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For a number of hours final week, Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi sat earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee with one obvious mission: Don’t again down.
The oversight listening to targeted on the latest actions of the Justice Division, which has been consumed with the discharge of the Epstein recordsdata, in addition to ongoing investigations into the deadly shootings of two Americans by federal brokers in Minneapolis. At some factors, the back-and-forth between Bondi and Congress devolved right into a screaming match. Confronted with questions on her division’s haphazard redaction of the recordsdata, she typically went on the assault, calling Consultant Jamie Raskin a “loser lawyer” and asking Consultant Jerry Nadler whether or not he’d “apologized to President Trump” for taking part in his impeachment hearings.
Bondi appeared extra enthusiastic about these deflections than she did about defending the division’s work, which has been hampered in latest months by understaffing and low morale. DOJ reportedly misplaced practically 10,000 workers from November 2024 to November 2025. U.S. Legal professional’s Places of work (that are a part of the division) shed 14 p.c of their workforce, a one-year discount that officers say is not like something they’ve seen in years. Some have been fired, some took a buyout bundle, and others merely walked away. Final month, Bondi advised in court docket filings that the division was struggling to maintain up with its workload, having launched solely a fraction of the tens of millions of Jeffrey Epstein–associated recordsdata below assessment. Some attorneys have been reportedly spending all or most of their days on the recordsdata. (Bondi mentioned on Saturday that “all” of the recordsdata have been launched, as mandated by the Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act, however lawmakers have criticized the recordsdata’ heavy redactions.)
Add to {that a} backlog of federal immigration circumstances and the continued authorized fallout from the administration’s mass-deportation push, and the end result is a corporation that’s completely overwhelmed. The U.S. legal professional for Minnesota, who has been answerable for defending latest federal immigration-enforcement efforts, described the brand new inflow of casework as an “monumental burden.” One ICE legal professional who volunteered to work on Minnesota’s backlog was reportedly faraway from her DOJ put up after telling a choose that her job “sucks” due to the elevated caseload and the administration’s failure to adjust to immigration court docket orders. “I want you’ll simply maintain me in contempt, your honor, in order that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep. I work days and night time,” she mentioned.
Nationally, DOJ is making some progress—the Govt Workplace for Immigration Overview introduced in September that it had whittled its pending-case backlog down from greater than 4.18 million to below 3.75 million—however the lack of staffing will solely make it more durable to sort out the remaining caseload. (A DOJ spokesperson informed me in a press release that “after 4 years of bureaucratic weaponization below the Biden Administration, President Trump and Legal professional Basic Bondi have created essentially the most environment friendly Division of Justice in American historical past.”)
The mission and function of the division has additionally been overhauled—lots of its core capabilities have been politicized since Trump’s return to workplace. The president has directed the division to pursue his private enemies and has changed profession DOJ workers with inexperienced MAGA loyalists, typically to the detriment of his personal agenda. Take the latest prosecution of two longtime Trump rivals, New York State Legal professional Basic Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. In September, after an performing U.S. legal professional reportedly determined that the case towards Comey was too weak to pursue, the president pressured him to resign and changed him with certainly one of his former legal professionals, Lindsey Halligan, who had by no means prosecuted a case earlier than. Halligan appeared to make a number of basic errors in presenting Comey’s case, and her circumstances towards James and Comey have since been thrown out. She resigned in January, a number of months after a choose dominated that she had been illegally appointed.
The New York Occasions reported that Bondi’s former chief of workers put out an open name on social media for legal professionals who “assist President Trump and anti-crime agenda” to privately message him about jobs inside the division. These have been, till not too long ago, a number of the most prestigious positions within the American authorized system—the “crème de la crème,” my colleague Quinta Jurecic, who covers politics and legislation, informed me. Now the halls are empty sufficient {that a} division affiliate is in search of out candidates on-line.
No less than the remaining workers know who’s in cost. This afternoon, a banner was held on the DOJ constructing’s facade—on it, proper above the slogan “Make America Protected Once more,” was an image of the president.
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- Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the previous prince, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public workplace after accusations that he shared confidential info with Jeffrey Epstein whereas serving as a U.Okay. commerce envoy and will face life in jail if convicted; King Charles III mentioned that the “legislation should take its course,” and Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
- President Trump introduced at his Board of Peace’s first assembly that america would contribute $10 billion to its Gaza-rebuilding efforts; he additionally mentioned that he plans on naming his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a “particular peace envoy.”
- The Pentagon is sending extra warships, air defenses, and submarines to the Center East because the U.S. prepares for doable strikes on Iran, although officers say that no determination on such motion has been made.
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Night Learn
The Longevity Rip-off
By Jordan D. Metzl
The search to dwell perpetually has fascinated people for millennia. The Epic of Gilgamesh, composed about 4,000 years in the past, follows a king who searches the world for a plant that may restore youth, solely to lose the plant to a thieving snake. The (probably apocryphal) story of Juan Ponce de León, who is alleged to have launched into a seek for the Fountain of Youth within the early sixteenth century, refuses to die—not like its protagonist, who was killed alongside his journey.
Right now’s longevity-medicine motion is pushed by the identical aggressive need for everlasting youth because the mythic tales of outdated. However whereas in earlier occasions concepts about wellness may journey solely as quick because the individuals who held them, in the present day nearly anybody with an web connection can use social media and AI-generated graphics to promote medical recommendation in seconds. Regardless of a determined scarcity of placebo-controlled trials in people to assist that recommendation, the enterprise of longevity is booming, thanks largely to smooth direct-to-consumer advertising and marketing delivered by well being influencers with way more confidence than proof. By 2030, $8 trillion could be spent yearly on longevity-related merchandise.
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this text.
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