TV News LIES

The US Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a resolution declaring its opposition to any presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.

Introduced by Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat of Nevada, the resolution states that Maxwell “should not be granted a Presidential pardon or any form of clemency for her crimes with Jeffrey Epstein relating to the sexual exploitation and abuse of minors”.

Although Senate resolutions like these are non-binding and symbolic, Rosen’s office noted in a news release in February when she introduced the measure that the resolution was “designed to put the Senate on record opposing the prospect” of Donald Trump of granting a pardon or clemency to Maxwell.

“It’s frankly horrifying that Trump would entertain the idea of clemency for even a second for a convicted sex trafficker,” Rosen said in a floor speech on Wednesday.

The resolution was brought on Wednesday, as the Senate weighed Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, to stay in the role permanently. Rosen said its unanimous passage sent a clear message to the White House and Blanche that “there should be NO special treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell”.

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The Senate judiciary committee has postponed a vote, scheduled for Thursday, on the nomination of Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, to be attorney general.

Blanche, who holds the role on an acting basis, apparently lacks the votes of two Republican senators who want him to confirm in writing that the Department of Justice will not proceed with a $1.776bn fund to compensate Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 2021, or a pledge to forever bar the IRS from investigating the tax returns of the president and his family.

The two senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, both lost their re-election bids this year in Republican primaries in which Trump backed their opponents.

A spokesperson for the committee, which is chaired by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley said in a statement:

“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure."

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The US Senate voted to confirm Jay Clayton as the director of national intelligence on Tuesday, giving Trump another key ally directing the nation’s intelligence apparatus.

The tally, 51-47, fell along party lines, with all Republicans supporting his nomination and all Democrats opposing it.

Clayton, currently the US attorney for the southern district of New York, will replace Bill Pulte, a staunch Trump loyalist who had been temporarily serving in the role since June. Trump’s first director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, resigned earlier this year. Clayton served as the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during Trump’s first term.

During his confirmation hearing on 15 July, Clayton sidestepped several questions about the 2020 election and declined to say that Trump lost it.

During an interview on CNBC in June, Clayton also suggested there was something amiss about the long period California takes to count ballots. “We had a problem, a deep problem with voting in America,” he said on the network. “On the integrity side, we’re doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it.” Clayton also would not say during his confirmation hearing whether voter fraud was a problem in American elections, even though several studies have shown it is exceedingly rare.

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A House Oversight Committee panel on Tuesday morning will weigh in on the CIA’s former MK-Ultra project — which for two decades used universities to test behavioral drugs and modification theories.

The Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), has amplified her push to uncover more details of the project. Earlier this year, Luna accused the CIA of pulling relevant documents from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which the department denied, and has called for more transparency on the alleged mind-control program.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday said the Senate will attempt to pass an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) enhanced surveillance powers without the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act attached, rebuffing President Trump’s demand to link the two bills.

Thune, who has repeatedly warned that letting Section 702 of FISA expire poses a risk to national security, said he would try to move an extension of the controversial surveillance law as a stand-alone measure. The provision, which allows the U.S. to spy on foreigners located abroad without a warrant, lapsed over the weekend.

“We will try and move 702 as soon as we feel like we have the votes to do it,” Thune told reporters.

The GOP leader told Punchbowl News on his way into the Capitol earlier Monday that it would be “unrealistic” to get the SAVE America Act passed simply by attaching it to an extension of FISA authorities.

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The White House is pushing Congress to approve a $250 bill bearing Donald Trump’s portrait, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said, which would require changing longstanding federal law that prohibits any living person from appearing on US currency.

Speaking from the White House at a news conference, Bessent said the bill would be in celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, and that the treasury has already started preparing for the possibility of the new currency.

“As treasury secretary, I have two mandates for US currency at present: that no living person can be on US currency, and the currency must say ‘In God we trust’,” Bessent said. “So, right now, there isproposed legislation in front of the House, in front of the Senate, to change the first requirement, so that a living person – Donald J Trump – could be on the $250 bill.”

The Washington Post reported that two of Trump’s political appointees at the treasury had pushed staff to start preparing prototypes of a $250 bill with Trump’s image, raising concerns that doing so would breach federal law.

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