A campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital that an intern at the campaign’s Phoenix office opened an envelope with a suspicious substance and a note that said, “caution anthrax.”
BREAKING: @KariLake’s office and the entire building is locked down after a staffer opened a letter with a suspicious substance. The staffer is nervous and the substance will be tested. @PhoenixPolice & @PHXFire as well as a hazmat team are there. @RMEJimClark sent the photos. pic.twitter.com/sGMh9IohXU
The campaign called authorities, prompting a response from multiple law enforcement agencies and a hazmat team.
Authorities have not confirmed if the substance was anthrax. The campaign spokesperson said the substance is now being tested.
“The radical left, with help from the mainstream media, has escalated its attacks against me from baseless smears and legal harassment to physical threats. Today, my office received a suspicious envelope, potentially containing anthrax — an attempt to intimidate and silence me,” Lake said in a statement. “This isn’t just about me; it’s an attack on our movement. I won’t be intimidated, and those responsible must be brought to justice. The time to unite against these dangerous, un-American tactics is now.”
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
Former New York Republican congressman George Santos walked free on Friday after President Donald Trump commuted his federal sentence — but the move may not end his legal ordeal. A local prosecutor on Long Island appeared to signal that state-level charges could be used to sidestep the president’s act of clemency.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said on the social platform X that her office had been “at the forefront” of the effort to “bring Santos to justice.” Donnelly’s jurisdiction includes part of the district Santos once represented in Congress.
“I am proud of the work my office has done, and the conviction achieved in partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s office,” Donnelly said. “While the office cannot comment on ongoing investigations, suffice it to say that I remain focused on prosecuting political corruption wherever it exists regardless of political affiliation.”
Her statement — vague but pointed — has fueled speculation that prosecutors could seek state charges mirroring the federal case, a move critics say would effectively undermine Trump’s commutation and keep Santos entangled in the court system despite his early release.
A spokesperson for the Nassau County D.A.’s office declined to elaborate when asked whether an investigation was ongoing.
Trump’s Message: “Unequal Justice” and Political Targeting
Announcing the commutation on Truth Social, President Trump praised Santos’s “Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN,” suggesting the former lawmaker’s punishment was disproportionate.
“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump wrote.
Santos had served just 84 days of a seven-year sentence after pleading guilty last summer to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors had accused him of multiple financial and campaign-related offenses — including money laundering and falsifying records — but supporters argue that he faced harsher treatment because of his party affiliation and outspoken loyalty to Trump.
Possible State Move Seen as Political
Republicans are already warning that a state prosecution would represent another example of “lawfare” — the use of legal mechanisms to target political opponents.
Santos himself, who had initially said he wouldn’t seek clemency before later telling interviewer Piers Morgan he’d accept “whatever the president is willing to give me,” has yet to comment on Donnelly’s remarks.
For now, the former congressman is free — but the signals from Nassau County suggest that the battle between Trump’s justice reform message and New York’s prosecutors may be far from over.
Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
On Monday, Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, called on the Supreme Court to overturn her sex trafficking conviction.
“We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted,” attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement.
Maxwell’s attorney argues her conviction violates a nonprosecution agreement Epstein signed with federal prosecutors. The appeal turns on the scope of the 2007 deal, which let Epstein avoid federal charges for pleading guilty to state-level sex crimes in Florida and serving 18 months in prison.
The deal was signed by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Lower courts ruled the deal only covers that district and doesn’t apply to federal prosecutors in New York, where Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aiding Epstein in abusing underage girls.
“Rather than grapple with the core principles of plea agreements, the government tries to distract by reciting a lurid and irrelevant account of Jeffrey Epstein’s misconduct,” Markus wrote in the new brief.
“But this case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did.”
The new statement came as Maxwell made her final plea to the Supreme Court on Monday before the justices decide whether to take up her case. Maxwell filed the appeal in April, and the justices are poised to consider it upon returning from their summer recess.
The Justice Department has so far opposed Maxwell’s Supreme Court appeal.
Markus’s latest comments mark his most direct suggestion yet of Trump intervening. Markus said Friday he hadn’t spoken to the president yet about a pardon and “we’re going to take one day at a time.”
Trump has punted on whether he would pardon Maxwell. Trump said Monday that “I’m allowed to give her” a pardon, but “nobody’s approached me.”
“I’m allowed to give her a pardon,” Trump insisted, repeating a claim he made on his way to Scotland on Friday. “Nobody has approached me with it or asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it. But right now it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
By Ralph Alswang, White House photographer - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-epstein-maxwell/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=143417695
Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News host Jesse Watters she will release files related to deceased child sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday.
On Wednesday’s Jesse Watters Primetime, Bondi committed to letting the public in on exactly what she has her hands on – as long as no victim information is compromised.
Watters asked, “When can we see them, and what’s taking so long to release them?”
“Jesse, there are well over – this will make you sick – 200 victims,” Bondi responded. “So we we – well over. Over 250, actually. So we have to make sure that their identity is protected and their personal information. But other than that, I think tomorrow – the personal information of victims. Other than that, I think tomorrow. Just, breaking news right now, you’re going to see some Epstein information being released by my office.”
Watters noted Epstein had his homes “wired” and asked if the public could expect audio or video recordings along with flight logs. Bondi replied:
“What you’re going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information,” Bondi responded. “It’s pretty sick what that man did – along with his co-defendant.”
BREAKING NEWS: US Attorney General @PamBondi says we can expect brand new Jeffrey Epstein details TOMORROW. Expect flight logs and names… pic.twitter.com/dMn4nkKefV
Epstein’s “co-defendant” is Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role trafficking underage girls for Epstein to assault.
Epstein killed himself in 2019 while in federal custody awaiting trial for another sex-trafficking case. It has been alleged that numerous celebrities and politicians — including former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew — were among those who attended his parties.
On Monday, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) sent a letter to newly sworn-in FBI Director Kash Patel calling for the complete flight logs from Epstein’s private jet and helicopter, records belonging to Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell, and video footage from Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida residence.
The Tennessee Republican has long advocated for the release of the Epstein documents, arguing that making the full set of records public will expose the complex network behind global human and sex trafficking.
“This will give us insight into this web of human and sex traffickers that has just spread like wildfire across the globe, and it will help us to begin to get accountability for the victims of this horrendous trade,” she said.
During his campaign, President Donald Trump promised the declassification of the files. The House’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets is scheduled to hold its first public hearing on March 26.
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a pardon of Sean “Diddy” Combs after he was found guilty of prostitution charges earlier this month.
A jury found Combs guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. More importantly, he was found not guilty of the most serious charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and sex trafficking. Due to the fact that he likely avoided a lengthy prison sentence, the verdict was considered a major win for the defense.
Now, Combs’ team reportedly wants the president to do away with those lesser charges, as well. According to a Tuesday report from Deadline, sources from within the administration said Trump has given serious thought to pardoning the music mogul.
The report continued:
Nearly two months after Trump publicly entertained the notion of a Diddy pardon in an Oval Office gaggle, a comprehensive get out of jail card for Combs is being “seriously considered,” an administration source tells Deadline.
Additionally, as several associates of the much-accused and currently incarcerated “All About the Benjamins” performer have been pitching the White House, other insiders confirm the topic has leveled up from “just another Trump weave to an actionable event” since Combs was found partially guilty in the his NYC sex-trafficking trial earlier this month. Of course, as a number of parties attest, this being the roller coaster of Trumpworld, any decision on a Combs pardon is in flux until POTUS actually puts his signature on paper.
As the report stated, the idea of Trump pardoning Combs is not a new one. Back in May, fellow music executive Suge Knight predicted that the president would lend Combs a hand in the event that he was convicted.
An Iran-linked hacker group is claiming to be in possession of a trove of stolen emails from President Donald Trump’s inner circle is threatening to publish the material in what U.S. officials describe as a politically motivated “smear campaign.”
The group, operating under the alias “Robert,” said it has over 100 gigabytes of emails from key Trump allies, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, longtime confidant Roger Stone, Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan, and even adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Reuters broke the story Tuesday after direct communication with the hackers, who hinted at potentially selling the material, though the group offered no specifics.
The threat comes just days after Trump abruptly reversed a tentative effort to ease sanctions on Iran, following Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s downplaying of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. A top Iranian cleric has issued a fatwa against Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the pair “enemies of God.” (RELATED: Iranian Grand Ayatollah Issues Fatwa Targeting Trump)
Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, a leading Shiite cleric in Iran with authority to issue legal rulings under Islamic law, has issued a fatwa — an Islamic legal decree — escalating regional tensions and offering religious justification for violence against Western and Israeli leaders.
As Newsweek rightly notes, the development highlights the Islamic Republic’s ongoing use of religious decrees as political tools — a strategy Iran has long used to project power beyond its borders.
While a fatwa is not legally enforceable, it can influence judicial decisions in countries with Sharia-based legal systems.
Khosro K. Isfahani, senior research analyst at the National Union for Democracy in Iran wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the fatwa issued by Shirazi against Trump was similar to the murder fatwa issued against the author Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses which led to a number of assassination attempts.
“This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda,” said Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) spokesperson Marci McCarthy. She described the effort as a “calculated smear campaign” designed to “damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants.”
— Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (@CISAgov) July 1, 2025
According to Mediaite, the hackers claim the breach was triggered by recent U.S. involvement in the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, a war Trump claimed credit for ending via a negotiated ceasefire. Despite claiming to have halted new attacks, the group says it resumed operations in response to that military intervention.
Federal prosecutors have already linked the hacker group to Iran.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Americans still want answers…
On Monday, the House Task Force investigating the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania released its initial findings.
Lack of adequate planning, a narrow field of vision for local snipers, the absence of a unified command post and fragmented communication were among the main findings in the 53-page report that examined how 20-year-old shooter Matthew Crooks was able to climb atop a building with a line of sight to Trump and fire at him.
“Although the findings in this report are preliminary, the information obtained during the first phase of the Task Force’s investigation clearly shows a lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners before the rally,” the report said.
U.S. Secret Service (USSS) personnel at the event “did not give clear guidance” to state and local authorities about how to manage security outside of their hard perimeter, nor was there a central meeting between USSS and the law enforcement agencies supporting them the morning of the rally – two findings presented as key failures in the 51-page report.
The House Task Force investigating the attempts on Trump’s life is expected to release its final report by Dec. 13.
Crooks’s bullet came within inches of killing the former president and injured his ear. Shots also killed one rally attendee and seriously wounded two others.
The latest report also detailed information about Crooks’ autopsy report and the chain of events that led to release of the remains to the Crooks’s family. The Butler County Coroner’s office released the remains after the FBI concurred that no additional evidence was necessary, the report said.
The autopsy report found that Crooks died from one gunshot wound to the head, found negative results for alcohol or drugs of abuse, but was positive for antimony, selenium, and lead. Heightened levels of lead could have been due to time spent at the shooting range, the Allegheny County Chief Medical Examiner said.
The House force is made up of a bipartisan group of lawmakers and has also been assigned to investigate the September apparent assassination attempt on Trump in at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“The Task Force will continue to rigorously investigate the July 13 assassination attempt in the coming months,” the report said, adding that it is “in the process of conducting more than 20 transcribed interviews of federal officials and others who may have knowledge relevant to the events of July 13.”
This is a breaking news story. Click refresh for the latest updates.
A woman testified in an English court on Wednesday that Barron Trump “saved” her life after he realized she was being violently attacked and immediately called police, according to multiple reports.
Metro UK reported jurors at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London heard a dramatic emergency call in which President Donald Trump’s son told operators, “I just got a call from a girl I know. She’s getting beaten up.”
According to testimony, Barron Trump contacted authorities after FaceTiming the young woman, a friend of his, expecting a normal call but quickly realizing she was witnessing an assault in real time.
“I just saw a ceiling and could hear screaming. I could see a guy’s head on the phone, and then the camera turns to her crying and getting hit,” Trump told operators. The call was placed from the United States.
The Daily Mail identified the accused as 22-year-old Russian national Matvei Rumiantsev, who allegedly “was jealous of the American’s relationship with the woman and flew into a rage when he tried to phone her earlier that evening.”
Jurors were told Rumiantsev later went to the woman’s home and repeatedly punched her. Prosecutors also allege he kicked the woman in the stomach and used degrading language during the video call with Barron Trump, calling her a “whore” and a “slut.”
During her testimony Wednesday, the woman praised Trump for acting quickly.
“He helped save my life,” she said. “That call was like a sign from God at that moment.”
Jurors also heard an exchange between Trump — who was reportedly 18 years old at the time — and the police operator, who pressed him for details about his connection to the victim as officers were dispatched.
Here is that back-and-forth:
Operator: “Can you stop being rude and actually answer my questions. If you want to help the person, you’ll answer my questions clearly and precisely, thank you.”
Barron Trump: “I met her on social media. She’s getting really badly beat up and the call was about eight minutes ago, I don’t know what could have happened by now.”
He added a moment later, “So sorry for being rude.”
Trump reportedly told authorities it took him a few minutes to locate the correct phone number for British police. He placed the call at 2:23 a.m. London time, or 9:23 p.m. ET.
Rumiantsev is facing serious charges, including assault, two counts of rape, intentional strangulation, and perverting a court of justice, according to The Daily Mail.
Attorney General Pam Bondi will stop at nothing to eradicate fentanyl from the streets.
On Wednesday, Bondi revealed that she carries around a vial of fake fentanyl to show that just a tiny amount can be deadly.
While appearing on Fox & Friends from the White House lawn, Bondi discussed the importance of recent drug trafficking busts in several states that turned up massive amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, and guns.
To illustrate her point, she said she keeps a small bottle of “fake fentanyl” to remind herself how just a tiny amount can prove deadly.
“Each pill has the potential to kill a human being. A human life. An American life. I’ve been carrying around a little vial with fake fentanyl in it, the amount it takes to kill you, and it looks like a couple of grains of salt,” Bondi told Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones.
On Tuesday, Bondi announced that authorities made one of the biggest fentanyl busts in U.S. history with the seizure 409 kilos of fentanyl pills and 11.5 kilos of fentanyl powder.
Bondi said that around 35 kilos of methamphetamine, 35 kilos of meth, 7.5 kilos of cocaine and 4.5 kilos of heroin were also seized along with $5 million in cash and 49 rifles and pistols.
Sixteen people were arrested in the operation. Six of the individuals are in the U.S. illegally, Bondi said.
Bondi also teased a joint announcement with FBI Director Kash Patel of a major child exploitation ring bust later in the morning, while urging parents to take notice of their children’s online habits.
“Your kids have no right to privacy on the internet,” she said, adding, “Children are getting recruited on the internet from being on games, social media or any social media platform. Parents, you’ve got to monitor what your kids are doing because they think they are talking to other children and they are not. They are talking to monsters often.”
“You’ve gotta be all in your children’s business,” Jones added.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Attorney General Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday that 205 alleged child sex predators who preyed on children online have been arrested in the last week.
The Department of Justice will never stop fighting to protect children and we will not rest until we find and prosecute every child predator who preys on the most vulnerable.
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) May 7, 2025
The arrests are part of a new joint operation by the Justice Department and FBI called “Operation Restore Justice” which saw 115 children across the country rescued in the process, Bondi and Patel said.
Bondi called the operation “historic and “unprecedented.”
🚨 #BREAKING: Kash Patel and Pam Bondi announce 205 arrests of child predators this week ALONE
KASH: “If you harm our children, there is no place we won’t hunt you down—and no cage we won’t put you in.”
“These depraved human beings, if convicted, will face the maximum penalty in prison some life,” Bondi said at a press briefing.
“We will find you. We will arrest you, and we will charge you. If you are online targeting a child, you will not escape us. The FBI and the Department of Justice will come after you. And we will prosecute you.”
