Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former intelligence officials, sharing the list in a move that prompted swift criticism that the Trump administration was politicizing clearances.

Among those on the list are several Biden administration officials, including Maher Bitar, who joined the National Security Council (NSC) after previously working for then-House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) amid the first Trump impeachment. Bitar has since returned to Schiff’s office, but he has captured the attention of right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who has complained on the social platform X about his retention of a clearance.

Emily Horne, an NSC spokesperson under Biden, also had her clearance revoked, as did Brett Holmgren, who most recently served as assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research and is married to former Biden White House counsel Dana Remus.

Gabbard, without evidence, accused those listed of politicizing or leaking intelligence or “committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.”

She said the move came at the direction of President Trump.

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Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier filed a writ of habeas corpus on Tuesday in the district court of Travis County, Texas, claiming the state legislature’s Republican majority has unlawfully detained her in the state Capitol after she refused to consent to 24-hour police surveillance.

Collier, a Democrat representing Fort Worth, is one of over 50 Texas Democratic legislators who fled the state on Aug. 3 to block Republicans from enacting a new congressional map at President Donald Trump’s urging to create five new GOP seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

The conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over lies about voting in the 2020 election.

The settlement came as the case was headed to trial. Earlier this year, Delaware superior court judge Eric Davis ruled that Newsmax had defamed the voting technology company by broadcasting false claims about its equipment afthttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/18/newsmax-election-lies-dominion-settlementer the 2020 election. A jury would have considered whether Newsmax was liable for damages. Dominion had sued the outlet for $1.6bn.

After the 2020 election, lies about the security of Dominion voting machines, which are widely used in the US, became central to Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him. Allies and other rightwing personalities made baseless claims that votes had been flipped and that the equipment was not secure.

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President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, a move he said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin supported.

Mailing ballots is a popular option for voters to avoid waiting in line at polling places on Election Day. Election-security officials say voting has never been more secure and that the president has no role overseeing elections. But Trump has long railed against mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud – despite election experts, including those in his first administration, who said mail-in voting is secure.

“We’re going to end mail-in voting," Trump told reporters Aug. 18 in the Oval Office. "It’s a fraud."

He reiterated arguments he made earlier in a social-media post. He argued elections would be more reliable if everyone voted in person with paper ballots rather than through machines.

“It’s very hard to cheat," Trump said of in-person voting.

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