Live updates: DOJ to continue interview with Epstein partner Ghislaine Maxwell; Trump heads to Scotland
It was late afternoon on the last Friday in June, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Gordon was in his office in Tampa, Florida, interviewing a victim for an upcoming trial via Zoom.
Alongside a special agent, Gordon was preparing the victim to be a witness in a Justice Department case against a lawyer who the Justice Department alleged had been scamming clients.
There was a knock at the door, Gordon later told NBC News, and he didn't answer; at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida, there was a culture of not just popping in when the door is closed. But the door popped open, and there stood the office manager, ashen-faced.
The office manager is in charge of security, and Gordon thought for a moment that something might have happened to his family. Gordon muted the Zoom call, and the office manager handed him a piece of paper.
It was a one-page letter signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. He'd been terminated from federal service.
'No explanation. No advance warning. No description of what the cause was,' Gordon said in an interview. 'Now, I knew why. I knew it had to be my Jan. 6 work.'
Gordon had been senior trial counsel in the Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, which prosecuted alleged rioters involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. His title reflected some of the high-profile cases he'd taken on during the Jan. 6 investigation and the role he played in helping other federal prosecutors.
At the time of his firing, Gordon had long been working on other cases back home in Florida. He had recently been assigned to co-lead a case against two people accused of stealing more than $100 million from a medical trust for people with disabilities, as well as injured workers and retirees. Just two days before he was fired, he'd received an 'outstanding' rating on his performance review.
Now, along with two other recently fired Justice Department employees, Gordon is pushing back, suing the Trump administration late Thursday over their dismissals. The suit argues that the normal procedures federal employees are expected to go through to address their grievances — the Merit Systems Protection Board — are fundamentally broken because of the Trump administration's actions.
Read the full story here.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., today announced an immigration bill that would broaden pathways to obtain legal status and citizenship for longtime residents of the U.S, including Dreamers, highly skilled workers and asylum seekers.
The bill, called the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929, would make immigrants who have been living in the United States continuously for at least seven years eligible for permanent legal status. This would update an existing statute that was last amended in 1986, which set the cut off date for eligibility at 1972.
It would also provide a pathway for Dreamers, asylum-seekers and high-skilled workers with H-1B Visas to obtain green cards.
Padilla first introduced the bill in 2022 but it never got passed the Judiciary committee. A version was introduced in the House by Rep. Zoe Lofgren and similarly languished in committee. Both versions will be reintroduced on Monday, Padilla said.
'We believe this is the first step,' he said, adding that changing public opinion is the key ingredient this time.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 79% of Americans say immigration is a good thing compared to 64% in 2024. Support for allowing undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens has increased to 78% compared to 70% last year.
'What we're seeing in practice is not what people signed up for,' he said of Trump's immigration directives. 'The overreach, how extreme and cruel the administration has become about immigration enforcement, has shifted public opinion about Donald Trump and his policies.'
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said last night that he plans to continue his conversation with Epstein's longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell today. The two spoke for several hours yesterday as the administration seeks to probe Maxwell for additional information about Epstein's case.
Attorney General Pam Bondi chose Blanche to speak with Maxwell in an attempt to 'pursue justice' after a decision by the Justice Department to no longer release information from the federal investigation into Epstein roiled Trump's base.
'President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,' Bondi said this week on X.
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The agency's count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The U.N. and other international organizations see the ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, as the most reliable source of data on casualties. Brothers were held together Iair Horn is the oldest of three brothers who grew up in Argentina. He moved to Israel at age 20, followed by his middle brother, Amos. Eitan and their parents, long divorced, joined later. On Oct. 7, 2023, Eitan was visiting Iair at his home on Kibbutz Nir Oz when the sirens started, warning of incoming missiles. Soon they received text messages alerting them to the fact that militants had infiltrated the kibbutz. Militants entered Iair's home, where he was hiding in the reinforced safe room with Eitan. Iair attempted to hold the door shut until they began shooting through the door. Then he decided to surrender, worried they might use grenades or stronger weapons. Iair, who was immediately taken into Gaza, didn't know what had happened to his brother until around the 50th day of his captivity, when the militants placed the two brothers together, and Iair realized Eitan had also been kidnapped. Being together, even in their small, barred room, was a stroke of luck, Iair said. 'There's a lot of time with nothing to do, and we talked a lot about our childhoods, about elementary school, about the youth movement, about soccer,' he said. 'We tried to keep our sense of humor. He would ask me, did you brush your teeth? And I'd ask him, did you wash your bellybutton?' 'It was silly things, silly things between siblings that I don't have right now. Many times it happens now that something happens to me on the street that I have to tell him. And I can't, and I'm so sorry,' he said, starting to cry. Captors tell hostages that two will be released For most of the time, the Horn brothers were held with three other hostages. In early February, their captors came to the group of five and said that two would be released. 'For four days, we're looking at each other and wondering if we can decide or influence the decision,' he said. After four days, the captors arrived with a small plate of snacks and a video camera. They announced that Iair and another hostage would be leaving and filmed the emotional interaction between Iair and Eitan. Hamas later released the video on its social media channels, as it has with other videos of the hostages filmed under duress. Their last night together, Eitan and Iair laid side by side in silence. 'There was no conversation because in your head you don't want to have a conversation as if it's your last conversation,' Iair Horn said. When their mother, Ruty Chmiel Strum, learned that Iair was coming out but not Eitan, she said to anyone who would listen, "Why are you doing this to my sons? They are together and you're separating them?' No one gave her an answer, but Strum clung to hope that Eitan would be released soon. Now she mostly ignores news about the negotiations, tuning out the information to protect herself. She said she raised her three boys 'as a single body,' and their support for each other is unshakable. She clasps Iair's hand as they sit together on the couch in her home and looks forward to the day Eitan returns. 'I will feel the hug of my three sons, enjoying life, each supporting each other," she said. "It will happen.'
