Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday announced her office had stripped security clearances from 37 current and former intelligence officials, accusing them of politicizing and manipulating intelligence.
A DNI memo sent out on Monday included the names of officials who worked at the CIA, NSA, State Department and National Security Council, including former Obama DNI James Clapper, who Gabbard claimed told officials to ‘compromise’ normal procedures to rush a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment related to Russia’s influence in the 2016 election.
‘Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,’ Gabbard wrote in an X post. ‘Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.’
Notable officials on the list include Brett M. Holmgren, former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; Richard H. Ledgett, former NSA Deputy Director; Stephanie O’Sullivan, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence; and Luke R. Hartig, former Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
Also included was Yael Eisenstat, a former CIA officer and White House advisor known for her involvement in the Facebook election integrity operation.
Gabbard said the decision was made at President Donald Trump’s direction.
‘Our Intelligence Community must be committed to upholding the values and principles enshrined in the US Constitution and maintain a laser-like focus on our mission of ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people,’ Gabbard wrote on X.
The memo noted the revocation was effective immediately, and the officials’ access to classified systems, facilities, materials and information would be terminated.
The officials’ contracts or employment with the government are to be terminated and credentials surrendered to security officers, according to the memo.
Russia launched its largest attack of the month against Ukraine while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders at the White House.
The attack also comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska last Friday, during which Putin refused an immediate ceasefire and demanded that Ukraine give up its eastern Donetsk region in exchange for an end to the conflict that began with a February 2022 invasion by Moscow. Trump later said he had spoken on the phone with Putin about arrangements for a meeting between the Russian president and Zelenskyy.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles into Ukraine on Monday night and into Tuesday, but that 230 drones and six missiles were intercepted or suppressed. The air force reported that 40 drones and four missiles struck across 16 locations, and debris was said to have fallen on three sites.
‘While hard work to advance peace was underway in Washington, D.C. … Moscow continued to do the opposite of peace: more strikes and destruction,’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. ‘This once again demonstrates how critical it is to end the killing, achieve a lasting peace, and ensure robust security guarantees.’
Energy infrastructure in the central Poltava region was a target of the strikes, according to Ukraine’s Energy Ministry. The casualty figures were not immediately released by officials.
‘As a result of the attack, large-scale fires broke out,’ the ministry said in a statement.
Oil refining and gas facilities were attacked, the ministry added, saying the strikes were the latest ‘systematic terrorist attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which is a direct violation of international humanitarian law.’
The attack was the largest since Russia launched 309 drones and eight missiles into Ukraine on July 31, according to the air force.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 23 Ukrainian drones on Monday night and into Tuesday morning.
Both sides have been targeting infrastructure, including oil facilities.
Zelenskyy had criticized Moscow for earlier strikes on Monday ahead of his meeting at the White House in which at least 14 people were killed and dozens more were injured.
‘The Russian war machine continues to destroy lives despite everything. Putin will commit demonstrative killings to maintain pressure on Ukraine and Europe, as well as to humiliate diplomatic efforts. That is precisely why we are seeking assistance to put an end to the killings,’ he wrote Monday morning on X.
President Trump told Brian Glenn of the conservative Real America’s Voice that he didn’t want to answer his question because it was ‘off-topic’ as he stood there with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders.
Then he proceeded to answer it at great length.
The idea, it turns out, began with Vladimir Putin, who has a bit of experience at keeping himself in power, which isn’t all that hard if you’re a dictator.
My source? Donald Trump.
He said Putin told him that ‘it’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections,’ in an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity. He said Putin told him he won the 2020 election ‘by so much,’ as Trump has long claimed, ‘and you lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election.’
Music to the president’s ears.
So Trump was ready when a friendly reporter asked the question.
‘Mail-in ballots are corrupt,’ he declared. ‘Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots, and we as a Republican Party are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt.’
He was just warming up.
And, you know, that we’re the only country in the world, I believe I may be wrong, but just about the only country in the world that uses [mail-in ballots] because of what’s happened, massive fraud all over the place. The other thing we want, change of the machines. For all of the money they spend, it’s approximately 10 times more expensive than paper ballots. And paper ballots are very sophisticated with the watermark paper and everything else, we would get secure elections. We get much faster results, the machines, I mean, they say we’re going to have the results in two weeks with paper ballots. You have the results that night. Most people almost have, but most people in many countries use paper ballots. It’s the most secure form.’
A little fact-checking is in order.
As Axios points out, many countries around the world have some form of mail-in voting. And millions of Americans who live overseas, such as military families, are eligible for mailing in their ballots.
Trump actually doesn’t have the power to do this. While he says the states are an ‘agent’ of the feds, the Constitution says the mechanics of holding elections ‘shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.’ But Congress can change those requirements. Could the president get this through the narrow majorities in both chambers?
‘It’s a fraud,’ Trump said, adding: ‘It’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it, it’s the only way they can get elected.’
Trump even invoked Jimmy Carter. In 2004, a commission set up by the former president and ex-Reagan aide James Baker III concluded that ‘absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.’
In 2020, Trump went all-out in favor of mail-in ballots, arguing that they would help Republicans. Of course, he may just have been trying to make the best of the tools already in place. No party believes in unilateral disarmament.
But his enthusiasm for mail-in ballots in that election stands in stark contrast to his current stance that they are corrupt and should be banned.
Trump wound up telling Brian Glenn, who is dating Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘I’m glad you asked that question.’
The president doesn’t let himself be tied down by the rules of consistency that most conventional politicians have to obey. Until last Friday, he was insisting on a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine as a precondition for any peace agreement. After the Alaska summit, he dropped the cease-fire idea that Zelensky had been demanding, given that his country is being bombarded every day, with significant civilian casualties, and adopted the Putin stance of allowing the war to continue to further freeze his military gains in the crucial Donbas region.
But that flexibility – what critics call flip-flopping – has put the president in the position where he has a shot at hammering out a peace agreement, though major obstacles remain.
So I expect we’ll hear a lot more about how mail-in ballots are horrible and evil in the coming months, though whether he can get his Hill allies to go along is very much an open question.
That became one of the most common reactions across the White House’s feeds. The answer was always yes.
Serving as director of digital content for President Donald Trump was the most meaningful and intense chapter of my professional life. From the moment we rebooted the administration’s online presence on Inauguration Day, the mission was clear: speak in a voice that resonated with real Americans and make sure our MAGA message could not be ignored.
We did not build a cautious, government-style account. We built a fast, culturally fluent content machine designed to cut through the noise and win online. And it worked.
In just six months, the administration’s platforms added over 16 million new followers, with the fastest growth among Americans aged 18–34. We generated billions of video views and gained more than half a million new YouTube subscribers – nearly triple the previous administration’s total growth over four years.
But it was never just about numbers. Our success came from echoing the humor, passion and identity of a movement that was already alive. We did not invent the culture. We gave it a megaphone.
This was not entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Our meme-heavy, content-first strategy was aligned with the president’s priorities. Digital was not a sideshow. It was a frontline tool for shaping narratives, building momentum, and applying pressure.
That was clearest during the push for President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. We were not writing legislation. We were making sure Americans understood what was at stake. We turned policy into content people wanted to share – and that shifted the conversation.
That agility was only possible because of President Trump. His decisiveness gave us the freedom to move fast and take risks. Whether it was an ASMR-style video of deportations, a Jedi Trump with a bicep vein battling the deep state, or a surreal ‘Make It Rain’ Gemini AI-generated storm of cash over the White House, every post had intention. Every choice matched the cultural moment.
These were not random stunts. They were designed to draw younger Americans, many of whom had tuned out politics, back into the conversation. And it worked.
We did not wait to react to headlines. We inspired them. From the 100-day mugshot display on the North Lawn to anime-style fentanyl dealers crying on camera, we pushed the boundaries of political communication.
Major media outlets took notice. Even Democrats are playing catch-up. Gavin Newsom has pretty much stolen podcasts, memes and trolling tactics that came straight from the MAGA playbook. That is not coincidence. That is proof of impact.
Here is the truth. We did not go viral because we were chasing virality. We went viral because we paid attention. We knew our audience. We stayed sharp on the message. And we operated like creators, not bureaucrats.
That kind of approach takes a rare team. The White House digital staff I had the honor to serve with are some of the smartest and most imaginative minds in politics today. They understand what many still miss: politics and culture are inseparable. You move them together or you do not move them at all.
I have full confidence in the team under White House deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr to continue winning, and as Dorr put it best: ‘The arrests will continue. The memes will continue.’
As I step away from my role at the White House and return to leading my public relations and digital firm, I do so with pride. We did not just manage accounts. We reinvented how people experience the presidency online. Others are only now beginning to understand that reality. We will continue to lead – because we not only understand the tools. We understand the Americans who use them.
A ticket-reselling operation used a network of fake accounts to bypass Ticketmaster’s security protocols to grab hundreds of thousands of tickets to hugely popular tours for artists like Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen and then re-sold them for millions, federal regulators said Monday.
The Federal Trade Commission alleges the operation used illicit software that masked IP addresses, as well as repurposed credit cards and SIM phone cards, as part of the scheme. It was run through various guises, like TotalTickets.com, TotallyTix and Front Rose Tix, but was run by three key individuals, the agency said.
In total, the group is accused of buying 321,286 tickets to 3,261 live performances from June 2022 to December 2023, in bunches of 15 or more tickets to each event at a total cost of approximately $46.7 million and then reselling them for $52.4 million, netting approximately $5.7 million.
Taylor Swift.Lewis Joly / AP file
That includes $1.2 million from reselling tickets in 2023 for Taylor Swift’s record-breaking “The Eras Tour.” In one instance, the suspects used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets for Swift’s March 2023 tour stop in Las Vegas, vastly exceeding Ticketmaster’s six-ticket limit, which they then sold for $120,000, the FTC alleges.
Another part of the alleged scheme involved using friends, family and paid strangers to open Ticketmaster accounts. The FTC says the defendants at one point printed up flyers in places like Baltimore claiming that participants could “make money doing verified van sign ups” in just “3 easy steps,” earning $5 for the account creation and $5 to $20 each time they received a Verified Fan presale code.
Ticketmaster came in for heavy criticism after fans complained of faulty technology and eye-watering prices for 2022 sales for Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen’s tours. The Verified Fan pre-sale for Swift’s tour crashed its site, which it blamed on “bot attacks” and bot fans who didn’t have invite codes. It was subsequently forced to postpone the sale date for the general public seeking tickets to Swift’s tour “due to demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”
In response, Swift alluded to broken “trust” with Ticketmaster, though she didn’t name it directly.
“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” she wrote in an Instagram message in 2022, adding: “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”
Springsteen said in a statement at the time that “ticket buying has gotten very confusing, not just for the fans, but for the artists also” but that most of his tickets are “totally affordable.”
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on curbing exploitative ticket reselling practices that raise costs for fans.
On Monday, FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said Trump’s order made clear ‘that unscrupulous middlemen who harm fans and jack up prices through anticompetitive methods will hear from us.”
“Today’s action puts brokers on notice that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers’ purchase limits, ensuring that consumers have an opportunity to buy tickets at fair prices,” he said in a statement.
Ticketmaster itself has remained under federal scrutiny for violating a prior agreement to curb what regulators said was anti-competitive behavior. In 2024, the Justice Department and FTC under President Joe Biden opened a lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company, LiveNation, that accused it of monopolizing the live events industry.
It was not immediately clear whether that suit is still active. In July, the parent company of the alleged operation charged Monday by the FTC, Key Investment Group, sued the agency to block its pending investigation into its sales practices, saying that ticket purchases on its site did not use automated software, or bots, and did not violate the 2016 Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.
Representatives for the FTC and Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. Ticketmaster is not accused of wrongdoing in the latest suit. It did not respond to a request for comment.
Strangely, in the latest complaint, the FTC includes a slide from an internal Ticketmaster presentation from 2018 that suggests the company was weighing the economic impact of imposing stricter purchasing caps that would curb bots but potentially hurt its finances. On a page labeled “evaluating potential actions” a data table is shown under the heading “serious negative economic impact if we move to 8 ticket limit across the board.”
It also includes an email from one of the defendants in which he “owns up” to having exceeded the ticket-purchase limit for a May 2024 Bad Bunny show in Miami and offers to have the orders canceled, to which a Ticketmaster rep simply responds that “as long as the purchases were made using different accounts and cards, it’s within the guidelines.”
Efforts to reach the three defendants — Taylor Kurth, Elan Rozmaryn and Yair Rozmaryn — named in the suit announced Monday were unsuccessful. In 2018, Kurth signed a deal, or consent decree, with regulators in the state of Washington that committed him to not use software designed to circumvent companies’ security policies.
The FTC is seeking unspecified damages and civil penalties against the defendants.
CORRECTION (Aug. 19, 2025, 11:41 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article incorrectly named a party suing the FTC and which investigation it was suing over. Key Investment Group, the parent of the alleged operation cited in the suit filed Monday by the FTC, sued the agency in July to halt an investigation into its practices. Ticketmaster and its parent, Live Nation, are not directly involved in that investigation or Key’s suit against the agency.
Best Buy is launching a third-party marketplace, as it tries to bulk up the variety of merchandise it offers and reverse slower sales.
Starting on Tuesday, shoppers who go to Best Buy’s website and app will see products and brands that weren’t available there before, including more tech-related accessories like custom video game controllers and some nontech items including seasonal decor and sports collectibles.
The company’s online marketplace riffs off those of other retailers, such as Amazon and Walmart, by relying on third-party sellers to stock, sell and ship inventory and taking a cut of their sales in the form of a commission.
“Everything we do is really centered around the customer and their technology needs, and we do see customers actually doing a lot of consumer electronics transactions through marketplaces,” Chief Customer, Product and Fulfillment Officer Jason Bonfig said. “And as a result of that, we need to make adjustments to be where the customer’s at.”
He said Best Buy noticed gaps in its assortment that the new platform will help it fill. For instance, Bonfig said the company didn’t carry batteries for some older cameras or cases for older smartphones. And it didn’t offer some items that complement Best Buy purchases, such as furniture that goes around a big-screen TV or cookware to use with a new kitchen appliance.
Along with adding those items, the marketplace makes it possible for smaller vendors with innovative products to sell on Best Buy’s website when they’re not yet big enough to make or distribute the volume needed for its stores, he added.
Best Buy’s marketplace launches at a time when its business could use a boost. Its annual sales have declined over the past three years as the company contends with a sluggish housing market, selective consumer spending and a decline in device replacements after a spike in tech purchases during the Covid pandemic.
The company cut its sales outlook in May and said it expects full-year revenue to range from $41.1 billion to $41.9 billion. That would be similar to Best Buy’s annual revenue of $41.5 billion in the most recent fiscal year, but below the numbers it posted in the years leading up to and during the pandemic.
Best Buy will share its most recent earnings results and sales forecast on Aug. 28.
Tariffs have complicated the backdrop for Best Buy, too, since the higher duties have added costs for consumer electronics vendors and distracted them from other priorities like research and development that leads to new and innovative products, said Jonathan Matuszewski, a retail analyst at Jefferies. He said Best Buy tends to win sales instead of big-box or online competitors when there’s a leap forward in technology.
With the platform’s launch, Best Buy joins other retailers that have jumped on the trend of introducing or expanding third-party marketplaces. Lowe’s and Nordstrom started marketplaces last year. Ulta Beauty plans to launch its own later this year. And Target said it will expand its existing marketplace, Target Plus.
On Best Buy’s earnings call in May, CEO Corie Barry described the third-party marketplace as one of the company’s strategic priorities for the year. She said that new profit stream “is even more important in this environment” and will provide greater flexibility with the range of items and price points.
Plus, she said the marketplace supports the company’s growing advertising business. Sellers can buy ads for their products, including by paying for better placement in search results.
Marketplaces and the advertising opportunities that come with them tend drive higher profits for retailers, said Justin MacFarlane, a managing director for the global retail group of AlixPartners. Sellers buy, stock and ship products instead of the retailer, and take on both the expense of buying inventory and the risk that they may have to mark down unwanted items, he said.
Yet the business model comes with risks, too, he said.For instance, sellers may not have the same standards as a retailer and it could anger a retailer’s customers if they send products in torn boxes, with missing pieces or days later than expected. And he said retailers can flood their websites with so many different categories, brands and products that they overwhelm customers with choices that seem irrelevant to their company’s identity.
“You get addicted to the growth and more is more until it’s not,” he said.
At launch, Best Buy’s marketplace will have about 500 sellers, Bonfig said. He said the company vetted applicants and whittled them down to the ones who can provide a high-quality customer experience. The sellers must match Best Buy’s return policy, he added.
Customers can return purchases either directly to the seller or to Best Buy stores, he said.
Apple clinched a major win Monday after the U.S. government announced that the U.K. had agreed to drop its demand for the company to provide a “back door” granting officials access to users’ encrypted data.
The iPhone maker won’t be alone to rejoice in the outcome.
The development came after extensive talks between Britain and the U.S., which had raised national security concerns over the request.
At the root of the row was end-to-end encryption, a technology which secures communications between two devices in a way that means not even the company providing a chat service can view any messages.
The story of Apple’s U.K. privacy battle started earlier this year, when it was reported that the British government had demanded access to the company’s encrypted cloud service via a technical “back door.”
Such a back door has long been contested by Apple. In 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to get Apple to create software that would enable it to unlock an iPhone it recovered from one of the shooters involved in the 2015 terror attack in San Bernardino, California.
Other companies have also had to fend off government attempts to undermine end-to-end encryption. For example, when Meta announced plans to encrypt all messages on its Facebook Messenger app, the move drew condemnation from the U.K. Home Office. Meta had already offered encryption on WhatsApp.
The Monday news could have broader implications for the debate around end-to-end encryption globally.
Governments and law enforcement agencies have long pushed for methods to break such encryption systems to assist with criminal investigations into terrorism and child sexual abuse.
However, tech companies have said that building an encryption back door would not only undermine user privacy, but also expose them to possible cyberattacks. Cybersecurity experts say that any back door built for a government would eventually be found and exploited by hackers.
U.S. national intelligence officials were also worried by the ramifications of Apple offering such a back door.
For Apple, the U.K.‘s concession over encryption could mean that the company can bring back its most secure service for users’ cloud data, Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which the company stopped offering to Brits in February.
It is not yet clear if Apple will reintroduce its ADP service to the U.K. market.
CNBC has reached out to Apple and the U.K. government for comment.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr told House investigators on Monday that he never saw anything that could tie President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein’s sordid crimes, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said.
‘He said that he had never seen anything that would implicate President Trump in any of this, and that he believed if there had been anything pertaining to President Trump with respect to the Epstein list, that he felt like the Biden administration would probably have leaked it out,’ Comer told reporters partway through Barr’s testimony.
The ex-Trump administration official is the first person to appear in the House Oversight Committee’s probe into the federal government’s handling of Epstein’s case.
Like others subpoenaed to testify after him, Barr’s deposition is being conducted behind closed doors.
Comer said Barr told investigators that he ‘didn’t know anything about a client list,’ and did not have conversations with Trump about such a list.
‘Barr said he’s never seen any information that showed that he was in the files, and that he would be shocked if there was anything pertaining to President Trump that was negative that the Biden administration wouldn’t have leaked out prior to the presidential election,’ Comer said.
Democrats who were in the room for the first two hours of Barr’s deposition were much more vague about what went on, but they accused Republicans of taking too soft an approach.
‘I have more questions now than I did before going in,’ Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., told reporters before Comer’s remarks. ‘Just generally, though, I think the Democratic side is doing most of the heavy lifting. I don’t think we’re learning much from the questioning from the House Republicans.’
Comer said when asked about those comments, ‘I think it’s unfortunate that the Democrats are trying to, seems to me, politicize this.’
Barr served as attorney general from February 2019 through December 2020, during Trump’s first administration. It was his second stint leading the Department of Justice (DOJ) after first holding the job under former President George H.W. Bush.
Barr notably led the DOJ when Epstein died by suicide in August 2019 while awaiting trial in a New York City jail.
He said days later at aFraternal Order of Police event in New Orleans that he was ‘appalled’ and ‘angry’ at what he said was the facility’s ‘failure to adequately secure this prisoner.’
Barr told the Associated Press later that year that he was personally involved in investigating Epstein’s death, specifically that he reviewed security footage from that night that he said showed no one entering the cell the night the late pedophile died.
He eventually concluded Epstein did die by suicide, Barr told the outlet, owing to ‘a perfect storm of screw-ups’ at the jail.
When asked if Barr told as much to House investigators on Monday, Comer declined to ‘speak for’ the former attorney general but added he believed the ‘general consensus’ was that Epstein killed himself with no external foul play.
Barr’s testimony is part of a wider bipartisan investigation into the handling of Epstein’s case, which has also reached several former attorneys general, FBI directors, and former first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.
President Donald Trump said that his meeting at the White House Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn’t a last attempt to help Ukraine secure a peace deal ending its war with Russia.
‘I can never say that. It’s never the end of the road,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Monday. ‘People are being killed, and we want to stop that. So I would not say it’s the end of the road. No, I think we have a good chance of doing it now. It’s been almost four years now that, a lot of people were killed last week, a lot of people last week. I mean, millions of people killed, but a lot of people last week, for whatever reason, a big number, a lot of soldiers, both on both sides. And, I know the president. I know myself, and I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended.’
Trump’s comments come days after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday. Trump also said Monday that he called Putin ahead of his meeting with Zelenskyy, and would call the Russian leader again after talks with Zelenskyy and other European leaders wrapped up.
Zelenskyy, who hasn’t visited the White House since February, is joined by other European leaders who have supported Ukraine. Leaders also in Washington include British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
Trump told reporters that he wouldn’t eliminate the possibility that U.S. troops could be deployed to Ukraine following a peace negotiation to ensure Russia upholds its end of the bargain.
‘We will give them very good protection, very good security. That’s part of it,’ Trump told reporters Monday.
Trump said more details would be forthcoming on what it would mean to deploy U.S. troops to Ukraine, and that he would be discussing the matter with other European leaders Monday.
‘They’ll all be involved, but there’ll be a lot of help when it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help, it’s going to be good,’ Trump said. ‘They are first line of defense, because they’re there, they’re Europe, but we’re going to help them out also, we’ll be involved.’
Although Trump said Sunday that NATO membership for Ukraine was not an option for a potential peace deal, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that Putin has agreed to allow the U.S. and other European allies to provide additional protection for Ukraine, similar to protections included in NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause.
‘We were able to win the following concession that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,’ Witkoff said in an interview with CNN.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are bringing on Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as an additional deputy director of the bureau, Fox News Digital has learned.
Bailey will serve as a co-deputy director, alongside Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Fox News Digital has learned.
‘I am thrilled to welcome Andrew Bailey as Co-Deputy Director of the FBI,’ Bondi told Fox News Digital. ‘He has served as a distinguished state attorney general and is a decorated war veteran, bringing expertise and dedication to service. His leadership and commitment to country will be a tremendous asset as we work together to advance President Trump’s mission.’
‘The FBI, as the leading investigative body of the federal government under the Department of Justice, will always bring the greatest talent this country has to offer in order to accomplish the goals set forth when an overwhelming majority of American people elected President Donald J. Trump again,’ Patel told Fox News Digital, adding that Bailey will be an ‘integral part of this important mission’ and said he looks forward to ‘the continued fight to save America together.’
Bailey, as Missouri’s attorney general, launched an anti-human trafficking task force and addressed more than 1,100 reported incidents in Missouri. He also cleared the backlog of Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) kits to improve prosecution of sexual assault cases.
Bailey’s office also defended the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in civil litigation and has consistently advocated for law enforcement. Bailey was endorsed by the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police.
Bailey’s office also reported a 133% increase in trial court-level criminal prosecutions.
Bailey also has held public officials accountable during his time as attorney general. He demanded the resignation of a sheriff for financial mismanagement and misconduct, and, separately, announced a grand jury indictment against a St. Louis county executive for stealing and election law violations.
‘I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to serve as the Co-Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,’ Bailey told Fox News Digital. ‘I extend my deepest gratitude to President Trump, U.S. Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel for the privilege to join in their stated mission to Make America Safe Again.’
A senior administration official told Fox News Digital that President Donald Trump ‘wants to see bad guys prosecuted, illegals deported, and corrupt politicians held accountable.’
‘We need all hands on deck to accomplish all of these important goals,’ the official said. ‘Andrew Bailey will serve as another set of credible, experienced hands to help Attorney General Bondi and FBI Director Patel carry out the President’s mission.’
The FBI, under Patel’s leadership, already has seen 19,000 arrests nationwide — that’s double the arrests made in all of 2024.
Of those, 1,600 individuals have been arrested for violent crimes against children — including 270 arrests for human traffickers, according to the FBI. One thousand have been arrested from investigations of foreign terrorist organizations, and three of the ‘Top 10 Most Wanted’ have been arrested in 2025.
Patel’s FBI has rescued 4,000 child victims — a 33% increase from 2025; seized 1,500 kilos of fentanyl; and seized 6,300 kilos of methamphetamines.
A senior official told Fox News Digital that the murder rate is currently on track to be the lowest ever recorded in history.
‘President Trump wants to see America quickly become the safest country in the world, and he has put together the best law and order focused team in the business to accomplish that goal,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital.
The addition of Bailey comes amid the expanding nature of Trump’s law and order agenda. As for the federal takeover of Washington, D.C., Bondi is in charge, and the FBI is playing a large role.
Bondi, on Friday, announced there have been nearly 200 arrests ‘and counting’ in the nation’s capital, including those of murder suspects and illegal gun offenders, since the Trump administration federalized the city to tackle crime.
Among those arrested were two homicide suspects, 17 suspected drug traffickers, 39 suspected illegal gun offenders and two sexual predators, according to Bondi.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
