Alexander Willis

In the lead up to Jeffrey Epstein’s second criminal indictment in 2019, the disgraced financier had “frantically” tried to turn his secretive compound in New Mexico into a “private municipality with its own governance structure and potentially its own law enforcement jurisdiction,” journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez exclusively reported on Friday.

A resident of New Mexico, Valdes-Rodriguez has uncovered a number of revelations regarding Epstein largely revolving around Zorro Ranch, including that the property may have been used to surveil two U.S. nuclear weapons labs using software compromised by Israeli intelligence.

On Friday, Valdes-Rodriguez reported that Epstein had apparently worked with a wealthy golf resort developer-turned lawyer in a scramble to turn the sprawling compound into a “town” with its own “legal identity.”

The effort was halted, however, by a major legal hurdle: “the lack of people living on the land,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.

New Mexico law requires a geographical area being petitioned to be incorporated as a municipality to have “not less than one person per acre.” The petition must also carry the signature of “not less than two hundred qualified electors.”

To circumvent the legal obstacle, Epstein contacted Gerald Barton, the wealthy golf resort developer-turned lawyer, who told him of a past workaround he had used to get around similar residency requirements in Oklahoma.

“We were moving several people to the site to live in mobile homes. They would have no idea what we intended to do with the property nor would the governmental authority,” Barton wrote to Epstein in an email dated April 26, 2018, exactly three months before his death of melanoma.

“I had assumed that New Mexico law would be similar to Oklahoma's and we would be able to choose those who would live on the property and be the spokesmen for the new town.”

Epstein’s reasons for exploring municipal status for his 7,600-acre property are unclear, but Valdes-Rodriguez noted the correspondence came just as famed reporter Julie K. Brown was “closing in on Epstein’s Florida operation,” and suggested he may have been looking to shift the bulk of his operations to a more secluded property where he could exert greater control over access.

However, Epstein’s inquiry was ultimately shot down by Barton, who recommended against pursuing the idea.

“Because my brief review of the New Mexico statutes leads me to believe you would have several public hearings and would be questioned on the motivation of the creation, I believe in the middle of this undeserved hysteria and the potential of an investigative reporter from the press, there is not a good risk-reward ratio,” Barton wrote. “Sorry.”

Now owned by Don Huffines, a billionaire businessman, GOP candidate and ally to President Donald Trump, Zorro Ranch was reportedly central to Epstein's disturbing plan to “seed the human race with his DNA,” and is also alleged to be the burial site of “two foreign girls,” according to an FBI tip recently released by the DOJ. Investigations into Zorro Ranch were underway back in 2019 before being abruptly shut down at the request of the Trump administration’s DOJ.

Newly unearthed court records reveal that in 2009, a woman accused President Donald Trump of having “knowledge” of Jeffrey Epstein’s “sexual desire for minor girls,” veteran journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez wrote — an accusation she noted had been “available to law enforcement for 17 years.”

The accusation was discovered in a set of written answers provided by a woman who claimed to have been abused by Epstein as a minor between 2002 and 2005 at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. The filing is part of a lawsuit the woman, whose name is redacted in the document, brought against Epstein in the Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County.

The set of written answers was in response to questions provided by Epstein and his attorneys, according to the filing, one of which asked the woman to “list the names of all persons who are believed or known by you to have any knowledge concerning any of the issues in this lawsuit.”

The woman’s attorney or attorneys responded with a list of more than 50 names. Fifth on that list was “Donald Trump,” written more than seven years before he would become president.

Next to the listed names was a brief description of their knowledge concerning the lawsuit; one was accused by the woman of arranging for “underage girls to go to and from Jeff’s island,” and another, of being “Epstein’s house manager during [the] time our client went to him.” Trump was explicitly accused of having “knowledge of finances and [Epstein’s] sexual desire for minor girls.”

In the other written responses, the woman did not mention Trump again, but did detail the alleged abuse she endured while at Epstein’s home, which she claimed to have visited “more than 100 times.”

“I was made to touch the Defendant. I also observed sexual acts and had sexual acts perpetrated on me by Defendant, Jeffrey Epstein. At various times I was unclothed, as was the Defendant and others,” reads the written response in the legal filing.

“At all times material, I was a child, under the age of 18 years. The Defendant also used me to bring him other minor girls and he controlled and brainwashed me into believing this lifestyle was healthy and normal for a girl my age.”

The woman claimed that Epstein had paid her $200 after each instance of sexual abuse, as well as $200 for “each minor girl” she “brought him for the purposes of him engaging in sex acts with them.”

Epstein’s legal team asked the woman for the names and addresses of “all males, excluding Mr. Epstein, with whom you have had sexual activity since age 10,” a question that the woman’s attorney or attorneys rejected to answer on the basis of relevancy and it being a “harassing” question.

The woman also claimed to have been previously interviewed by the FBI, an interview during which she claimed to have been represented by an attorney paid for by Epstein amid the first criminal investigation into the disgraced financier that started in 2005. A 2007 FBI interview with “Jane Doe 2” appears to be the interview she described given its inclusion of matching details, including Epstein’s alleged offer to pay her $200 for bringing other girls to him.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) took aim at President Donald Trump on Friday with an unfavorable comparison to former President Barack Obama that sent Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo into a furious on-air rebuttal.

While asking Khanna about Trump’s recent visit to China, Bartiromo made an offhand reference to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama-era agreement that unfroze Iranian assets in exchange for limits on Tehran’s nuclear program and international monitoring.

“President Obama actually sent Iran money,” Bartiromo claimed, before being refuted by Khanna.

“Maria, just so we're factual, he didn't send them money, it was their money that was unfrozen,” Khanna said.

Bartiromo pressed Khanna on why Iranian assets should have been unfrozen to begin with, and falsely claimed that the JCPOA did not include a “commitment that they would stop building a nuclear weapon,” despite the agreement explicitly including such a provision.

“For 15 years [under the JCPOA], 97% of enriched uranium out! Instead, what did we get? We ended up having 60% of enriched uranium when Trump tore up the deal!” Khanna said. “We have 13 American service members dead, we have Americans paying $4 at gas, we have food prices…”

As Khanna spoke, Bartiromo continually interrupted Khanna, prompting the California lawmaker to forcefully interject.

“Let me just finish, Maria!” Khanna said. “Look at the facts here: because Trump tore up the deal, Americans are dead, Americans are paying more for food, Americans are paying more for gas, the Strait of Hormuz is less secure, and the war is unpopular; 70% of Americans don't want this war, even Republicans are defecting!”

Bartiromo dismissed the unpopularity of the U.S. war against Iran, saying that “nobody wants war,” and adding that “we also don’t want a nuclear terrorist to have a nuclear weapon.”

“And Obama was on the road to achieving that!” Khanna quipped.

“No, no way! He didn't achieve anything!” Bartiromo snapped back. “Obama did squat! Obama did squat!”

President Donald Trump appears ready to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in exchange for a $1.7 billion settlement – an arrangement that left former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in disbelief on Friday.

“How is this not the biggest scandal in the United States right now?” Hasan asked in an analysis published Friday in Zeteo.

“How is a sitting president getting away with suing the government he is in charge of and then settling the case, effectively with himself, to gain access to more than a billion dollars of taxpayer cash, which could end up in the personal bank accounts of his cronies? Has there ever been a presidential scam quite like this?”

Trump sued the IRS in response to his tax returns being leaked in 2019, but according to an ABC News report published on Thursday, the president is willing to drop the suit in exchange for a $1.7 billion fund “to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system,” the outlet reported.

Even more shocking, Hasan argued, was the lack of oversight in the potential arrangement.

“Donald Trump is planning on using our tax dollars to (re)pay his friends – and his thugs,” Hasan wrote. “It’s a corrupt slush fund for MAGA. And I know some of you must be thinking, ‘But surely there must be some oversight of this money, some safeguards and protections for the American taxpayer? Nope. Nada. Zilch."

The fund would have “little oversight” and grant Trump the authority to “remove members of the commission running the fund without cause,” ABC News reported. The commission would also be “under no obligation to disclose its procedures or decision-making process for awarding more than a billion dollars,” the outlet’s report reads.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s failure to achieve regime change in its war against Iran, President Donald Trump has fixated on another objective – seizing the country’s supply of enriched uranium. But on Thursday, he made a startling admission that the effort was largely a public relations stunt.

“I’d just feel better if I got it, actually,” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday on Fox News with Sean Hannity. “But it’s… I think it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else.”

Moments after authorizing the first wave of U.S. attacks on Iran, Trump issued a direct call to the Iranian people to “take over your government.” In the weeks since, Trump repeatedly claimed that the United States had, in fact, enacted regime change in Iran, citing the number of Iranian officials killed by the United States and Israel.

Military and foreign policy experts, however, have refuted the claim.

“It's fair to say that there has been a leadership change in the regime, but the regime is still there because the basic structures, like the constitution, are intact,” said Mark F. Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking with the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact.

Seizing Iran’s existing supply of enriched uranium has become the new top objective for Trump, an apparent attempt to achieve his administration’s long-stated goal of removing Tehran’s ability to ever acquire a nuclear weapon. However, seizing Iran's existing supply of enriched uranium, argued Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, would not actually achieve that goal.

“You cannot unlearn what you've learned,” Grossi told CBS News.

Furthermore, such an operation “would involve probably thousands of U.S. troops on the ground for weeks in the middle of Iran,” argued military historian Max Boot.

President Donald Trump landed in China on Wednesday ahead of his high-stakes summit with President Xi Jinping, reportedly hoping for help with his deeply unpopular war against Iran – but Beijing residents interviewed by CNN were quick to pour cold water on the idea.

“I don't have a good impression of President Donald Trump at all,” one Beijing resident, identified as Mr. Liu, told CNN. “The U.S.-Iran conflict was stirred up by him, too. Look at the trade and economic war before, wasn't that him too?”

CNN’s Boris Sanchez said, citing U.S. officials, Trump is “expected to encourage Xi to push Iran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz,” a critical shipping waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil trade historically flows. On the ground in Beijing, CNN’s Mike Valerio reiterated Sanchez’s claim and expressed shock at the pushback he personally heard from Beijing residents.

“What's important for everybody back home in America to know: deals and getting help with the war in Iran are far and away the two biggest topics the president is going to raise in his meeting with President Xi Jinping,” Valerio said.

“In terms of asking for help from China to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, we went up and down throughout town in Beijing most of the day yesterday, and I was so struck by so many who told us they do not want China getting involved at all in this U.S.-Israeli war.”

Beijing resident Mr. Li, for instance, told CNN it was not China’s "diplomatic principle” to get involved in such matters. Ms. Yuan, another Beijing resident, was more blunt in her opposition.

“I don't think China should interfere too much in those kinds of issues,” she told CNN.

Trump’s visit to China already got off to “a rocky start,” according to the progressive advocacy platform Call To Activism, after the president stepped off Air Force One to be greeted not by Xi, but by lower-ranking Chinese officials, the optics of which Mary L. Trump, Trump’s niece, described as “humiliating.”

President Donald Trump made the stunning admission Tuesday that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” when making major decisions, and when asked about the remark by MeidasTouch’s Pablo Manriquez, several Republican lawmakers refused to weigh in.

Speaking with reporters on the White House lawn Tuesday, Trump was asked “to what extent” did “Americans’ financial situations” motivate him to secure an end to his war against Iran.

“Not even a little bit,” Trump answered. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran – they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”

Trump’s remarks were met with widespread condemnation from political commentators, and described by MS NOW’s Zeeshan Aleem as “the ideal video clip for midterm messaging” for Democrats. Republican lawmakers, however, when asked about the remarks, had little to say.

“I don’t know the context in which he made that comment, but I can tell you, the president thinks about Americans’ financial situations,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Wednesday when asked about the president’s remarks.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), when pressed by Manriquez on Tuesday, instinctively questioned whether Trump had actually said such remarks.

“Did he say that?” Lummis asked. “I don’t have a comment about that, mostly because I think he actually does care [about Americans’ financial situations].”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) also refused to comment on Trump’s remarks, claiming she hadn’t seen them herself, as did Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who told Manriquez he “would have to find out the context of it” before commenting.

In an analysis published on Wednesday, MS NOW political contributor Steve Benen predicted that Trump’s remarks would “likely not be forgotten anytime soon.” Regarding Johnson’s response to Trump’s remarks – that he didn’t “know the context in which he made that comment” – Benen offered the House GOP leader some cautionary advice.

“The trouble is, the context doesn’t help," Benen wrote. “‘I don’t think about anybody’ is one of those quotes that even the most creative GOP voices can’t spin away.”

President Donald Trump landed in Beijing, China Wednesday ahead of his high-stakes summit with President Xi Jinping, but critics soon noticed a key figure was absent during Trump’s arrival.

“Donald Trump has arrived in China to find that President Xi did NOT greet him at the airport,” reads a statement from the progressive advocacy platform Call To Activism, run by digital strategist and political influencer Joe Gallina.

“MAGA is in spin mode heralding the ‘red carpet treatment,’ but the visit is already at a rocky start. Instead of a presidential welcome, Trump was greeted by US Ambassador to China David Perdue; Xi’s vice president, Han Zheng; China’s Ambassador to Washington Xie Feng; and Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu.”

Trump was, in fact, not greeted by Xi as he stepped off Air Force One Wednesday, and instead met by other Chinese officials. Trump’s own niece, Mary L. Trump, took notice of what she characterized as a snub as well.

“Xi couldn't be bothered to meet Donald at the airport because he understands as well as Donald does that humiliating your underlings is a great way to keep them in check,” she wrote in a social media post on X to her more than 1.6 million followers.

As argued by journalist Charbel Antoun, Trump walks into the U.S.-China summit with a “weakened” hand given his inability to secure a peace deal with Iran amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war against the Middle East nation. And on Monday, Trump’s efforts to end the war on his own terms were undercut after Tehran agreed to a U.S.-Iran peace deal brokered by China.

Just moments after President Donald Trump and his entourage of officials and business leaders landed in Beijing, China, CNN data analyst Harry Enten dropped a series of brutal poll numbers on how Americans rate the president’s handling of China.

“In term number one, China was a strength for Donald Trump, Americans really liked what he was doing vis-à-vis China, and no longer is that the case,” Enten said on Wednesday, moments after Trump landed in China ahead of his two-day summit with President Xi Jinping.

“In term number one, he was at plus-nine points – that's pretty gosh-darned good! They liked the way Trump was dealing with China, but down he goes into the red sea, now at minus-15 points! That's a drop of nearly 25 points from where he was in term number one to now.”

In terms of which voters were driving Trump’s cratering poll numbers, Enten flagged two key groups: independent and non-college educated white voters, two groups that were critical to the president’s 2024 election victory.

According to the polling, which was sourced from the conservative network Fox News, independent and non-college-educated white voters supported Trump’s handling of China during his first term at margins of plus-9 and plus-34, respectively. Now, those figures have plummeted to minus-42 and minus-3, respectively.

Furthermore, worldwide favorability of the United States has plummeted since 2021 when compared with China.

“China's image is improving; the United States' image? Going down!” Enten said.

“It was plus-11 points in 2021; the latest numbers for the United States under Trump, look at that: minus-15, that's a switch-a-roo of over 25 points! So China's image [is] improving, the United States' image [is] going down under Trump just like his own numbers on China [are] going down here in the United States.”

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) took to Fox Business Wednesday to complain about his phone being confiscated by law enforcement in 2024 as part of a federal probe into his campaign finance filings, an incident so impactful, he claimed, that his child “still has nightmares” about former President Joe Biden.

“The impact that has on your family... my little one still has nightmares, afraid that his dad is gonna be taken away by big, bad Biden and his Department of Justice,” Ogles told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo. “That should never happen again!”

Ogles was the subject of a federal investigation for indicating in his campaign finance filings that he had loaned his 2022 campaign $320,000, only to later amend that figure to $20,000. Ogles claimed it to be a mistake, and that he had “originally meant to ‘pledge’ $320,000 toward his campaign,” but that the pledge was “mistakenly included in his campaign reports,” the Associated Press previously reported.

As part of that probe, Ogles’ phone was confiscated by law enforcement, though as recently as last week, the Justice Department agreed to return Ogles’ phone and to "destroy the information it had obtained from it,” The Washington Post reported.

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s recent overnight posting spree that left onlookers concerned for his mental well-being, former FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that he believed there to be “something wrong” with the president and that he didn’t “seem okay.”

Appearing on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” Comey was asked about his recent indictment by the Justice Department over his social media post that included a photograph of seashells, which Trump allies have interpreted as a threat on the president’s life. Comey said he expected an endless string of indictments until “Trump leaves office because he is obsessed with retribution.”

“I'm preparing for three and four [indictments], I mean, it's not going to stop given who is president of the United States and the way he has really torn apart the Justice Department,” Comey told Collins. “I would expect there will be more efforts to get the president's enemies because he's obsessed with it, and that's really, really sad.”

Collins asked Comey whether he believed Trump was “the same person as he was” nearly a decade ago. Citing Trump’s recent overnight social media posting spree where the president posted content 55 times over a three-hour period – including sharing posts that called former President Barack Obama a “demonic force” – Comey concluded that Trump was, in fact, “different” mentally than he was in 2017.

“He doesn't seem okay to me. I know that sounds like a political shot – it seems like there's something wrong with the man,” Comey said.

“There was always something wrong with the man in that he lacks a moral center, but this seems off, this middle-of-the-night Truth after Truth – not an actual truth, but a re-Truthing on his platform. Seems crazy to me. He seems different – not different in you redid your hair, I mean different in that you seem nuts, buddy.”

An increasing number of Republican lawmakers are openly rebuking President Donald Trump’s demands after a key source of his leverage has all but disappeared, a dynamic that led Punchbowl News to question whether Trump was “losing sway on Capitol Hill” in its Wednesday morning newsletter.

That leverage was the threat that GOP lawmakers could face a Trump-backed primary challenger, but with primary elections wrapping up around the country, that threat has mostly been neutralized until at least 2028. As such, Republicans appear to have found a newfound courage to more frequently give Trump “the stiff arm,” Punchbowl News reported.

“The ‘do-whatever-Trump-wants’ incentive structure for many House and Senate Republicans has flipped,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.

“Trump’s approval rating is in the 30s. Most Republicans are through their party primaries, meaning there’s no longer a risk of a Trump-backed primary challenger. As the political environment worsens for the GOP, many rank-and-file Republicans are finding it necessary to split with the president.”

Examples include Republicans' meek response to the $1 billion funding request related to Trump’s White House ballroom project, which one GOP senator told Punchbowl News he was not convinced by the Trump administration’s case for the request. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) issued Trump an “explicit rebuke” after defying the president’s demand that his chamber advance a bill related to housing.

South Carolina state Republicans outright rejected the push from the White House to redraw its congressional district map, and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Punchbowl News reported, “has been voting like he’s vulnerable,” siding with Democratic lawmakers on several votes, and in spite of Trump having won Alaska in the 2024 election by 13 points.

Trump successfully used his leverage last week in Indiana, ousting several state GOP lawmakers who rebuked him last year in his push for the state to redraw its congressional district map. With the primary season largely over, however, that leverage has all but vanished for the immediate future, giving rise to a growing number of Republicans outright “ignoring his policy demands,” Punchbowl News reported.

President Donald Trump took to social media Tuesday night to demand that Robert Karem, a Republican Senate staffer, be fired over an incident that took place earlier that day during a Senate hearing, one that Trump claimed made Sen. Mitch McConnell “look foolish and completely out of it.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, and in what Newsweek described as an “awkward moment,” the committee’s chair, McConnell, had to be reminded by a staffer “that several senators still had questions after he attempted to wrap up proceedings early.”

That staffer was Karem, who Trump accused of “grandstanding” and called for his immediate firing.

“This was a case where Mitch wasn’t confused, he just didn’t understand why he was being asked to do something when it was too late, and people were wrapping up to leave – They wanted to go home,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“His name is Robert Karem, he is a Never Trumper, and was grandstanding – trying to show how ‘important’ he was! Karem has tremendous Democrat support, far greater than he should have, and is praised relentlessly by Obama’s people. He is probably the reason why Mitch McConnell is stupidly opposed to terminating the Filibuster, and refuses to help with a 97% issue, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. FIRE THE BUM!”