Investigation

Feb. 11 (UPI) — Authorities in Arizona have detained a person in the investigation of missing Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.

The unidentified person was detained by deputies of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday, the department said.

“The subject is currently being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

No other information was made immediately public, and the sheriff’s department later added that “no press conference would be scheduled at this time.”

DoorDash, the on-demand delivery platform, said it was “urgently investigating” to see if the detained individual was one of its drivers.

“We have reached out to law enforcement and are ready to support their critical investigation in any way we can,” the technology company said in a social media statement early Wednesday.

“Like tens of millions around the world, our hearts are with the Guthrie family during this heart-wrenching time.”

The development comes as the search for the 84-year-old woman enters its 11th day on Wednesday.

Authorities believe she was kidnapped from her Tucson, Ariz., home on the night of Jan. 31. She was last seen at about 9:45 p.m. MST that night and was reported missing the following day after she failed to arrive at a friend’s house to watch a church livestream. It was previously reported that she was to attend church in person.

Before the unidentified individual was detained on Tuesday, the FBI released images taken from doorbell footage at Guthrie’s front door the morning she disappeared that show a person tampering with the camera.

A $50,000 reward is being offered by the FBI for information leading to Guthrie’s recovery.

The federal law enforcement agency said there has been no contact between Guthrie’s family and the suspected kidnappers, despite a 5 p.m. Monday ransom deadline for them to pay $6 million in Bitcoin having elapsed.

The ransom was reportedly demanded in messages sent to several news outlets and has yet to be authenticated by law enforcement.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Trump has publicly pushed.

In letters first obtained by the Associated Press, Slotkin’s lawyer informed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro that the senator would not agree to a voluntary interview about the video. Slotkin’s legal team also requested that Pirro preserve all documents related to the matter for “anticipated litigation.”

Slotkin’s lawyer separately wrote to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, declining to sit for an FBI interview about the video and urging her to immediately terminate any inquiry.

The refusal marks a potential turning point in the standoff, shifting the burden onto the Justice Department to decide whether it will escalate an investigation into sitting members of Congress or retreat from an inquiry now being openly challenged.

“I did this to go on offense,” Slotkin said in an interview Wednesday. “And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”

‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back’

Last November, Slotkin joined five other Democratic lawmakers — all of whom previously served in the military or at intelligence agencies — in posting a 90-second video urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.

The lawmakers said Trump’s Republican administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens” and called on troops to “stand up for our laws.”

The video sparked a firestorm in Republican circles and soon drew the attention of Trump, who accused the lawmakers of sedition and said their actions were “punishable by death.”

The Pentagon later announced it had opened an investigation into Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot who appeared in the video. The FBI then contacted the lawmakers seeking interviews, signaling a broader Justice Department inquiry.

Slotkin said multiple legal advisers initially urged caution.

“Maybe if you keep quiet, this will all go away over Christmas,” Slotkin said she was told.

But in January, the matter flared again, with the lawmakers saying they were contacted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, security threats mounted. Slotkin said her farm in Michigan received a bomb threat, her brother was assigned a police detail due to threats and her parents were swatted in the middle of the night.

Her father, who died in January after a long battle with cancer, “could barely walk and he’s dealing with the cops in his home,” she said.

Slotkin said a “switch went off” in her and she became angry: “And I said, ‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back.’”

Democratic senators draw a line

The requests from the FBI and the Justice Department have been voluntary. Slotkin said that her legal team had communicated with prosecutors but that officials “keep asking for a personal interview.”

Slotkin’s lawyer, Preet Bharara, in the letter to Pirro declined the interview request and asked that she “immediately terminate any open investigation and cease any further inquiry concerning the video.” In the other letter, Bharara urged Bondi to use her authority to direct Pirro to close the inquiry.

Bharara wrote that Slotkin’s constitutional rights had been infringed and said litigation is being considered.

“All options are most definitely on the table,” Slotkin said. Asked whether she would comply with a subpoena, she paused before responding: “I’d take a hard look at it.”

Bharara, who’s representing Slotkin in the case, is a former U.S. attorney in New York who was fired by Trump in 2017 during his first administration. He’s also representing Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California in a separate case involving the Justice Department.

Kelly has similarly pushed back, suing the Pentagon last month over attempts to punish him for the video. On Tuesday, a federal judge said that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of Kelly as he weighed whether to intervene.

Slotkin said she’s in contact with the other lawmakers who appeared in the video, but she wouldn’t say what their plans were in the investigations.

A rising profile

Trump has frequently and consistently targeted his political opponents. In some cases, those attacks have had the unintended consequence of elevating their national standing.

In Kelly’s case, he raised more than $12.5 million in the final months of 2025 following the “illegal orders” video controversy, according to campaign finance filings.

Slotkin, like Kelly, has been mentioned among Democrats who could emerge as presidential contenders in 2028.

She previously represented one of the nation’s most competitive House districts before winning a Senate seat in Michigan in 2024, even as Trump carried the state.

Slotkin delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s address to Congress last year and has since urged her party to confront him more aggressively, saying Democrats had lost their “alpha energy” and calling on them to “go nuclear” against Trump’s redistricting push.

“If I’m encouraging other people to take risk, how can I not then accept risk myself?” Slotkin said. “I think you’ve got to show people that we’re not going to lay down and take it.”

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to reveal the vetting process used by the ruling Labour Party to approve Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States in December 2024 after new revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files about the relationship between the diplomat and the billionaire sex offender.

For one, the latest release of files relating to the investigation of Epstein by the US Department of Justice showed that Mandelson maintained his relationship with Epstein after Epstein served a sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. But chief among the claims against Mandelson now are the suggestions he received payments from the late financier and may have shared market-sensitive information with him that was of financial interest to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison by suicide in 2019 before his trial stemming from his second prosecution for sex offences, including allegations of trafficking dozens of girls, could take place.

On Thursday, Starmer apologised to victims of Epstein for appointing Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties to the disgraced financier.

“It had been publicly known for some time that Mandelson knew Epstein, but none of us knew the depth and the darkness of that relationship,” Starmer said.

“I am sorry. Sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointing him.”

Who is Peter Mandelson and what is he accused of?

Since the release on Friday of the latest tranche of Epstein files, including emails between Epstein and Mandelson, UK media have widely reported that the government suspects Mandelson may have illegally shared market-sensitive information with Epstein 15 years ago.

The newly released files include more than 3 million pages of documents and more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

As a life peer, Mandelson, 72, was a member of the House of Lords before he resigned this week. He was a veteran Labour politician who served in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. After Labour swept back into power after 14 years in the opposition in 2024, he was appointed ambassador to the US, taking up his post on February 10 last year.

He resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday.

“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson said in a letter reported by British media.

“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.”

Alleged leaks of sensitive information by Mandelson took place in 2009 when he was serving as the UK’s business secretary in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

This is not the first time that Mandelson has been embarrassed by his friendship with Epstein. On September 11, the UK fired Mandelson as ambassador to the US over emails between the two men, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

On Tuesday, UK police launched a criminal investigation into Mandelson over suspected misconduct in public office linked to his relationship with Epstein.

Misconduct in public office is punishable in the UK with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Besides his sacking as ambassador, Mandelson has previously been forced to resign from ministerial posts for alleged misconduct on two occasions – in 1998 and 2001.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Epstein was a billionaire financier born and raised in New York who was known for socialising with celebrities and politicians.

Criminal investigations indicated he may have abused hundreds of girls over the course of his high-profile career. He was arrested in 2019 on federal criminal charges relating to alleged exploitation of underage girls dating back two decades. He died in prison before he could come to trial.

He also was previously accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in 2005 after her parents made a report to the police. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in relation to a single victim.

He spent 13 months in prison on a work-release programme, which allowed him to leave jail to go to work during the day and return at night.

The US attorney in Manhattan also prosecuted Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell as a coconspirator in his sexual abuse scheme. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, which she received in 2022.

What do we know about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein?

When Mandelson was fired as ambassador to the US in September, the FCDO wrote: “In light of the additional information in emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador.

“The emails show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”

These particular emails were obtained and published by the UK’s Sun newspaper in September. In them, Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced in 2008.

“I think the world of you,” Mandelson told Epstein before his sentence began.

“I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain,” Mandelson wrote. “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can.”

It is now clear from the latest tranche of Epstein files that Mandelson continued his friendship with Epstein for some time after the financier had been convicted of sex offences.

What do the new Epstein files reveal?

From 2003 to 2004, bank records indicated that Epstein made three payments totalling $75,000 to accounts connected to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said he does not recall receiving any such funds and has pledged to examine whether the documents are genuine.

According to these documents, in 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds ($13,607, or $20,419 today after inflation) to pay for an osteopathy course. This week, Mandelson told The Times of London: “In retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgement for Reinaldo to accept this offer.”

Emails revealed in the latest tranche of files from the US Justice Department also shine a light on the close friendship between the two men.

In October 2009, Epstein wrote in an email to Mandelson: “You can marry princess beatrice, the queen would have a queen as a grandson,” referring to the daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince whose royal titles were stripped last year over his own links to Epstein and allegations of the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre, who successfully sued Mountbatten-Windsor.

“does that make it incest, how exciting,” Epstein wrote.

In 2010, Lesley Groff, known to have been Epstein’s long-term executive assistant, emailed his boss: “Mandelson’s holiday plans arc still being sorted out. They hope to be in touch soon.”

In 2013, Epstein emailed Mandelson, saying he knew Mandelson was visiting St Petersburg, Russia. Mandelson described the city as “a rave”, to which Epstein asked whether “its for gays”. Mandelson responded, “Er no, tastey [sic] models and dancing.”

But the emails also suggested Mandelson passed sensitive information to the financier.

On May 9, 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying: “Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost compelte [sic].” The next morning, European governments approved a 500-billion-euro bailout for banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Also in May 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying, “Finally got him to go today.” It is believed that Mandelson was referring to former Labour Prime Minister Brown.

Epstein replied to this email: “I have faith, the value of some chapters in your book should now increase.”

Brown announced his resignation just hours after this email exchange.

What has Starmer said?

Under mounting pressure from opposition politicians and within his own party this week, Starmer agreed to release information about the process through which Mandelson was appointed ambassador in 2024.

At a question and answer session on Wednesday in the House of Commons dominated by the Epstein revelations, Starmer admitted that he knew of Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein but said Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador”.

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party,” Starmer said. “I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.”

Starmer said he would ensure that “all of the material” is published, except for documents that compromise Britain’s national security, international relations or the police investigation into Mandelson’s activities.

On Tuesday, Starmer told his cabinet he was “appalled by the information” regarding Mandelson and was concerned more details could come to light, according to a Downing Street readout of the cabinet meeting.

Starmer also said he had ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.

“The alleged passing on of emails of highly sensitive government business was disgraceful,” Starmer said, adding that he was not yet “reassured that the totality of information had yet emerged”.

How will this affect Starmer?

Members of parliament expressed their dismay and called on him to step down.

Conservative MP Luke Evans said: “At the end of the day, he [Starmer] made the decision to appoint Mandelson to the post of ambassador, so he must explain his decision-making process.”

Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “There is no doubt that the prime minister’s judgement is being called sharply into question at this moment. It is becoming harder to see how any of us can rely on his judgement in future.”

Conservative MP Graham Stuart added: “The fact is that he appointed a person who had already broken all the Nolan Principles before his appointment as well as doing so after it. I think that makes the prime minister’s position untenable.”

The Nolan Principles are a set of ethical standards for all public office holders in the UK.

“I would say that today is the crumbling of Starmer. His judgement is poor, and it is ruining this country and the Labour Party,” Conservative MP Esther McVey said.

What do we know about how Mandelson was approved as US ambassador?

Facing questions from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the House of Commons in September, Starmer maintained that “full due process was gone through” for the purposes of Mandelson’s appointment.

Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, who is said to have nicknamed him “Petie”, had been publicly known for years.

But The Times of London reported that Starmer received just a two-page vetting note from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team about Mandelson’s appointment.

That document suggested that while Epstein was in prison in 2009, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. The report also contained a photograph of Mandelson and Epstein together.

This indicated that by late 2024, the UK government had documentation showing Mandelson had remained close to Epstein even after his 2008 conviction.

WASHINGTON — The Republican chair of a House Committee rejected an offer Monday from former President Clinton to conduct a transcribed interview for a House investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, pushing the threat to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress closer toward a vote.

The impasse comes as the full House is headed toward potential votes this week on criminal contempt of Congress charges against the Clintons. If passed, the charges threaten Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with substantial fines and even incarceration if they are convicted.

Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said on social media that he would insist on both Clintons sitting for a sworn deposition before the committee in order to fulfill the panel’s subpoenas. A letter from the committee to attorneys for the Clintons indicates that they had offered for Bill Clinton to conduct a transcribed interview on “matters related to the investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein” and for Hillary Clinton to submit a sworn declaration.

“The Clintons do not get to dictate the terms of lawful subpoenas,” Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said.

The Republican-controlled Oversight panel had advanced criminal contempt of Congress charges last month. Nine of the committee’s 21 Democrats joined Republicans in support of the charges against Bill Clinton as they argued for full transparency in the Epstein investigation. Three Democrats also supported the charges against Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton’s relationship with Epstein has re-emerged as a focal point for Republicans amid the push for a reckoning over Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 in a New York jail cell as he faced sex trafficking charges.

Clinton, like a bevy of other high-powered men, had a well-documented relationship with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He has not been accused of wrongdoing in his interactions with the late financier.

After Bill and Hillary Clinton were both subpoenaed in August by the House Oversight Committee, their attorney had tried to argue against the validity of the subpoena. However, as Comer threatened to begin contempt of Congress proceedings, they started negotiating toward a compromise.

Still, the Clintons remained highly critical of Comer’s decision, saying that he was bringing politics into the investigation while failing to hold the Trump administration accountable for delays in producing the Department of Justice’s case files on Epstein.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

The latest victim succumbing to injuries was an 18-year-old Swiss national.

A teenager injured in the fire that engulfed a Swiss Alpine bar during New Year celebrations has died in hospital, according to Swiss authorities, increasing the death toll of one of the worst disasters in the country’s modern history to 41.

Saturday’s death was announced a month after the inferno at the ski resort of Crans-Montana. Another 115 were injured, most of whom remain in various hospitals.

“An 18-year-old Swiss national died at a hospital in Zurich on January 31,” the Wallis canton’s public prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said in a brief statement.

“The death toll from the fire at Le Constellation bar on January 1, 2026 has now risen to 41.”

Pilloud said no further information would be released at this stage by her office, which is investigating the incident.

Those killed in the disaster were aged 14 to 39, but the majority were teenagers. Only four were aged over 24.

Among the dead are 23 Swiss nationals, including one French-Swiss dual national, and 18 foreigners.

Public prosecutors believe the fire started when revellers raised champagne bottles with sparklers attached too close to sound insulation foam on the ceiling of the bar’s basement.

Authorities are looking into whether the foam conformed to regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar. They say fire safety inspections had not been carried out since 2019.

Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the owners – French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti – on suspicion of negligent homicide, negligent bodily harm and causing a fire by negligence.

The court of compulsory measures in the southwestern Valais region on January 12 ordered three months of pretrial detention for Jacques Moretti, but on January 23 ordered his release on bail.

The Crans-Montana municipality’s current head of public safety and a former Crans-Montana fire safety officer are also under criminal investigation.

Following the fire, seriously wounded patients were airlifted to various hospitals and specialist burns units throughout Switzerland and four other European countries.

Switzerland’s Federal Office for Civil Protection told the AFP news agency on Friday that at its last count, as of Monday, 44 patients were being treated abroad.

The Wallis health ministry told AFP that 37 patients were still in Swiss hospitals, as of Monday.

The picture is constantly changing, with patients moving between hospitals for different stages of their treatment, and some patients being readmitted. Some remain in intensive care.

The fire has tested relations with neighbouring Italy, which lost nationals in the blaze and has protested the release on bail of the bar’s owner.

Swiss authorities earlier this week said they would grant the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office access to evidence gathered.

Leading Democrats have rolled out a new and unvarnished message — that the U.S. Department of Justice cannot be trusted.

“Let’s be really clear: We can’t trust anything the DOJ does. The DOJ is corrupt. They’re corrupt on every major issue in front of this country,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said Friday at a news conference in his district.

“We cannot trust the Department of Justice. They are an illegitimate organization right now under the leadership of [Atty. Gen.] Pam Bondi and the direction of Donald Trump,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during his own news conference in Washington, D.C.

The remarks — which hold profound implications in a two-party democracy meant to be protected and served by a nonpartisan justice system, and which a White House spokesperson called “shameful” — followed a week of equally stunning actions by the Justice Department, where President Trump has installed staunch loyalists, including Bondi, to high-ranking positions.

In recent days, the Justice Department has resisted launching civil rights investigations into two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents. It has since reversed course and launched such an investigation into the second of those incidents, in which 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot while surrounded by agents, on the ground and disarmed, but has held firm in its decision not to investigate the earlier shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot while trying to drive away from a tense exchange with agents.

On Wednesday, the FBI raided and seized voter ballots and other information from the election headquarters of Fulton County, Ga., long a target of Trump’s baseless and disproven claims that widespread voter fraud helped Democrats steal the 2020 election. Bondi was an early backer of those baseless claims, as were other Justice Department appointees.

On Friday, federal agents arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon and other journalists after their coverage of a protest at a conservative church in Minneapolis. Justice Department officials rejected the defense that Lemon and the other journalists were exercising their 1st Amendment rights as journalists, and accused them of violating the rights of churchgoers.

Also Friday, Justice Department officials released more documents from the Epstein files — a trove of records related to the sexual abuse of minors by the late, disgraced billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats argued that the release was still not complete, in violation of a law passed by Congress mandating that they be made public.

In a statement to The Times, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed Jeffries’ and Garcia’s remarks as “shameful comments by Democrats who cheered on Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against his political enemies, including President Trump,” and said Trump, Bondi and other administration officials “have quickly Made America Safe Again by taking violent criminals off the streets, cracking down on fraud, holding bad actors accountable, and more.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, but officials there have broadly defended the department’s actions as not only justified but necessary for ensuring the rule of law and holding alleged criminals to account.

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said both the actions of the Justice Department and the latest statements from Democrats ratcheted up the stakes in the nation’s already tense political standoff — as institutions such as the Justice Department “need to be trusted in the long term” for American democracy to be successful.

“Trust goes up and down in the people in institutions over history, but there’s been a baseline level of support for our Constitution, the way our government is built, and the seal on the building — even if people didn’t trust who was in that building,” Kousser said. “What we may be risking as a country is losing the trust in the building itself, if people think that the might of the federal government is being used to pursue a narrow agenda of one party or one leader.”

Jeffries’ assertion that the Justice Department can’t be trusted came as he denounced Lemon’s arrest. Jeffries said there was “zero basis to arrest” Lemon, and that the arrest was an attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize government against people they disagree with.

Jeffries added that distrust in the federal agency is one of the reasons why House Democrats are pushing for legislative action to require independent investigations by local and state law enforcement in cases when federal agents engage in violent incidents and are accused of wrongdoing — such as the shootings in Minneapolis.

Other leading Democrats have also slammed the Justice Department over the journalists’ arrests.

“The American people deserve answers as to why Trump’s lawless Justice Department is arresting journalists for simply doing their jobs,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

“The arrest of journalists for covering a protest is a grave attack on the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “And proof the Trump administration is not de-escalating.”

Garcia’s comments came in a wide-ranging news conference at which he also discussed taking on a leading role in impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has been overseeing the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, including through the deployment of Immigration and Custom Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other major cities.

Garcia denounced the Trump administration’s handling of the Good and Pretti shootings, arguing that independent investigations were needed — as he said were conducted after police shootings in Long Beach when he was mayor there.

“They should bring in either a special counsel [or] some type of special master to oversee an independent investigation,” he said.

He said that was especially necessary given the fact that Noem and other administration officials immediately bad-mouthed Good and Pretti as violent actors threatening agents before any of the facts were gathered — and in direct contradiction to video evidence from the scenes.

“What happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti was murder by our own government, and our committee is working right now on a major report on both of those incidents so that those that are responsible are held accountable,” Garcia said.

He also called Lemon’s arrest “horrifying,” saying Lemon was “out there reporting” and is now being “essentially attacked” by the Justice Department. “The arrest of Don Lemon might be the single largest attack on the free press and the 1st Amendment in the modern era.”

Garcia noted that the Justice Department had first shopped Lemon’s arrest around to multiple judges, who denied issuing a warrant for his arrest. Administration officials said a federal grand jury handed down an indictment for the journalist, but Garcia suggested the indictment was fraudulently obtained based on the government putting forward information “we cannot trust.”

Decisions around the two Minneapolis shootings and the arrest of the journalists would have passed through the office of Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment Friday. However, she has broadly defended her office’s actions online. For days before Lemon’s arrest, she had slammed his actions, writing on X that she and Bondi “will not tolerate harassment of Americans at worship — especially from agitators posing as ‘journalists.’”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche — a former personal attorney to Trump — has broadly defended the department’s actions in Minneapolis, where he said a civil rights investigation into Good’s shooting was unwarranted, and on the Epstein files, which he said have been released in accordance with the law and Trump’s own demands for transparency.

The latter was also something Garcia took issue with Friday, slamming the Justice Department for continuing to withhold some of the files.

“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice just made it clear right now that they intend to withhold approximately 50% or half of the Epstein files while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning,” Garcia said.

He said his committee subpoenaed all of the files over the summer, and Bondi has yet to comply with that subpoena in violation of the law.

Previously released Epstein records included allegations that Trump was involved in Epstein’s schemes to abuse young women and girls, which Trump — once a friend of Epstein’s — has strenuously denied.

The Justice Department has also taken the unusual step of defending the president in the matter directly, including by releasing a statement last month that the released documents “contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump.”

“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the department’s statement said.

Kousser, the politics professor, noted that this is not the first time that concerns about partisanship within the Justice Department have been voiced. He said similar concerns were raised by many Republicans when the Justice Department was prosecuting Trump during the Biden administration.

Such arguments raise serious alarms, he said, regardless of which way they are directed politically.

“If people feel like the Justice Department is only doing the bidding of whoever won the last election, that moves it from a law enforcement body to a political operation in the eyes of average Americans,” he said. “And that would be a huge loss for our democracy.”

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, federal officials said Friday.

“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a news conference. “That’s like any investigation that the Department of Justice and the FBI does every day. It means we’re looking at video, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened.”

There are thousands of instances every year when someone is shot by law enforcement, Blanche said, but not all are investigated by federal authorities.

“There has to be circumstances or facts or maybe unknown facts, but certainly circumstances, that warrant an investigation,” he added.

The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will lead the federal probe.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the probe during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department said earlier this week that Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within the department, would be heading the investigation.

“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Friday that the FBI will lead the Pretti probe and that HSI will support them. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was also not immediately clear whether the FBI would now share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal probe.

In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

“I know you realize that situation was very chaotic, and that we were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said during the interview with Hannity on Thursday. “We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground.”

The change comes after two other videos emerged Wednesday of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti in a winter coat, yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified officers fatally shooting Pretti more than a week later.

In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”

Biesecker and Santana write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.

Jan. 27 (Asia Today) — A recent wave of government investigations centered on one company recalls the Korean proverb about burning down a thatched house to kill a flea. The question is whether an aggressive push to solve the problem is fully accounting for the costs and fallout created along the way.

A major personal data breach is not something to dismiss. If there was managerial negligence or a structural failure, regulators should identify it and assign clear responsibility. But the pattern of probes now unfolding around Coupang raises a broader concern about whether the administrative response is proportionate and efficient, beyond the stated goal of accountability.

More than 10 government bodies have moved at the same time, including the Fair Trade Commission, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Personal Information Protection Commission, police, the Financial Supervisory Service, the National Tax Service and customs authorities. Hundreds of investigators have reportedly been assigned, with weeks of on-site inspections. Even the Fair Trade Commission’s probe is said to be taking longer than expected. In effect, a “mini Sejong City” of regulators has been assembled for a single corporate case.

The problem is not the intensity of enforcement but its cost. Administrative resources are finite. Public officials’ time and expertise, along with the fiscal spending that follows large deployments, are costs borne by society. When hundreds of personnel spend weeks on one case, oversight in other areas inevitably slows. That is not merely a burden for one company but a broader issue of how government resources are allocated.

The burden on the private sector is also significant. When executives and operational staff are tied up for long periods responding to multiple probes, core operations suffer. Reports say headquarters functions have been disrupted and field operations affected. If the ripple effects of correcting corporate wrongdoing spread to jobs, suppliers and small businesses, the cost ultimately lands on society.

The issue also risks escalating beyond a domestic dispute. Some foreign investors have reportedly raised complaints with the U.S. Trade Representative about the Korean government’s response and have mentioned the possibility of an investor-state dispute settlement claim. The government says its actions are non-discriminatory but the risk of dampening investor sentiment in global markets cannot be dismissed.

This is not an argument to halt investigations. It is an argument about whether the scope, intensity and scale of resources committed are appropriate. If the core concerns are a data breach and possible fair-trade violations, a more focused, clearly led investigation by the responsible authorities may have been sufficient. Overlapping probes and inter-agency competition can blur accountability and reduce administrative efficiency.

What is needed is not a high-profile crackdown for its own sake but an investigative system that balances fairness with efficiency.

Catching bedbugs is necessary. But to avoid burning down the whole thatched cottage, officials must first decide where to apply pressure and how much. Corporate wrongdoing should be corrected, but the administrative and economic costs consumed in the process also deserve scrutiny.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260127010012533