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A Virginia federal judge delivered a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department on Tuesday, refusing to let prosecutors search through a Washington Post reporter's seized electronics and taking control of the operation himself.

Magistrate Judge William Porter didn't mince words over the handing over of devices to government investigators.

Rep. Robert García (D-CA) accused the Trump administration Tuesday of illegally withholding FBI interviews with a survivor who accused President Trump of sexual assault on a minor. After reviewing unredacted files at DOJ headquarters, García stated that Oversight Democrats have confirmed the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld these interviews. García announced that Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation into the matter. The DOJ has faced criticism for weeks for scrubbing files from its public Epstein database, particularly documents containing allegations against Trump, including evidence that Ghislaine Maxwell may have possessed blackmail on the president. García emphasized that under the Oversight Committee's subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must be immediately shared with Congress and the public. An NPR report corroborated García's claims, finding the DOJ scrubbed "dozens of pages."

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Two Republicans in the House of Representatives are planning acts of defiance during President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, a new report revealed.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) plan to join Democrats in silently protesting the president and his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, Axios reported. Massie plans to sit with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and the Democratic side of the aisle in a rare show of bipartisanship. The two lawmakers led the charge to pass a bill requiring the Trump administration to release all Epstein files in its possession.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) is facing mounting calls from within his own party to resign as details trickle out about his alleged sexual misconduct against a House staffer who died in a gruesome suicide last year. But one of his Texas colleagues is pushing back on that whole effort: Rep. Troy Nehls.

Gonzales, who represents a sprawling district stretching from the San Antonio suburbs to the border near El Paso, allegedly carried on an extramarital affair with the staffer, Uvalde regional director Regina Santos-Aviles, and asked her over text to send him "sexy pics," which caused her to express discomfort.

President Donald Trump's two top lieutenants have turned America's diplomatic apparatus into a "catacomb," according to one analyst.

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer, have assumed the lead role in negotiations spanning the war in Ukraine to Middle East diplomacy and other matters. Despite their vast portfolio, the duo has largely turned the "nerve center of the world’s most consequential foreign-policy institution and more like the catacombs for diplomacy," Vivian Salama, staff writer at The Atlantic, reported on Tuesday.

One of President Donald Trump's hand-picked prosecutors suffered an "abject humiliation" in court recently, according to two experts.

Jeanine Pirro, Trump's U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., attempted to indict six Democratic lawmakers for making a social media video where they told military troops that they don't have to follow illegal orders. A grand jury refused to indict the lawmakers, and Trump's Department of Justice moved to drop the case on Tuesday.

President Trump faces obstacles from his own Justice Department as his administration attempts to avoid refunding over $170 billion in tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling. The Court determined Trump illegally used emergency economic powers but did not specify whether refunds were required. However, previous DOJ arguments could undermine efforts to block repayment. Government lawyers previously promised plaintiffs would "assuredly receive payment on their refund with interest" if they won, and trade lawyers expect judges to hold the administration to those promises. More than 1,500 tariff refund lawsuits are already pending. The DOJ stated it would not oppose the trade court's authority to order officials to recalculate tariffs and refund differences. Though the DOJ later added language conditioning its endorsement on a "final and unappealable decision," trade lawyers questioned what legal grounds could justify withholding refunds the Supreme Court found unlawfully taken.

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President Donald Trump's administration has been caught hiding Epstein sex trafficking case files that mention the president — and there's a key area in which more damning evidence may be found, former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday's edition of "Deadline: White House."

"Andrew, 90 percent of Americans have heard about the Epstein files. About 60 percent disapprove of Trump's handling of the Epstein files," said Wallace. "The mystery has been why is Trump taking on so much political water over an issue? If he is, as he keeps saying, if there's nothing to see here, do you feel like this reporting ... offers an explanation?"

Paramount is reportedly edging closer to a deal to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of HBO, CNN, and other media properties.

In a statement on Tuesday, Warner Bros. Discovery said Paramount's offer could "reasonably be expected" to lead to a "company superior proposal."