Judges reject Trump pick for top New Jersey federal prosecutor, DOJ removes successor
The judges on the U.S. District Court in New Jersey named Desiree Grace, the second highest-ranking official in the U.S. attorney's office, to replace Habba on Tuesday. Hours later Attorney General Pam Bondi said Grace had been removed.
"This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President's core Article II powers," Bondi wrote in a post on X, referring to Trump's authority under the U.S. Constitution.
Federal law allows district courts to intervene if an interim U.S. attorney has not received Senate approval within 120 days.
Democrats condemned the removal of Grace. "The firing of a career public servant, lawfully appointed by the court, is another blatant attempt to intimidate anyone that doesn't agree with them and undermine judicial independence," Democratic U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim from New Jersey said in a joint statement.
Habba has been serving as New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the court agreed to keep her in place. The U.S. Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, submitted by Trump this month.
Habba and Grace could not be immediately reached for comment.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement on X that the U.S. District Court in New Jersey was trying to "force" Habba out of her job before her term expires at 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York last week declined to keep Trump's U.S. attorney pick John Sarcone in place after his 120-day term neared expiration.
Sarcone managed to stay in the office after the Justice Department found a workaround by naming him as "special attorney to the attorney general," according to the New York Times.
The Justice Department cannot make a similar arrangement for Habba, however, because federal law prohibits the government from appointing someone to serve in an acting capacity if the individual was already nominated by the president to serve in that role.
Habba's brief tenure as New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney included the filing of multiple legal actions against Democratic elected officials.
Her office brought criminal charges against Democratic U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver, as she and other members of Congress and Newark's Democratic mayor, Ras Baraka, tried to visit an immigration detention center.
The scene grew chaotic after immigration agents tried to arrest Baraka for trespassing, and McIver's elbows appeared to make brief contact with an immigration officer.
Habba's office charged McIver with two counts of assaulting and impeding a law enforcement officer. McIver has pleaded not guilty.
Habba's office did not follow Justice Department rules which require prosecutors to seek permission from the Public Integrity Section before bringing criminal charges against a member of Congress for conduct related to their official duties.
Habba's office also charged Baraka, but later dropped the case, prompting a federal magistrate judge to criticize her office for its handling of the matter.
Until March, Habba had never worked as a prosecutor.
She has represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1 million for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump's reputation in the investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
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Daily Mail
4 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Sick sci-fi sex fantasy written by Epstein's first benefactor people say inspired his twisted island... before author's SON ended up arresting him
An obscure 1970s sci-fi novel — packed with graphic depictions of teenage sex slaves, breeding clinics, and aristocratic rapists — is suddenly one of the most talked-about books on the internet. Conspiracy theorists have drawn eerie parallels between its disturbing plot and Jeffrey Epstein 's real-world sex trafficking ring. The book in question, Space Relations: A Slightly Gothic Interplanetary Tale, published in 1973 by Donald Barr — a former headmaster of a New York City prep school and father of Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr — has found itself at the heart of a tangled web of online controversy. Fueling the speculation is the fact that Donald Barr, a former CIA officer, once served as headmaster at the prestigious Dalton School on the Upper East Side, where Jeffrey Epstein taught in the mid-1970s, despite lacking a college degree. Though Donald Barr had stepped down by the time Epstein was hired, conspiracy theorists have seized on the timing, the lurid novel, and his son Bill Barr's role in Epstein's 2019 death in custody — as proof of a sinister connection. 'The Internet is abuzz with many bizarre theories,' reviewer Justin Tate posted on Goodreads about the 250-page book, which is now being sold online for as much as $4,000 a copy. 'Some read Space Relations like it's the Da Vinci Code, with hidden clues that might even reveal who killed Epstein. Others marvel over loose connections between Barr's plot and Epstein's crimes.' What has most stunned readers is how eerily similar the fictional universe is to the real-life sex trafficking empire run by Epstein, who abused scores of underage girls in New York, Palm Beach and his now-infamous private island. The plot of Space Relations follows John Craig, an Earth diplomat captured and enslaved on a distant planet called Kossar, where the ruling aristocracy maintains a brutal regime of sexual domination and forced breeding. Craig ultimately becomes a servant to Lady Morgan Sidney, a sadistic elite described as having 'high breasts and long thighs', and is compelled to rape a teenage slave girl as part of an intergalactic breeding clinic. Critics have called the book 'cheesy', 'bad writing' and 'incredibly creepy' — but that hasn't stopped a cult following from forming among collectors, conspiracy theorists, and critics of America's ruling class, who say the novel reads more like a disturbing prophecy than fiction. Just one year after Space Relations hit shelves, Donald Barr was headmaster at Dalton. In 1974, Epstein, then a college dropout in his early 20s with no teaching qualifications, landed a job there teaching math and physics. His brief stint at the school is widely seen as the springboard for his later social climbing — and grooming. It's never been definitively confirmed that Donald Barr personally hired Epstein. But it's that foggy link — between the bizarre content of the novel, Epstein's inexplicable employment, and Bill Barr's involvement decades later — that has sent the internet into a frenzy. Following Epstein's death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August 2019, then-Attorney General Bill Barr promised a full investigation, calling the circumstances a 'perfect storm of screw-ups' — including non-functioning security cameras and asleep guards. He ultimately accepted the ruling of suicide, despite widespread doubts and calls for deeper scrutiny. Recently, conservative YouTube host Tucker Carlson featured a segment exploring the connections, interviewing controversial history podcaster Darryl Cooper, who called the coincidences 'very strange and unacceptable'. Cooper questioned Bill Barr's motives for dismissing Epstein's death as a 'suicide before they'd finished the investigation.' Donald Barr's son, Bill, came under fire for his handling of the Epstein suicide investigation when he was President Donald Trump's Attorney General in 2019 'It could all be a coincidence, but the odds are against that,' said Cooper. The claims have been debunked by fact-checkers, including Snopes, which labeled the theories 'mostly false.' There is no proof Donald Barr, who died in 2004, played a role in Epstein's hiring, nor are there strong similarities between the fictional interplanetary sex ring in Space Relations and Epstein's real-life criminal enterprise. Still, for a novel that once gathered dust on the back shelves of second-hand bookstores, Space Relations has found a strange second life — not as science fiction, but as the focus of one of the strangest conspiracies of the post-Epstein era. 1999 - Virginia Roberts Giuffre is allegedly recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell to became Epstein's 'sex slave,' at 17. She also claimed that he forced her to have sex with his friend Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth. 2002 - Trump tells New York Magazine that his friend Epstein 'likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' 2005 - A 14-year-old girl tells police that Epstein molested her at his Palm Beach mansion. May 2006 - Epstein and two of his associates are charged with multiple counts of unlawful sex acts with a minor. State attorney of the time Barry Krischer, referred the case to a grand jury who heard from just two of the 12 girls law enforcement had gathered as potential witnesses. They returned just one single count of soliciting prostitution. July 2006 - The case is referred to the FBI by the Florida Palm Beach police who were unhappy with how the case was handled. 2007 - Epstein's lawyers meet with Miami's top federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta, who would later become the Secretary of Labor in the Trump administration. They secretly negotiate the 'deal of a lifetime'. June 2008 - After pleading guilty to two prostitution charges, the millionaire was sentenced to 18 months in a low-security prison in exchange for prosecutors ending their investigation into his sex acts with minors and give him immunity from future prosecution related to those charges. In reality, Epstein was able to work from his office six days a week while supposedly incarcerated at the jail. July 2008 - Accusers learned of the deal for the first time. July 2009 - Epstein is released from jail five months early. July 2018 - The Miami Herald publishes investigative journalist Julie K. 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The Guardian
11 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Forged signatures listed on New York City mayor's re-election campaign petition
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The Independent
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Once-loyal Target shoppers are finding alternatives after boycotts. Can the retail giant win them back?
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While the company's slow decline cannot be directly attributed to one factor, it seems clear from discourse online that the retailer is losing its once loyal customers. Arianna's feelings toward Target first changed last summer when the retail giant scaled back its Pride merchandise to appease conservatives after anti-LBGTQ+ individuals and groups boycotted the store and threatened employees in June 2023. Some conservatives took aim at Target in 2023 after it began selling transgender-inclusive clothing. Then Target pulled some of its inclusive clothing after the blowback, and scaled back its Pride collections, upsetting many in the LGBTQ community. Arianna began shopping at Target less, opting to go to local or thrift stores — before abandoning it entirely after it pulled its DEI iniatives. On Reddit and Facebook, people have started pages to recommend alternative places to shop for clothing, groceries, beauty products, and more 'Boycotting Target has freed me from so much unnecessary spending. No matter what Target does in the future, I'm forever changed and free from their grip. I buy all my basics at the local drug store or Costco and I'm saving instead of giving 'Walmart in lipstick' all my expendable money,' one Reddit user said. 'Target is so unbelievably expensive most of the time for the same things I could find at Walmart for half as much,' a Reddit user complained. 'Don't even get me started on the cost of groceries at Target. I seriously question how people afford to buy full carts of groceries. The only things I've bought were a drink and some hot pockets for lunch one day and maybe a bag of chips.' Target's CEO, Brian Cornell, has attributed some of the company's stagnation to customers buying less overall – in part due to uncertainty around Trump's tariffs. "The difficulty level has been incredibly high given the rates we're facing and the uncertainty about how these rates in different categories might evolve," Cornell said in May. "We're focused on supporting American families and how they manage their budgets." Cornell said Target would only raise prices as a 'last resort.' But it's unclear if affordable prices would win back formerly loyal customers. For Arianna, there isn't much Target can do to bring her back. 'They've had plenty of time to do right by their customers of all skin colors, religions, and sexualities, but they've chosen to bury their heads in the sand and pretend like they've done nothing wrong. I'm saving more money now since I refuse to go to their stores, and instead I'm putting money into local stores which helps my community,' Arianna said. 'Maybe I'll shop there once more if they have a huge going-out-of-business sale where I can get a ton of stuff for 90% off. Other than that, I'm done for good.'
