Justice Department officials are set to meet on Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The meeting in Florida, which Deputy Attorney
General Todd Blanche said on Tuesday he was working to arrange, is part of an ongoing Justice Department effort to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from parts of President Donald Trump’s base over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.
Here's the latest:
Democrats aren’t letting up on their calls for disclosure from the Trump administration on the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
House Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer started the morning off with a speech calling for a closed-door briefing for senators from the Trump administration on the Epstein files. While the administration is unlikely to comply with the New York Democrat’s demand, Democrats are pouncing on the issue and have found some success this week by daring Republicans to join them in votes to demand disclosure of the files.
“A good number of people voted for Trump because he promised to be their voice against the so-called deep state. But now they’ve seen he’s very much part of that deep state. He’s right in the middle of it,” Schumer said.
The president’s daughter-in-law formally made her decision public Thursday in a post on X, as news of RNC Chair Michael Whatley’s expected entrance into the race emerged.
Lara Trump said she was “deeply grateful” for encouragement to seek the open seat in her home state and appeared not to close the door to a possible future run, saying she looked “forward to the future, wherever that leads.”
Lara Trump served alongside Whatley as RNC co-chair during last year’s elections and had been seen as having the right of first refusal to seek the seat, which Democrats see as a top pickup opportunity in next year’s midterms.
Ron Klain, who served as former President Joe Biden’s first chief of staff, entered the House Oversight Committee’s hearing room just before 10 a.m. for testimony as part of House Republicans’ probe into Biden’s age and alleged cognitive decline.
Klain took no questions as he entered the room.
The stock price dropped 2%, or $6.13, to $286.50 on Thursday morning. Company shares have mostly shed value since December, when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in midtown Manhattan on his way to the company’s annual investor meeting.
The company’s business covers more than 8 million people as the nation’s largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans. The business has been under pressure in recent quarters due to rising care use and rate cuts.
UnitedHealth also runs one of the nation’s largest health insurance and pharmacy benefits management businesses. It also operates a growing Optum business that provides care and technology support.
Shares of UnitedHealth Group dove early Thursday after the health care giant said it was under a Department of Justice investigation.
The company said it has started complying with both criminal and civil requests from federal investigators and it was working cooperatively with them.
“(UnitedHealth) has a long record of responsible conduct and effective compliance,” the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal said federal officials had launched a civil fraud investigation into how the company records diagnoses that lead to extra payments for its Medicare Advantage, or MA, plans. Those are privately run versions of the government’s Medicare coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and over.
▶ Read more about the UnitedHealth federal investigation
That’s according to two people familiar with his thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t permitted to speak on the record.
President Trump, according to one of the people, asked him to make the run after Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, mulled the seat.
Politico first reported news of Whatley’s plans.
Democrats see North Carolina as their top pickup opportunity next year after Sen. Thom Tillis announced his surprise retirement after clashing with Trump.
While Lara Trump had been seen as having the right of first refusal, Whatley is considered by national Republicans to be a strong contender for the seat, thanks, in part, to the large fundraising network he’s cultivated as RNC chair and his perceived loyalty to the president. He’s a well-known name in the state, having served as GOP chair there, and has no voting record that could be used against him by Democrats.
— Jill Colvin
President Trump’s trip to Scotland this week will be a homecoming of sorts, but he’s likely to get a mixed reception.
Trump has had a long and at times rocky relationship with the country where his mother grew up in a humble house on a windswept isle.
He’ll be met by both political leaders and protesters during the visit, which begins Friday and takes in his two Scottish golf resorts. It comes two months before King Charles III is due to welcome him on a formal state visit to the U.K.
“I’m not proud that he (has) Scottish heritage,” said Patricia Sloan, who says she stopped visiting the Turnberry resort on Scotland’s west coast after Trump bought it in 2014. “All countries have good and bad that come out of them, and if he’s going to kind of wave the flag of having Scottish heritage, that’s the bad part, I think.”
▶ Read more about Trump’s relationship with Scotland
3 p.m. ET — Trump will sign executive orders
4 p.m. — Trump will visit the Federal Reserve
The man charged with attempting to assassinate Trump last year at his Florida golf course will return to court Thursday to once again explain why he wants to fire his court-appointed lawyers and represent himself.
Ryan Routh previously made the request earlier this month during a hearing in Fort Pierce before U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. She didn’t rule during the hearing but said she would issue a written order later. But now Routh, 59, is set to be back in front of Cannon, a day after his court-appointed federal public defenders asked to be taken off the case.
Routh is scheduled to stand trial in September, a year after prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent thwarted his attempt to shoot Trump as he played golf. Routh has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.
▶ Read more about the assassination attempt case
