TV News LIES

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s clash with President Trump over the handling of the Reflecting Pool case is raising questions about her standing with the president, with whom she has enjoyed a friendly relationship for decades.

Pirro visited the White House Monday evening after Trump lashed out at her on camera hours earlier in the Oval Office, telling reporters she “folded like an umbrella” in her move to drop charges.

“The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine, and frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious,” Trump said. 

“Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department,” he continued. “And I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

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Stephanie Grisham, the White House communications director during President Trump’s first term, filed a restraining order against Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) on Monday, amid allegations that Miller abused his ex-wife.

Grisham’s counsel, Mark S. Zaid, announced on social platform X that they filed for a temporary restraining order against Miller as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

The case began with an op-ed Grisham wrote in 2021 in the Washington Post that described an abusive relationship with an unnamed man. Miller filed a defamation suit against her shortly after the article was published, but the case was eventually dropped as both parties signed a nondisclosure agreement to not publicly disparage one another.

Grisham filed her new lawsuit after Miller said in a June interview with Spectrum News that any allegations should be taken seriously and it “should be noted” that an allegation against him “came out on the same day as somebody’s book launch and the other part.”

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A compromise between Todd Blanche and two Republican senators that potentially cleared the way for Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general is weak, Democrats and several experts said, as it makes promises Donald Trump can easily reverse.

Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted two documents on Sunday evening showing he was withdrawing an 18 May order allowing for the creation of a $1.8bn weaponization fund and clarifying that broad tax immunity the justice department granted to Trump only applied retroactively to the president, his sons, and businesses.

he agreement stemmed from a deal worked out with senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, two Republicans who had threatened to block Blanche’s nomination. Cornyn and Tillis said on Monday they would support Blanche when his vote comes up for the Senate judiciary committee Tuesday.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” Cornyn and Tillis said. “Additionally, the department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”

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An immigrant being held at a New Jersey ICE detention center died on 1 August, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, 41, is the 22nd person to die in ICE custody this year, according to agency data.

Lopez-Cornejo, who is originally from El Salvador and first came to the US in 2006, was arrested by ICE agents in Plainfield, New Jersey, on 18 June and sent to Delaney Hall detention facility to await deportation. Less than two months later he suffered an unspecified “medical emergency”, and was later pronounced dead by University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, ICE said.

Lopez-Cornejo’s mother, Maria Cornejo told the New Jersey Monitor newspaper that her son had held a job since 2022 and tried to show the arresting officers his work permit, but he was detained anyway. Though she says she spoke to her son daily, she was unable to visit him because she is not a US citizen.

“I never got to see him. He didn’t get to see his daughter for six weeks,” she told the Monitor. “When we told her what happened, she let out a big scream and hasn’t been the same since. She can’t sleep or eat. Neither can I.

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Federal prosecutors dropped the last of their cases against people charged with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in DC had filed charges of vandalism in connection with damage to the iconic DC pond against David Hearn, Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Cameron Thiers. President Donald Trump had previously described the supposed pool-damaging culprits as "SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE."

The office for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, however, decided to drop the cases against all four people after concluding that contractors, not vandals, were to blame for the pool’s deteriorated state. Court records obtained by USA TODAY show that prosecutors filed paperwork to drop all of the cases on Friday, July 31.

USA TODAY has reached out to Pirro for comment. The move to drop the last of the Reflecting Pool cases comes after Trump has repeatedly alleged the pool was vandalized.

"To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM," the president said as late as Saturday, Aug. 1, in a statement on an official Trump social media account. "There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!"

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Capital One Financial hit back on Friday against a lawsuit over its ⁠decision to close the Trump ⁠Organization’s bank accounts ​years ago, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money-laundering experts.

The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to Donald Trump’s family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case by casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking – or denying services on religious or political grounds – the Trump Organization.

The Trump Organization and ⁠Capital One did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of money laundering. ​But Friday’s filing argues that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own ‌allegations make clear that Capital One closed ‌Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.

“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by ‌Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance.”

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