Trump blasts cities over crime, yet admin has cut gun violence prevention funding

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) issued a fierce demand Monday to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding President Donald Trump’s “long-term friendship” with Jeffrey Epstein, arguing it may have not only influenced the Trump administration’s policies, but created a “major national security liability.”

Raskin's demand came in the form of a letter to Blanche's office requesting records on Epstein's foreign ties, details of which have emerged through the Justice Department's release of millions of Epstein-related files that started last year. Specifically, Raskin’s request centered around suspicions that Epstein acted as a “foreign agent” for multiple countries, and on some occasions, did so “in order to influence policies of the first Trump administration.”

“Given the information Mr. Epstein possessed about President Trump and his easy access to high-level officials in the President’s inner circle, Mr. Epstein’s relationships with foreign leaders, including adversaries, posed a major national security liability,” Raskin’s letter reads.

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released the letter publicly on Tuesday, in which he cited evidence suggesting that Epstein worked on behalf of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and Israel, a potential violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Raskin went on to detail several examples as to how Epstein’s friendship with Trump may have created a legitimate “security risk” to the United States, including one involving a “Russian oligarch.”

“Mr. Epstein privately alleged the President was involved in an international money laundering scheme with a Russian oligarch that centered around real estate in Florida. In another missive, Mr. Epstein connects the dots between this scheme and the sale of expensive artwork to [Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman],” Raskin’s letter reads.

“While Mr. Epstein was prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandizement, these emails suggest President Trump’s foreign business interests may have had a tangible effect on foreign policy and that Mr. Epstein knew about and was willing to weaponize such lurking and explosive conflicts of interest.”

Raskin demanded that Blanche's office turn over “all records” related to Epstein and 19 different countries, as well as all records relating to entities associated with Epstein that “may have been set up to avoid their foreign contacts triggering personal FARA registration requirements.”

In the letter, Raskin noted that Epstein, alongside former Trump official Steve Bannon, appeared to employ “strategies for skirting FARA’s requirements,” including the use of non-profit entities and other non-governmental organizations to structure “international arrangements,” and to “use go-betweens so he could remain ‘surgically pure.’”

The GOP fears the "absolute destruction" their nominee for a gubernatorial race will cause, a New York Times columnist wrote.

NY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg detailed the concerns of the GOP after self-described "high-risk humanitarian" Victor Marx won his party's nomination for governor last week.

Marx has been in the national spotlight for claiming that he killed a man when he was 7 years old. Goldberg also highlights his series of bizarre and dubious claims, such as that he saved over 40,000 women and girls from sex trafficking, that he can perform exorcisms by phone, and that he has a black belt in "Cajun karate," which was invented by his father, Karl Marx.

Although some of these claims haven't held up under scrutiny, Goldberg wrote, "These discrepancies haven't stopped Marx from building a brand out of action-movie evangelicalism," and winning the GOP nomination for governor to go up against Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in November.

However, the Colorado GOP is worried about his nomination, Goldberg noted, not because it has its sights set on the governorship but because of how it will affect down-ballot races.

"Marx's close victory in a three-way primary has some Colorado Republicans despairing," Goldberg wrote. "Given how blue the state has become, the GOP never had much hope of winning the governorship, but Republicans told me that having Marx at the top of the ticket could put some statehouse and congressional races in danger."

Darcy Schoening, a top Colorado GOP party staffer who runs an anti-Marx website, told Goldberg that Marx is "going to do absolute destruction to all the candidates down ballot," and that his campaign has divided the state's right wing.

"The elevation of Marx is, in part, a story about the right-wing revolution eating its own," Goldberg wrote. "Marx demonstrates what can happen when voters, feeling apocalyptic, disdain concerns about expertise and electability and let themselves be guided by their id."