglers who survived an initial attack.

Hegseth’s comments responded to a reporter’s question at the end of President Donald Trump’s livestreamed two-hour Cabinet meeting. 

“I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War we got a lot of things to do, so … I moved on to my next meeting,” Hegseth told reporters. 

The secretary said he learned a “couple of hours later” that Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley “made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.”

When pressed by the reporter if he saw any survivors after the initial strike, Hegseth said “I did not personally see survivors … the thing was on fire.”

“This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand,” he replied.

Hegseth said he didn’t know the exact amount of time between the first and second strikes. He declined to answer follow-up questions.

Bipartisan lawmakers on the Senate and House Armed Services committees announced probes over the weekend into the follow-on strike that killed the survivors. Numerous military law experts argue killing survivors of a shipwreck is in clear violation of the Pentagon’s laws of war.

Hegseth authorized strike

Hegseth initially called The Washington Post investigative report “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory,” in a post on social media Friday.

On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during the daily briefing that Hegseth had “authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes.”

“Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt said at the briefing.

On social media Monday night, Hegseth wrote: “Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.”

A New York Times article Monday, citing five U.S. officials who spoke separately on the condition of anonymity, reported that Hegseth gave an initial written order for an operation to kill the alleged drug smugglers on the boat and destroy the entire vessel. 

The officials said Hegseth did not address additional steps if the first missile did not accomplish both goals, and that he did not give Bradley additional orders in response to video surveillance of the boat, according to the Times, which wrote that Bradley ordered “several” follow-on shots.

The strike in question was the first of nearly two dozen U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea, which the administration alleges are smuggling narcotics. The operations, over several months, have killed 83 individuals, according to a CNN timeline.

‘I rely on Pete’

Trump defended Hegseth at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, saying “Pete’s done an amazing job.”

Regarding the attack, Trump downplayed the importance of a follow-on strike.

“I still haven’t gotten a lot of information, because I rely on Pete, but to me, it was an attack. It wasn’t one strike, two strikes, three strikes,” he said.

“Pete didn’t know about a second attack having to do with two people. And I guess Pete would have to speak to it. I can say this, I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we’ll attack on land also, just like we attack on sea,” Trump said.

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he “wouldn’t have wanted that,” referring to the killing of two men clinging to the wreckage. 

“Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump continued.

Trump posted Sept. 2 on his Truth Social platform a 29-second edited video of the attack.

On Sept. 3, Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” played the video from Trump’s post on repeat while interviewing Hegseth, who told the hosts that 11 alleged “narco-terrorists” were killed in the attack.

“I watched it live. We knew exactly what they were doing and we knew exactly who they represented,” Hegseth said on the network’s talk show, which he hosted on weekends prior to being appointed and confirmed as secretary of Defense.

The Intercept first reported on Sept. 10 that survivors of the initial Sept. 2 strike were killed in follow-up blasts.

Congressional inquiries

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are now inquiring to learn if what happened on Sept. 2 amounts to a war crime. 

U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., issued a statement Tuesday, criticizing Hegseth and calling on Trump to fire him if he violated the laws of war.

“At the Pentagon, the buck stops with the Secretary of Defense, period,” Slotkin said.

The first-term Democrat and former CIA official recently participated in a video, now targeted by a Pentagon investigation, reminding service members that they have a right to refuse “illegal orders.”  

“True leaders own the calls they make and take responsibility for their actions. Secretary Hegseth should release the full video of the strike and lay out publicly what happened, without throwing the uniformed military under the bus,” Slotkin said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended the administration Tuesday when asked by reporters about the Sept. 2 event and Hegseth’s other controversies, including discussing real-time bombing of targets in Yemen in March on the publicly available app Signal.

“I think the Trump administration and the peace-through-strength policies that they are employing around the world are making our country safer, and so Secretary Hegseth is a part of that,” the South Dakota Republican said.

A makeshift memorial of flowers and American flags honoring the late West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom stands outside the Farragut West Metro station on Dec. 1, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has accelerated his drive to curb legal immigration, after a native of Afghanistan who had been granted asylum was accused in a shooting in the nation’s capital that left one member of the West Virginia National Guard dead and another in critical condition.

“In the wake of last week’s atrocity, it is more important than ever to finish carrying out the president’s mass deportation operation,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Monday’s press briefing. “They must go back to their home countries.”

The Trump administration at the beginning of the president’s second term launched an unprecedented crackdown on all forms of immigration. The deadly shooting on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, in a commercial area of the District of Columbia just blocks from the White House, has intensified the push.

The Department of Homeland Security in a social media post after the Wednesday attack called for immigrants to “remigrate,” which is a far-right concept in Europe that calls for the ethnic removal of non-white minority populations through mass migration.

“There is more work to be done,” Leavitt said, “because President Trump believes that he has a sacred obligation to reverse the calamity of mass unchecked migration into our country.”

The suspect in the guard shooting is a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the country during the Biden administration through a special immigrant visa program for Afghan allies after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021. 

Authorities identified him as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who worked for a CIA counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan, according to the New York Times. He was granted asylum under the Trump administration earlier this year.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia plans to charge Lakanwal with first-degree murder after one of the National Guard soldiers, U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died as a result of her injuries. 

Still hospitalized is U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Trump has indicated he intends to honor both Beckstrom and Wolfe at the White House.

District officials said the shooting of guard members was “targeted,” but the motive remains under investigation. 

Pauses on asylum

Leavitt said the Trump administration will continue “to limit migration, both illegal and legal,” after the shooting.

Separately on Wednesday, the administration ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 330,000 nationals from Haiti, opening them up for deportations by February. 

Within hours of Wednesday’s shooting, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services halted all immigration requests from Afghanistan nationals. On Thursday, USCIS head Joseph Edlow announced that by direction of Trump the agency would reexamine every green card application from “every country of concern,” which are the 19 countries on the president’s travel ban list.  

And by Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed all U.S. embassies to suspend all visa approvals for individuals with passports from Afghanistan. 

Over the weekend, Trump told reporters that those pauses on asylum could last “a long time,” although it’s unclear what authority the executive branch has to suspend a law created by Congress through the 1980 Refugee Act. 

This is not the first time Trump has tried to end asylum this year, as there is a legal challenge to the president barring asylum seekers from making asylum claims at U.S. ports of entry.

Venezuelan boat strikes

During Monday’s press conference, Leavitt also defended the Trump administration’s continued deadly strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela allegedly containing drugs. The attacks have been occurring since September. 

The president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have stated, without evidence, that the boats’ operators are narco-terrorists and that the strikes are legal, since they have taken place in international waters. Roughly 80 people have been killed in nearly two dozen attacks since September. 

Leavitt disputed any questions of wrongdoing by the administration during a Sept. 2 strike, when two survivors clinging to boat wreckage were allegedly killed by a follow-on strike, as first reported by The Washington Post Friday.

“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war,” Leavitt said, adding that Hegseth authorized a military commander to conduct the operation.

However, the attacks have raised concern among members of Congress, and following the Post story, the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services committees moved to open bipartisan inquiries into the military strikes, with a focus on the alleged follow-on attack that killed two survivors. 

How the National Guard wound up in the district

Trump initially mobilized 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital in August after claiming a “crime emergency” in the district, despite a documented three-decade low in crime.

Many were instructed they would be carrying service weapons, The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 17. The White House effort was accompanied by a heightened U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in the district.

The mobilization then became tied up in court for months.

A federal district judge in the District of Columbia found the administration’s deployment of more than 2,000 guard troops in the city illegal but stayed her Nov. 20 decision for three weeks to give the administration time to appeal and remove the guard members from the district’s streets.

The guard troops had been expected to remain in the district through the end of February.

The administration filed an emergency motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a stay to be issued on the order by Thursday. The administration filed the emergency motion the same day as the attack on the two National Guard members.

Trump ordered an additional 500 guard members to the district following the shooting.

The Joint Task Force District of Columbia has been overseeing guard operations in the district, including units from the district, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies before the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee on June 10, 2025.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate and House Armed Services committees will open bipartisan inquiries into U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea, with a focus on an alleged follow-on attack that The Washington Post reported killed two survivors of the initial operation.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., issued a joint statement Friday promising “vigorous oversight” of the killings.

“The Committee is aware of recent news reports — and the Department of Defense’s initial response — regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM (Southern Command) area of responsibility. The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances,” Wicker and Reed said.

Similarly, House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a joint statement Saturday that the panel “is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”

“We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question,” according to the statement.

The inquiries mark a rare bipartisan check on President Donald Trump’s administration since his second term began in January. With the exception of voting to release the federal case files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which Trump eventually endorsed, Republicans have largely left Trump’s decisions and policies unchallenged.

Follow-on attack reported

Lawmakers’ attention was retrained on the already legally questionable U.S. operations targeting alleged narcotics boats after an investigative report published Friday by The Washington Post revealed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave verbal orders to kill everyone during a Sept. 2 operation —  the first of several U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea that have killed roughly 80.

According to the report, two survivors clung to burning wreckage after an initial hit. Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, who was commanding the attack from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, ordered a second, or follow-on, strike to fulfill Hegseth’s order and kill the remaining survivors. States Newsroom has not independently confirmed the details.

Hegseth called the report “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory,” in a post on social media Friday.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday the follow-on strike could rise “to the level of a war crime if it’s true.”

“If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DoD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance,” Kaine said.

A working group of former military lawyers issued a statement Friday urging Congress to investigate the Sept. 2 strike.

“Since orders to kill survivors of an attack at sea are ‘patently illegal,’ anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both,” according to the statement published by Just Security, a journal focused on national security published by the New York University School of Law Reiss Center on Law and Security.

A bipartisan effort, led by Kaine, to stop Trump’s deadly strikes in the Caribbean narrowly failed in the Senate in early November.

White House confirms second strike

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was met with numerous questions about the Post report at Monday’s press briefing.

A reporter asked Leavitt, “Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?”

“The latter is true, and I have a statement to read for you here,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump and Hegseth have authority to conduct lethal attacks on designated narco-terrorist groups.

“With respect to the strikes in question on Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” she said. “Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”

Leavitt’s statement was not entirely consistent with Hegseth’s denial on Friday, in which he called the reporting “fabricated.”

Trump echoes Hegseth denial

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted that” when asked about the alleged follow-on strike that killed the two survivors.

“The first strike was very lethal. It was fine, and if there were two people around — but Pete (Hegseth) said that didn’t happen,” Trump told reporters. 

“Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump continued in a back-and-forth with the press.

Trump also said Saturday he was closing the airspace above Venezuela, but told a reporter who asked Sunday if the move previewed a U.S. airstrike of the country not to “read anything into it.”

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” he wrote on his own social media platform just before 8 a.m. Eastern Saturday.

Trump confirmed reports he spoke to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro late last month but would not reveal details of the conversation.

The U.S. has been amassing Navy vessels and troops off the coast of Venezuela for months, including the recent addition in mid-November of the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford.

A small memorial of flowers and an American flag outside the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., near where two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot on Nov. 26. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced Friday it has charged the man who allegedly shot two National Guard members earlier this week with first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died as a result of her injuries. 

Other charges include three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed. 

The attack shocked the country and has led to a renewed discussion about immigration policy as well as the war in Afghanistan and how the country withdrew during the Biden administration. 

President Donald Trump announced late Thursday night he intends to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” though he didn’t specify which countries would be included or exactly how such an order would be implemented. 

Trump wrote on social media he plans to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

The post came just hours after U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from injuries she sustained during a Wednesday shooting a couple of blocks from the White House. The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remained hospitalized in critical condition. Both were West Virginia National Guard members.

The alleged shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national who worked with United States forces, entered the country on Sept. 8, 2021, as part of Operation Allies Welcome, according to a statement from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

No details of immigration proposals

The White House press office declined to say Friday which countries would have their residents barred from entering the United States under the new order, referring back to the president’s social media posts, which did not include a list.

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump wrote. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a Thursday afternoon statement the administration would pause immigration applications for Afghan nationals.

“Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” she wrote. 

The Trump administration will also review “all asylum cases approved under the Biden Administration,” McLaughlin said, saying those cases required more vetting. 

Biden Afghanistan policy blamed

In a separate post, Trump blamed former President Joe Biden for allowing the alleged shooter into the country. 

McLaughlin echoed that sentiment.

Lakanwal “was paroled in by the Biden Administration. After that, Biden signed into law that parole program, and then entered into the 2023 Ahmed Court Settlement, which bound (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) to adjudicate his asylum claim on an expedited basis. Regardless if his asylum was granted or not, this monster would not have been removed because of his parole.” 

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, following two decades of war that began as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been widely criticized.

Many of the Afghan nationals who aided the United States and allied countries were left behind as the Taliban quickly regained control. 

The nonprofit #AfghanEvac, formed in August 2021 to help resettle Afghan refugees, criticized the administration’s proposal to indefinitely halt the processing of immigration requests from Afghans.  

“Our allies are under attack today because of the actions of one deranged man. Those actions should not be ascribed to an entire community,” the organization posted on social media late Thursday.

In a lengthier statement issued Wednesday following the shooting of two National Guard members, the organization’s president, Shawn VanDiver, said #AfghanEvac “expects and fully supports the perpetrator facing full accountability and prosecution under the law.”

VanDiver continued: “AfghanEvac rejects any attempt to leverage this tragedy as a political ploy to isolate or harm Afghans who have resettled in the United States.”

Motive unknown

Lakanwal had been residing in Washington state and drove across the country before the shooting, according to Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Officials investigating the shooting have yet to release a possible motive.

Lakanwal was granted asylum in the U.S. in April, according to reporting by many media outlets, including NPR.

The Department of Homeland Security did not confirm for States Newsroom the date Lakanwal was granted asylum.

FBI Director Kash Patel, left, at a press conference on Nov. 27, 2025, looks at photos of the two West Virginia National Guard soldiers shot in Washington, D.C., the previous day. They were identified as Andrew Wolfe, 24, and Sarah Beckstrom, 20.  (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — West Virginia National Guard member U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, one of the victims of a shooting near the White House, died Thursday, President Donald Trump said.

“She’s just passed away,” Trump said. “She’s no longer with us. She’s looking down at us.”

Trump, who was speaking with members of the military via video, said she was “magnificent in every way.”

A White House official said Trump spoke with Beckstrom’s parents on Thursday night.

The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, underwent surgery and remained hospitalized in Washington, D.C., in critical condition.

“The other young man is fighting for his life,” Trump said. 

Earlier Thursday, federal law enforcement officials examined evidence collected from the home of the alleged lone gunman, who drove to the nation’s capital from Washington state to target the troops, officials said.

They did not disclose a motive for the attack in a busy area of offices and retail just blocks from the White House, the day before Thanksgiving.

Beckstrom and Wolfe underwent surgery and were hospitalized  after the suspect allegedly shot them in broad daylight Wednesday, according to Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

A military press release said Beckstrom, of Summersville, was assigned to the 863rd Military Police Company, 111th Engineer Brigade. Wolfe, of Martinsburg, was assigned to the Force Support Squadron, 167th Airlift Wing. 

Wolfe entered service on Feb. 5, 2019 and had been on orders in the district since the beginning of the mission in August. Beckstrom entered service on June 26, 2023 and also had been in the district since August.

“Their families are with them now. They are critical. I think you understand the meaning of that,” Pirro told reporters at a Thursday morning briefing.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan refugee who worked with U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is currently facing three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, Pirro said, adding the charges are “appropriate” for now.

“It’s not clear, you know, how this is going to end up. But let me be perfectly clear about how it will end up in this office if one of them is to pass. And God forbid that happens, this is a murder one (charge). Period. End of the story,” Pirro said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Thursday morning the Department of Justice will seek the death penalty if either of the guard members succumbs to their injuries.

Bondi said Beckstrom had volunteered to work over the holiday.

Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard, commanding general of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, told reporters, “Regardless of the outcome, we know that their lives, their family life, their families’ lives are all changed forever because one person decided to do this horrific and evil thing.”

Pirro said the suspect “drove his vehicle across the country from the state of Washington with the intended target of coming to our nation’s capital.” 

Trump mobilized 800 National Guard members to the district in August, on the grounds of a “crime emergency,” despite a nearly 30-year low in violent crime in the city. 

Some of the guard troops were instructed they would be carrying service weapons while deployed in the district, according to an Aug. 17 report in the Wall Street Journal. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday the administration will send an additional 500 National Guard troops to the district.

Fellow guard troops responded ‘immediately’

Shortly after 2 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, at 17th and I streets NW, near the Farragut West Metro station, Lakanwal allegedly shot the first guard member, then “leans over and strikes the guardsman again,” Pirro said, not identifying which member was initially struck. 

Lakanwal then struck the second guard member “several times,” she said.

“Fellow guardsmen who were there responded immediately, engaging the suspect, neutralizing the threat, and subduing him at the scene. He was transported to a local hospital, where he remains as we speak, under heavy guard. Thanks to the swift and coordinated response of the National Guard and the Metropolitan Police Department, no additional victims were harmed, and the scene was secured within minutes,” Pirro said.

Kash Patel, director of the FBI, said the agency searched Lakanwal’s home last night in Bellingham, Washington, seizing multiple electronic devices and interviewing family members. Patel said the suspect is believed to have five children.

The gun Lakanwal used in the attack, a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver, is being analyzed at the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, Patel said.

Patel said the FBI is also interviewing interested parties in San Diego but would not provide further details on the “ongoing investigation.”

A ‘relationship’ with ‘partner forces’ in Afghanistan

Patel told reporters that he spoke to CIA Director John Ratcliffe Wednesday night and obtained “confirmation now that the subject had a relationship in Afghanistan with partner forces.”

“We are fully investigating that aspect of his background as well, to include any known associates that are either overseas or here in the United States of America,” Patel said.

Patel would not answer reporters’ questions about whether and when Lakanwal had been granted asylum in the U.S. 

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for a timeline.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a statement Wednesday night confirming Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2021, as part of the Operation Allies Welcome.

The program was established after the U.S. military’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan “to support vulnerable Afghans, including those who worked alongside us in Afghanistan for the past two decades, as they safely resettle in the United States,” according to Department of Homeland archived information.

Noem did not provide any further information on Lakanwal’s asylum process.

The administration announced Wednesday night it will immediately halt any immigration requests from Afghan nationals.

Lakanwal had worked with a CIA-backed military unit in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, Fox News reported Wednesday night. The CIA did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Guard deployment in the courts

Last week, a District of Columbia federal judge found the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the city illegal. However, Judge Jia Cobb paused her order for three weeks to give the Trump administration time to remove the guard members along with appealing her ruling.  

More than 2,000 members of the guard have remained in the district, and are expected to stay until the end of February, according to Cobb’s order.

The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an emergency motion to intervene.

Members of law enforcement and National Guard soldiers respond to a shooting of two National Guard members on Nov. 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Two National Guard members from West Virginia were in critical condition Wednesday evening after being shot near the White House in Washington, D.C., officials said.

FBI Director Kash Patel, a Metropolitan Police Department leader and Mayor Muriel Bowser emphasized during a press conference the investigation was in the preliminary stages, but said the shooting was “targeted” and that one suspect, who was also shot, was in custody. 

“At approximately 2:15 this afternoon, members of the D.C. National Guard were on high visibility patrols in the area of 17th and I Street Northwest when a suspect came around the corner, raised his arm with a firearm and discharged at the National Guard members,” MPD Executive Assistant Chief Jeffery Carroll said. 

“There were other (National Guard) members that were in the area. They were able to, after some back and forth … subdue the individual and bring them into custody,” Carroll added. “Within moments, members of law enforcement in the area were also able to assist and bring that individual into custody.”

The Department of Homeland Security in a press release late Wednesday identified the suspect as an Afghan national who entered the U.S. in September 2021. Numerous news reports gave his name as Rahmanullah Lakanwal. The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly, reported the suspect sustained “injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted late Wednesday that “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”

Carroll said there were no other suspects at the time of the press conference, in the early evening, and that law enforcement officials had reviewed video footage from the area where the shooting took place. 

“It appears, like I said, to be a lone gunman that raised the firearm and ambushed these members of the National Guard, and he was quickly taken into custody by other National Guard members and law enforcement members,” he said. 

The guardsmen were armed, but Carroll said investigators had not yet determined if they shot back or how the suspect, whom he did not name, was shot. 

“At this point, we’re still investigating exactly who shot the individual. It’s not clear at this time,” he said. 

Officials were also not yet sure “what kind of weapon” the suspect used during the shooting, which Carroll said “happened right in front of the Metro, although there is no indication that the perpetrator was on the Metro.” The Metro is the district’s public transit system.

Bowser reiterated during the press conference that the two National Guard members were in critical condition and referred to the shooting as “targeted.” 

Trump delivers remarks

President Donald Trump delivered brief remarks Wednesday night from Florida, condemning the “monstrous, ambush-style attack.”

Trump praised his deployment of guard troops to the district as “part of the most successful public safety and national security mission in the history of our nation’s capital.”

“This heinous assault was an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. It was a crime against humanity. The hearts of all Americans tonight are with those two members of the West Virginia National Guard and their families,” Trump said in a recorded video message posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, around 9:20 p.m. Eastern. 

Trump said “based on the best available information” the suspect is from Afghanistan, which he called “a hellhole on Earth” and that he had been “flown in” by former President Joe Biden.

Trump said his administration will “re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.” 

Biden established a program to bring Afghans who assisted American troops during two decades of war to the United States after his administration withdrew troops in August 2021.

FBI and partners to lead investigation

Patel said the investigation will be treated as an assault on a federal law enforcement officer. 

“The FBI will lead out on that mission with our interagency partners to include the Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, ATF, DEA, and we’re thankful for the mayor’s assistance in this matter,” Patel said. “The Metropolitan Police Department and their skills in investigating homicides and gun shootings in this city is exceptional. 

“We will work together collaboratively, because this is a matter of national security, because it’s a matter of pride.”

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey wrote on social media before the press conference that the guard members had died, though he later posted he was hearing “conflicting reports about the condition of our two Guard members and will provide additional updates once we receive more complete information.”

“Our prayers are with these brave service members, their families, and the entire Guard community,” he added. 

Trump was briefed on the shooting and was “actively monitoring this tragic situation,” according to a statement Wednesday afternoon from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The shooting happened just one day before Thanksgiving. 

Trump posted on social media that both guardsmen were “critically wounded” and taken to two separate hospitals. The shooter, he added, was “also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price.”

Trump mobilized 800 National Guard members to the district in August, on the grounds of a “crime emergency,” despite a nearly 30-year low in violent crime in the city. 

Some of the guard troops were instructed they would be carrying service weapons while deployed in the district, according to an Aug. 17 report in the Wall Street Journal. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday the administration will send an additional 500 National Guard troops to the district.

“This will only stiffen our resolve to ensure that we make Washington DC safe and beautiful,” Hegseth said.

The White House was placed on lockdown for a period due to the shooting, according to a White House official. Trump and first lady Melania Trump were not present at the time of the shooting.

Last week, a District of Columbia federal judge found the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the city illegal. However, Judge Jia Cobb paused her order for three weeks to give the Trump administration time to remove the guard members along with appealing her ruling.  

More than 2,000 members of the guard have remained in the district, and are expected to stay until the end of February, according to Cobb’s order.

The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an emergency motion to intervene.

When Trump mobilized the Guard, he also federalized the district’s police force for 30 days. While the federalization of the police force expired, Trump has kept the National Guard in the district.

Since then, Republican governors have agreed to send their own Guard members to the district, from Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia, among others. 

Lawmakers react

Members of Congress responded to the initial reports of the shooting with prayers and gratitude for the service members. 

“Praying for the National Guard members wounded in this horrific shooting,” U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on social media. “Thankful for the brave law enforcement officers and first responders who swiftly apprehended a suspect. There is no place for violence in America.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, called for prayers for the victims. 

“Join me in praying for the two National Guardsmen shot in D.C. and their families,” she said. “Our men and women in uniform truly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and deserve our greatest respect.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote he was “closely monitoring the situation and am praying for the wounded National Guardsmen and their families.”

“My heart breaks for the victims of this horrific shooting in Washington DC near the White House,” Schumer wrote. “I thank all the first responders for their quick action to capture the suspect.”

Speaking in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Vice President JD Vance, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said the attack was “a somber reminder.”

“Our soldiers are the sword and the shield of the United States of America,” he said. “And as a person who goes into work every single day in that building and knows that there are a lot of people who wear the uniform of the United States Army, let me just say very personally thank them for what they’re doing.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrote that his “thoughts and prayers are with the National Guardsmen who were attacked this afternoon. I urge you to keep them in your prayers too.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote the “National Guard has done heroic work this year working around the clock to make our nation’s capital safe again. We are forever grateful for the swift actions of law enforcement and for all those who risk their own lives to protect everyone else.”

Jacob Fischler and Leann Ray contributed to this report.