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Dec. 9 (UPI) — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday granted a Justice Department request to release the grand jury files from the indictment hearing of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus had argued against releasing the grand jury evidence. In a filing, Markus wrote that Maxwell “does not take a position” on the Justice Department’s request to unseal the material, but said that releasing the material “would create undue prejudice” and prevent “the possibility of a fair retrial.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer on Tuesday ordered the release of grand-jury transcripts and evidence from the case against Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking of minors.

He also ordered the release of evidence shared between the prosecution and defense before Maxwell’s trial, but said that the Justice Department should take care not to release any identifying information on the victims. He said the Justice Department filed a motion to unseal grand jury materials in July but didn’t notify the victims. He ordered that a district attorney must “personally certify” that the material is “rigorously reviewed” before its release.

The new law passed last month by Congress requires the release of the Epstein files by Dec. 19. The Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed and signed by President Donald Trump on Nov. 19.

The new law’s language is “strikingly broad,” Engelmayer wrote. Congress’s “decision not to exclude grand jury materials despite knowledge as to their existence, while expressly excluding other categories of materials (such as classified information), indicates that the Act covers grand jury materials.”

On Dec. 5, U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith of Florida ordered the release of grand-jury transcripts from the investigation against Epstein from 2005 to 2007. That investigation was abandoned.

While awaiting trial in 2019, Epstein died by suicide in jail.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in a case questioning whether limits on how much political parties can spend in support of candidates violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the case against the Federal Election Commission, saying the spending limits restrict the parties’ abilities to reach and influence voters, The New York Times reported.

The FEC has set limits on coordinated spending according to each state’s voting-age population and number of members in Congress.

Attorneys for Public Citizen, a voter advocacy group, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of maintaining the limits.

“If those contributions, which dwarf the base limits on [individual] contributions to candidates, are effectively placed at a candidate’s disposal through coordinated spending, they become potent sources of actual or apparent corruption,” the brief said.

The effort to free up coordinated spending is one of many in recent years by Republicans that have sought to loosen campaign purse strings across the board, including the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC.

The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, is expected to argue in favor of preserving coordinated spending limits, first enshrined in 1974 as a way to prevent bribery.

“This has been held constitutional at least twice before by the Supreme Court and more times by lower courts,” Democratic attorney Marc Elias said, according to ABC News.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — A federal judge has ordered two senior Justice Department attorneys, including one fired by the Trump administration, to testify before the court in its inquiry into a March deportation flight that proceeded in defiance of court orders.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday ordered Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department attorney-turned-whistleblower, to testify the morning of Dec. 15. Drew Ensign, a senior Justice Department official, is to testify the afternoon of Dec. 16.

“Both sides shall appear in person at such hearings and will have the opportunity to question witnesses,” Boasberg said in his order.

The case centers on a March 15 deportation flight of 100 Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, which was last used to deport Japanese Americans during World War II.

The flight departed amid litigation over President Donald Trump‘s invocation of the AEA. As it departed, Boasberg issued an order for the plane to return, which it did not occur.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem admitted she was responsible for allowing the plane to complete its flight, stating she made the decision prior to Boasberg issuing his temporary restraining order.

Boasberg has launched an inquiry to determine whether Noem’s decision was a willful violation of the court’s order.

In his order Monday, Boasberg said it “would be premature” to refer Noem for prosecution for criminal contempt and ordered the testimony of Reuveni and Ensign “to better understand the bases of the decision to transfer the deportees out of the United States’ custody in the context of the hearing on March 15, 2025.”

Reuveni, a 15-year DOJ veteran, was fired after acknowledging in court in April that the Trump administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

After his firing, he filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that Emil Bove, a former criminal attorney on Trump’s personal defense team, directed the Trump administration to disregard a court order to stop the deportation flight.

Ensign is being asked to testify as the government’s attorney of record during the March 15 hearing.

Noem, in a brief Dec. 4 sworn statement to the court, said she made the decision for the deportation flight to continue, and had done so after receiving “privileged legal advice” from Trump administration counsel.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — Florida has designated the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist organizations, becoming the second GOP-led state in as many months to move against the Islamic groups.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Monday statement that the designations were “EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”

“Florida agencies are hereby directed to undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support,” the Republican governor and President Donald Trump ally said.

The executive order signed by DeSantis accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of supporting and being affiliated with “political entities and front organizations that engage in terrorism and funnel money to finance terrorist activities.”

CAIR, the order alleges, was founded by persons connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The order also designates them based on their alleged connections to Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

The designations, issued under state authority and while mostly symbolic, can prohibit contracts with the groups and bar them state funds and resources, among other measures.

On the governor’s personal X account, DeSantis said that members of the GOP-controlled Florida legislature were “crafting legislation to stop the creep of sharia law, and I hope that they codify these protections for Floridians against CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood in their legislation.”

CAIR, and its Florida branch, were swift to respond, announcing they will sue Florida over the designation, which they called “defamatory and unconstitutional.”

The United States’ largest Muslim organization accused DeSantis of serving the Israeli government over residents of his state and of seeking to silence Americans critical of U.S. support for alleged Israeli war crimes.

“Gov. DeSantis knows full well that CAIR-Florida is an American civil rights organization that has spent decades advancing free speech, religious freedom and justice for all, including for the Palestinian people. That’s precisely why Gov. DeSantis is targeting our civil rights group,” CAIR National and CAIR-Florida said in a joint statement.

“We look forward to defeating Gov. DeSantis’ latest Israel First stunt in a court of law, where facts matter and conspiracy theories have no weight.”

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in the 1920s, renounced violence in the 1970s and now provides a mixture of religious teaching with political activism and social support, such as operating pharmacies, hospitals and schools, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

CAIR was founded in 1994 with the mission to promote justice, protect civil rights and empower American Muslims. CAIR condemns all acts of terrorism by any group designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, including Hamas.

Neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor CAIR has been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

However, President Donald Trump last month, via executive order, directed the Treasury and State Department to evaluate if any chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States should be blacklisted.

The Trump administration has accused the Muslim Brotherhood of fueling terrorism in the Middle East, highlighting actions by alleged members following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

The federal government, under Trump, has repeatedly taken action against individuals and organizations that have criticized Israel over its war in Gaza, including revoking visas from students studying in the United States and fining universities over alleged failures to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestine protests that erupted on their campuses.

Federal immigration authorities last month detained British journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi, who was on a CAIR speaking tour in the United States. He was released a little more than a week later under an agreement with the United States to leave the country.

No explicit reason for his detention was given, though Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin had said “those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit the country.”

Texas was the first state to designate CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood on Nov. 18.

Dec. 8 (UPI) — Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat and fierce Trump critic, announced Monday she was launching a high-stakes U.S. Senate campaign in Texas, the same day Democratic primary opponent Colin Allred dropped out.

Crockett, who filed just hours before the deadline, will face Democratic Rep. James Talarico of Austin in the March 3rd primary, as she tries to turn incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn‘s seat from red to blue.

“For too long, Texas has elected senators who have defended politics as usual and protected the status quo, while Texans have paid the price,” Crockett said on her website. “We’ve had senators who have pushed the American Dream further and further out of reach.”

“I’m running for the U.S. Senate because I believe Texas deserves a senator who will be an independent voice for all 30 million Texans — not a rubber stamp or party line vote for Donald Trump.”

Crockett’s primary opponent Talarico on Monday welcomed her to the race after Allred dropped out.

“We’re building a movement in Texas — fueled by record-breaking grassroots fundraising and 10,000 volunteers who are putting in the work to defeat the billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians who have taken over our state,” Talarico said. “Our movement is rooted in unity over division — so we welcome Congresswoman Crockett into this race.”

Rep. Allred of Dallas decided Monday not to run in the U.S. Senate primary and opted instead to run for the newly-drawn 33rd Congressional District in Dallas County after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the redrawn map, which favors Republicans, could be used in the 2026 election.

In a statement, Allred admitted Crockett played a part in his decision to drop out.

“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers Paxton, Cornyn or Hunt,” Allred said earlier Monday.

The winner of the Democratic Senate primary will face one of three Republican primary opponents in the midterm elections, Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, Attorney General Ken Paxton or U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

On Monday, Paxton commented in a post on X saying, “everyone knows Crockett will be soundly defeated,” as he also focused on Cornyn’s campaign spending and lower standing in the polls.

Paxton has been vocal about Texas’ redrawn district map and the order’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last month, he predicted the Supreme Court would “uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting,” after he criticized partisan gerrymandering in Democratic-led states, including California, Illinois and New York.

Texas Republicans have not lost a statewide office in more than three decades. Crockett’s decision to run for the Senate also opens up the 30th Congressional District seat she has held since 2023.

Dec. 8 (UPI) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday it seized a case of Tramadol pain pills with an estimated street value at $150,000.

On Thursday, Cincinnati CBP officers seized a shipment that contained some 30,000 Tramadol tablets, officials said.

The Tramadol pain killer a schedule IV substance under the Controlled Substance Act due to its potential for abuse.

“Most people hear about CBP seizing narcotics shipments,” said Director of Field Operations LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, Chicago Field Office.

“However, shipments of illegal prescription pills are very dangerous too,” Sutton-Burked said in a statement.

CBP agents routinely screen international passengers and cargo at ports of entry nationwide for narcotics, weapons and other U.S.-prohibited items.

A shipment from Barbados bound for St. Kitts-Nevis was intercepted and inspected for clearance in the United States.

Officers discovered small boxes inside containing 30 push pill tabs each totaling 30,000 tablets of 50mg Tramadol.

CBP’s Chicago field director confirmed the pills were “not regulated by the FDA.”

Tramadol is a prescribed medication to relieve moderate to nearly severe pain and, similar to opioid analgesics, it works by altering the brain’s perception of pain.

It’s frequently abused in narcotic addiction, chronic pain patients and healthcare professionals.

Federal officials urged international buyers to verify purchases and ensure imports comply with all state and U.S. regulations.

Dec. 8 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump announced Monday a $12 billion dollar aid package to help American farmers hit hard by inflation, tariffs and China’s trade war to “provide much needed certainty” for next year’s crops.

Trump unveiled the aid package with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at a White House roundtable, where they were joined by farmers in soybean, corn, rice, cattle, potatoes, sorghum and the cotton industry.

“I’m delighted to announce this afternoon that the United States will be taking a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs … We’re going to use that money to provide $12 billion in economic assistance to American Farmers,” Trump said.

“This relief will provide much needed certainty to farmers as they get this year’s harvest to market and look ahead to next year’s crops, and it’ll help them continue their efforts to lower food prices for American families,” Trump added.

Rollins said farmers can begin applying for the one-time funding within the next few weeks. The money will be distributed before Feb. 28.

A White House spokesperson said Monday’s rollout reflected Trump’s “commitment to helping our farmers, who will have the support they need.”

“We are going to create this bridge because, again, agriculture is all about the future, you’ve got to start financing for planting next year, when things will be very good,” Bessent said Sunday.

Monday’s aid announcement is the latest effort to help U.S. farmers negatively affected by the president’s tariff policies and other factors, such as a drop in crop prices. Farmers lost billions of dollars in sales after China stopped buying U.S. soybeans in May to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs.

The White House said last month that China plans to buy at least 12 million metric tons of soybeans, sorghum and “other farm products” before the end of the year, after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a preliminary trade agreement in October.

“Since my successful meeting in South Korea with President Xi, purchases have been made, and soybeans are being exported out of the United States to China as we speak,” Trump told Monday’s roundtable.

The Agriculture Department confirmed last week a half million more metric tons of soybeans, sorghum and wheat were being shipped to Chinese shores.

Last month, the American Farm Bureau Federation issued a warning that aid was “urgently needed” as the money needed to grow crops exceeded farming revenues and farm bankruptcies were starting to rise.

Monday’s package sets aside $11 billion in one-off checks for crop producers under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance initiative, while another $1 billion is reserved for commodities that fall outside that program’s coverage.

“President Trump is helping our agriculture industry by negotiating new trade deals to open new export markets for our farmers and boosting the farm safety net for the first time in a decade,” stated White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

Rollins revealed last week that the federal government was planning to issue the bridge payments to farmers.

“What you’ve been able to do is open those markets up and again, move toward an era where our farmers are not so reliant on government checks, but have the markets to sell their product,” Rollins said. “Having said that, we do have a bridge payment we’ll be announcing with you next week, as we’re still trying to recover from the Biden years.”

On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, accused Trump of taking credit for fixing his own mess.

“Trump’s tariffs are hammering our farmers, making it more expensive to grow food and pushing farmers into bankruptcy,” Schumer said. “Farmers need markets to sell to — not a consolation prize for the ones he wrecked.”

On Monday, Iowa cattle and soybean farmer Cordt Holub told Trump he appreciated the bridge payments, saying, “it’s Christmas early for farmers.”

Dec. 8 (UPI) — Pet retailer Petco says a massive data breach hit an unspecified number of its U.S. customer base.

Petco stated it located the problem internally and “immediately took steps to correct the issue and to remove the files from further online access.”

On Friday, Petco filed a legally mandated report with the Texas attorney general’s office that revealed compromised data encompassed names, dates of birth, Social Security and driver’s license numbers, and other financial details, including account and credit or debit card numbers.

A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that Petco had provided “further information to individuals whose information was involved.”

It added that new digital alterations included “additional security measures and technical controls to enhance the security of our applications.”

Petco officials wrote in a notification letter filed with California’s attorney general they discovered a “setting within one of our software applications that inadvertently allowed certain files to be accessible online.”

California law requires breach disclosures when 500 or more state residents are affected, indicating Petco’s cyber incident met or exceeded that threshold.

In addition, the pet company has also informed customers in Massachusetts and Montana and has provided free credit and identity theft monitoring to those affected.

Petco has conducted business with more than 24 million customers, the company said in 2022.

Meanwhile, every year massive data breaches harm the public with bad actors targeting email service providers, retailers and government agencies that store private information on citizens.

Dec. 8 (UPI) — Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred announced Monday he’s dropping his U.S. Senate campaign and will instead run for a newly redrawn district on the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a statement posted to X, Allred said he wants to avoid a “bruising” Democratic primary for the Senate.

“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by [President] Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers,” he said, referring to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

“That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the U.S. Senate.”

Allred is instead running for the 33rd Congressional District, which is currently represented in the House by Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat. But after Texas redrew its congressional map this year, Veasey’s base was no longer in the 33rd District; he plans to run for the 30th District next year, an unnamed source told The Texas Tribune.

Both the old and new boundaries of the 33rd District is a meandering region including parts of Dallas and Tarrant Counties, and the eastern half of Fort Worth. The new map, reaches farther north and changes some of the boundaries in western Dallas County.

Allred was elected in 2018 to the U.S. House to represent the 32nd District, which encompassed a swath of eastern Dallas County. He flipped the district from red to blue.

“The 33rd District was racially gerrymandered by Trump in an effort to further rig our democracy, but it’s also the community where I grew up attending public schools and watching my mom struggle to pay for our groceries,” Allred said in his Monday statement.

Voting rights advocates and Democrats took the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature to the Supreme Court over the redrawn congressional map, accusing the Republicans of gerrymandering based on racial population. The high court last week gave Texas permission to use the new map in the next midterm elections.

“On January 6th, I was prepared to physically fight to defend our democracy,” Allred said. “Today, the danger we face from Donald Trump is even greater and has added a level of corruption and rigging of our economy that has made it harder than ever for Texans.”

Dec. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Monday about President Donald Trump‘s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter in a case that could upend 90 years of precedent.

The high court’s decision, which is expected in the summer, could allow presidents to remove independent regulators without just cause. If the Supreme Court sides with Trump, it would go directly against the court’s 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, which upheld the FTC’s protections from removal as constitutional.

According to the 1935 Supreme Court decision, FTC commissioners may only be dismissed from their jobs “by the president for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

In March, Trump fired Democratic FTC commissioners Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, both of whom claimed the terminations were illegal.

The FTC is a bipartisan, independent federal agency that works to protect consumers from questionable business practices. Slaughter said preventing the president from being able to terminate commissioners without just cause allows the FTC to remain independent.

“Independence allows the decision-making that is done by these boards and commissions to be on the merits, about the facts and about protecting the interests of the American people,” she said, according to NPR. “That is what Americans deserve from their government.”

Trump, meanwhile, insisted his executive power gives him the ability to fire workers at independent agencies. In September, the Supreme Court agreed with Trump, allowing him to fire Slaughter through a brief administrative stay on a lower court’s order blocking the termination.

Trump appointed Slaughter, a Democrat, to the FTC in 2018. Former President Joe Biden then appointed her to be acting chair of the agency before nominating her for a new term. The Senate confirmed that nomination, giving her a second seven-year term starting in 2024.

The Hill reported that U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer will represent the U.S. government in Monday’s Supreme Court hearing.

“The court should repudiate anything that remains of Humphrey’s Executor and ensure that the president, not multimember agency heads, controls the executive power that Article II vests in him alone,” Sauer said in court filings.