TV News LIES

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Wednesday that he will resign from the bureau next month, ending a brief and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with the Justice Department over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and was forced to reconcile the realities of his law enforcement job with provocative claims he made in his prior role as a popular podcast host.

The departure would be among the highest-profile resignations of the Trump administration, coming as the firing of career agents has contributed to upheaval at the FBI and as Director Kash Patel faces continued criticism over his use of a government plane for personal purposes and social media posts about active investigations.

Bongino announced his departure, which had been expected, in a post on X in which he said he was grateful for the “opportunity to serve with purpose.” He did not say precisely when in January he would leave or reveal his future plans, but President Donald Trump, in response to a question earlier in the day about Bongino’s fate, said: “Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show.”

Bongino was always an unconventional pick for the No. 2 job at the FBI, a position that historically has entailed oversight of the bureau’s day-to-day operations and has been typically held by a career agent. Though he had previously worked as a New York City police officer and Secret Service agent, neither he nor Patel had any experience at the FBI before being picked for their jobs. But both came in pledging overhauls to an FBI they insisted had been weaponized against Trum

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Jack Smith, the former DOJ special counsel, claimed in closed-door congressional testimony on Wednesday that investigators had proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump “criminally” conspired to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Smith made the remarks in his opening statement to lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said in his opening statement, which was obtained in advance by the Associated Press. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order designating the street drug fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

"The manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily performed by organized criminal networks, threatens our national security and fuels lawlessness in our hemisphere and at our borders," the order declared.

During an event in the Oval Office, Trump said the carnage fentanyl has caused in American families is worse than U.S. deaths in many wars.

"Two to three hundred thousand people die every year, that we know of, so we're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction," Trump said.

In fact, Trump's numbers are wildly inflated. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl killed roughly 48 thousand people in the U-S last year - a 27 percent drop from the year before.

Experts also say fentanyl would be difficult to use as a weapon of mass destruction. There is only one documented incident worldwide, in 2002, where the Russian government weaponized fentanyl in gas form. There have been no cases reported in the U.S.

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A US judge on Wednesday morning blocked the deployment by the federal government of national guard troops in Los Angeles and ordered the guard returned to the control of the California governor, a court filing showed.

The Trump administration is being challenged in federal court over its authority and ratio

In a historically rare move, the Trump administration federalized California’s national guard in June, dispatching about 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state.

Newsom called the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.

On Wednesday, the US district judge Charles Breyer rejected the Trump administration’s claim that recent protests against aggressive enforcement by the federal immigration authorities amounted to a rebellion.

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nale for continuing to maintain command over the national guard troops it deployed to the city earlier this year.

In a historically rare move, the Trump administration federalized California’s national guard in June, dispatching about 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state.

Newsom called the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.

On Wednesday, the US district judge Charles Breyer rejected the Trump administration’s claim that recent protests against aggressive enforcement by the federal immigration authorities amounted to a rebellion.

The Trump administration has removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from next year's calendar of entrance fee-free days for national parks and added President Trump's birthday to the list, according to the National Park Service, as the administration continues to push back against a reckoning of the country's racist history on federal lands.

In addition to Trump's birthday — which coincides with Flag Day (June 14) — the updated calendar of fee-free dates includes the 110th anniversary of the NPS (August 25), Constitution Day (September 17) and President Teddy Roosevelt's birthday (October 27). The changes will take effect starting January 1.

Non-U.S. residents will still be required to pay entrance fees on those dates under the new "America-first pricing" policy. At 11 of some of the country's most popular national parks, international visitors will be charged an extra $100, on top of the standard entrance fee, and the annual pass for non-residents will go up to $250. The annual pass for residents will be $80.

The move follows a July executive order from the White House that called to increase fees applied to non-American visitors to national parks and grant citizens and residents "preferential treatment with respect to any remaining recreational access rules, including permitting or lottery rules."

The Department of the Interior, which oversees NPS, called the new fee-exempted dates "patriotic fee-free days," in an announcement that lauded the changes as "Trump's commitment to making national parks more accessible, more affordable and more efficient for the American people."

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In this rural town just across the Massachusetts line, the Leavitt family runs a used-car dealership, with hulking work trucks lined up in the front lot. Inside the lobby, a giant TV blares Fox News, and a framed photo features President Donald Trump, posing with owners Bob and Erin Leavitt.

A New Hampshire family once best known for selling cars and ice cream, the Leavitts were thrust into the national spotlight this year when their 27-year-old daughter, Karoline, was named White House press secretary. Ten months later, the administration’s war on illegal immigration landed in the Leavitts’ backyard.

Bruna Ferreira — a Brazilian immigrant who shares an 11-year-old child with Karoline’s brother Michael Leavitt — was arrested by ICE in mid-November. Ferreira, 33, remains in custody in Louisiana. The boy lives with his father in New Hampshire.

Ferreira’s sister and lawyer had claimed there was no animosity between Ferreira and the Leavitts. But court records, police reports and family text chains reviewed by WBUR tell a vastly different story — one of a bitter custody battle, years-old allegations of a threat to call immigration authorities, and concerns for the well-being of the child when his mother was staying in a vacant mansion in Cohasset.

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