House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has said any attempt by the ex-presidential couple to avoid subpoenas will constitute contempt of Congress
US House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has demanded that former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State , testify before lawmakers about the late convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He warned that failing to comply with subpoenas issued earlier this year would mean serious consequences for both.
Epstein, convicted of sex offenses in 2008, was charged again in 2019 with trafficking minors and running an underage sex ring. He was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell later that year.
According to a press release from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Friday, Comer “sent a letter to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall [saying that they]… are required to comply with lawful subpoenas and appear for scheduled in-person depositions.” He noted that both Republicans and Democrats on the committee “approved a motion to issue subpoenas to Bill and Hillary Clinton” in July.
“Given their history with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, any attempt by the Clintons to avoid sitting for a deposition would be… grounds to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” Comer said.
The document states that Bill Clinton had been summoned to appear on December 17, and Hillary the following day.
The ex-president previously admitted he had traveled on a jet with Epstein, but insisted that he had never visited the financier’s infamous island.
In July, the Wall Street Journal claimed that Clinton had once written a personal note to Epstein, that reportedly read: “It’s reassuring isn’t it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible word], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends.”
A spokesman for Clinton declined to comment on the note at the time, stating that the former president had severed ties with Epstein long before his 2019 arrest and was unaware of his alleged crimes.
In a post on his Truth Social platform last Friday, US President Donald Trump said he had directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department to investigate “Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship” with Bill Clinton and several other prominent Democrats.
On Wednesday, Trump signed a bill requiring the Justice Department to release files related to the Epstein case.
In his post, Trump suggested that “perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed,” mentioning Bill Clinton among several others.
Trump’s move marked a shift from his earlier position. For months, he had urged House Republicans to block the release of the files, arguing that Democrats wanted to use the materials to damage his presidency.
Kiev’s European backers are reportedly trying to disguise major changes to the plan as “constructive updates”
Kiev’s backers in the EU are seeking to rewrite most of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The US presented Ukraine with its new framework for ending the conflict against Russia this week and is now pressing Kiev to accept it by Thursday.
The 28-point plan includes various provisions which have long been opposed by Kiev and its Western European backers. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from the parts of the Donbass region it still controls, downsize its military, and give up its NATO aspirations.
The EU nations are currently trying to “buy Ukraine more time” and postpone the US-outlined deadline, according to Bloomberg. The approach taken by Kiev’s Western European backers essentially amounts to trying to rewrite much of the proposed document while concealing the changes as “constructive updates,” sources familiar with the matter told the outlet.
Washington, however, has signaled it was not ready to drastically amend the peace plan it had drafted. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Friday said the country was facing “one of the most difficult moments in our history,” facing a choice between accepting “28 difficult points” or risking losing its “key partner.” According to media reports, Washington has already threatened to cut Kiev off from military aid and intelligence sharing should the plan end up rejected.
Asked about Zelensky’s take on the situation, Trump said the Ukrainian leader “is going to have to accept something.” Ukraine now faces “a cold winter,” while its energy infrastructure sites “have been under attack, to put it mildly,” he pointed out.
“He will have to like it, and if he does not like it, then, you know, they should just keep fighting, I guess,” the US president said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Moscow has received the American plan, adding that the proposal has not yet been discussed “in detail.” The draft proposal could become “the basis of a final peace settlement,” he stated.
Only “smart people living in the real world” could stop the fighting between Moscow and Kiev, the US vice president has said
US Vice President J.D. Vance has defended Washington’s plan for settling the Ukraine conflict, arguing that its opponents are wrong to think that increasing pressure on Russia could change the situation on the battlefield.
On Friday, former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell claimed on X that the proposal, which the administration of US President Donald Trump submitted to both Moscow and Kiev earlier this week, was a “capitulation” and “disastrous” to American interests.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told CNN that “this is a [Russian President Vladimir] Putin plan for Ukraine,” insisting that the White House should instead ramp up secondary sanctions against Russia’s trading partners and supply Ukraine with long-range weapons.
Vance wrote in a post on X on Saturday that “every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground.”
“There is a fantasy that if we just give more money, more weapons, or more sanctions, victory is at hand,” he wrote.
According to the vice president, peace between Moscow and Kiev could be achieved by “smart people living in the real world,” but not by “failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land.”
The US plan has not been officially disclosed, but media reports have claimed that, among other things, it calls upon Kiev to withdraw troops from the parts of Russia’s Donbass it still controls, downsize its military, and give up on NATO aspirations in exchange for Western security guarantees.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky claimed on Friday that his country is now forced to choose between accepting the “28 difficult points” in the proposal or the risk of losing its key backer, the US.
Trump insisted later that the Ukrainian leader “will have to like” the US plan or face the prospect of fighting Russia through the “cold winter.” According to Financial Times, Washington has issued an ultimatum to Kiev to accept its roadmap by Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the US plan has not yet been discussed “in detail,” but suggested that it could eventually “form the basis of a final peace settlement.”
That’s because Zelensky’s speech was clearly designed to allow for several mutually contradictory interpretations: Was it an attempt to prepare the ground for, in essence, accepting the plan, even though its opponents caricature it as Ukraine’s de facto capitulation? Is the real message, on the contrary, that Zelensky will try to persuade Washington to add conditions that will sink the plan, while blaming Russia? Or is the beleaguered Ukrainian leader really just playing for time and desperately casting about for options, testing the public mood at home and reactions abroad?
Yet one thing is certain, although it was hidden in plain sight: Zelensky’s address was sensational – and that is no hyperbole – because of what he chose not to say. Namely, “no.”
Zelensky could easily have reiterated Kiev’s traditional “red lines.” Indeed, Ukraine’s UN representative has just done so. But, as the important Ukrainian publication Strana.ua noted, Zelensky did not say a word about, for instance, joining NATO. He also did not reiterate the usual refusal to surrender territory that Russia has not yet occupied.
Instead, Zelensky belabored generalities which were wide open to divergent readings and even more divergent practical applications, such as the terms of his official oath of office and the notion that Ukraine’s national interest must be taken into account. Spin 101, really.
Above all, Zelensky belabored the conveniently vague and elastic idea of “dignity.” Again and again, he reassured his audience that, no matter what happens, Ukraine and Ukrainians will preserve their dignity.
Zelensky is currently deeply embroiled in the nauseatingly sordid Energoatom corruption scandal, and this is sure to be just the tip of an iceberg of sleaze in wartime. Therefore, his invocation of a virtue he cannot possibly claim for himself and his revolting friends must have felt appallingly creepy to many of his compatriots.
But the rationale of Zelensky’s spin seems obvious enough: It is a shameless attempt to tap into the rhetoric of “dignity” traditionally deployed to re-frame the ugly combination of regime change subversion and false-flag murders that toppled the corrupt, oppressive, and unpopular yet ultimately properly elected Yanukovich regime in 2014. As we’ve moved from the so-called “revolution of dignity” to the “diplomacy of dignity,” is Ukraine finally making the compromises it needs to stop bleeding?
If so, the analogy is truer than Zelensky and his speech writers would be ready to admit: In the events of 2013/2014, there were many genuine idealists who believed they were fighting for Ukraine when challenging Yanukovich’s Ancien Regime. They were betrayed. Not by Moscow, but by the US, which incited and used their rebellion to wield it as a geopolitical weapon in a global power game.
They were also betrayed by the same pro-Western “elites” and nationalists who massacred some their own foot soldiers to create political leverage, as the Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist Ivan Katchanovsky has shown compellingly in his “The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: The Mass Killing that Changed the World.”
In a similar vein, there can be no doubt that, during the unnecessary and easily avoidable war that has now devastated Ukraine for years, many more decent men and women have been cynically sacrificed to lies told by Kiev and its Western backers: The lie that their country would join NATO; the lie that the war had not been provoked, whereas, in reality, the West had provoked Russia for two decades by breaking its word and expanding NATO, exposing Ukraine specifically by the empty yet explosive promises of the 2008 Bucharest summit; the lie that to kill and die in this war for misconceived, hubristic Western interests meant killing and dying for moral, even civilizational “values” (call that the Snyder-Applebaum Con); and the lie, last but not least, that the West would be with Ukraine “whatever it takes.”
It’s no wonder Zelensky is now seeking to distract Ukrainians with solemn phrases praising their courage and steadfastness. He can do so only because so many really have been courageous and steadfast. Yet Zelensky’s fiendish ruse consists of seeking to hide the obscene corruption of his de facto authoritarian regime behind their valor and sacrifices.
He is also desperately trying to make everyone forget one simple question: What for? Once Ukrainians lose all fear of asking that question and face its true, bitter answer, it will first stun them and then sweep Zelensky and his cronies away. Because it has all been for nothing, except the absolutely callous strategies of the West and yet more corruption and oppression at home.
Zelensky’s ambiguous speech, though, also may – may! – offer some hope. For, despite his worst intentions, his gargantuan narcissism, his profound dishonesty, his fear and greed, Ukraine’s still-leader has shown signs of perhaps finally being prepared to allow his people to escape from the meatgrinder of a war that their country very predicably could not win.
Zelensky made, for instances, references to “very hard” choices between, in effect, the plan and a terrible winter, and to steely resolve, that nonetheless has its limits, too. There even was a barely concealed rebuke of NATO-EU Europeans always baying for more Ukrainian blood while not having to send their own to die. Zelensky also pointedly declared that everything must be done to reach an end to the war and not an end to Ukraine. Under the 28-point plan, or a successor based on it, Ukraine would not cease to exist, of course. But, as Zelensky clearly, if implicitly, admitted, such an end is conceivable if peace is not made.
Zelensky also made a point of two other facts that, perhaps, point to him finally getting ready to release Ukrainians from his regime’s death grip: He insisted that Kiev will engage constructively and won’t let Moscow claim that Ukraine doesn’t want diplomacy. In other words, Zelensky promises to at least sincerely try to find peace this time. Will he keep that promise? That’s a different question again, of course. Secondly, Zelensky admitted that time is scarce and announced that Kiev will work fast. That is a clear reference to the fact that Washington has threatened to withdraw all support, including arms – even indirectly via the war-besotted EU-NATO Europeans – and (vital) intelligence within less than a week if there’s no movement. Stalling time is over, or so it seems at least.
The opponents of peace in Ukraine and the West and especially in NATO-EU Europe, the false “friends” from hell who cannot get enough of Ukrainians dying for broken Western promises and a daft attempt to cut down Russia that has already failed, are mobilizing to prevent peace. Déjà vu all over again, as a great American sage might have said.
But it is obvious that true friendship for Ukraine, the real Ukraine, with actual living human beings who should stay alive for a better future, means finally ending this catastrophe. Yes, on terms that will – to one extent or the other – reflect that Russia has the upper hand. That is the only way forward, and it is not the same as “capitulation.” It is a compromise based on reality, not on the silly dreams of vain US academics in Ukrainian embroidered shirts or German “military experts” whose link to reality seems to be about as robust as that of the German leadership huddling in a Berlin bunker in early 1945.
It’s time to stop sacrificing human beings to perverse fantasies. If – if! – Ukraine’s Zelensky has finally been compelled to accept this, then there is a chance for peace.
The country’s former leader had been under house arrest in Brasilia appealing a conviction for plotting a coup
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who had been under house arrest in the country’s capital, Brasilia, has been detained by police officers, his lawyer has confirmed.
In September, the Brazilian Supreme Court sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison after he was found guilty of attempting to overturn the results of the country’s 2022 presidential election. The 70-year-old, who denies any wrongdoing, had been under house arrest since early August, appealing the ruling.
Bolsonaro’s attorney Celso Vilardi did not provide the reason for his client’s detention, but it happened shortly before the former president’s supporters had planned to hold a vigil near his home.
According to Reuters, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to be taken into custody, citing the risk of the activists hampering the police monitoring of his house arrest. The judge also pointed to evidence of tampering with the politician’s ankle monitor the night before, the agency said.
Moraes also argued in his order that the gathering near Bolsonaro’s home could pave the way for his “eventual escape,” saying that the former president had previously considered seeking asylum in the Argentine embassy in Brasilia.
A federal police representative told the media that Bolsonaro has already undergone the custody intake process in the capital.
In July, US President Donald Trump, who established close relations with Bolsonaro during his first term, called the former president’s persecution by the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and a “witch hunt” and slapped 50% tariffs on certain Brazilian goods. However, earlier this month Washington began rolling back some of the levies.
The US president has reiterated his earlier claim that Ukraine does “not have the cards” in the conflict with Russia
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky will have to agree to a Washington-drafted peace plan otherwise his country will have to keep fighting Russia through the “cold winter,” US President Donald Trump has said.
Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine was facing “one of the most difficult moments in our history,” being forced to choose between “28 difficult points” in the American proposal or risk losing its key backer, the US. According to Financial Times, Washington has issued an ultimatum to Kiev to accept the plan by Thursday.
Asked by journalists about the Ukrainian leader’s stance later in the day, Trump asked: “You mean, he does not like it?”
“He will have to like it and if he does not like it then, you know, they should just keep fighting, I guess,” he said.
Reuters reported earlier that Washington has threatened to cut Ukraine off from intelligence and military aid if it rejects its proposal.
“Well, at some point he [Zelensky] is going to have to accept something,” the US president insisted.
Trump explained that Ukraine faces “a cold winter… but a lot of the big energy producing plants have been under attack, to put it mildly.”
“You remember, right, in the Oval Office not so long ago, I said: ‘You don’t have the cards’,” he recalled.
The US president was referring to his meeting with Zelensky in February, also attended by Vice President J.D. Vance, which escalated in front of the cameras. It resulted in the Ukrainian leader’s visit being cut short, with Trump and Vance accusing him of ingratitude for American aid and not wanting peace.
The US push to persuade Ukraine to agree to its road-map comes amid a corruption scandal in Kiev that according to analysts has significantly weakened Zelensky’s political position.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Moscow received the American plan, but added that it has not yet been discussed “in detail.” According to Putin, the proposal could “form the basis of a final peace settlement.”
The tone of the meeting in Kiev, during which the US detailed its peace deal, was “nauseating,” an EU official told the outlet
The administration of US President Donald Trump has issued an ultimatum to Ukraine, saying that Vladimir Zelensky must sign its peace plan by Thursday, the Financial Times has reported, citing Western European officials.
US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, who earlier discussed the US proposal to settle the conflict between Russia and Ukraine with Zelensky, relayed the details to the EU and UK ambassadors and other officials during a meeting in Kiev on Friday evening, according to the paper.
A high-ranking official described the tone of the gathering at the residence of the US chargé d’affaires in the Ukrainian capital as “nauseating,” it said.
According to the sources, Driscoll showed up late and used obscene language to make Washington’s point clear. “We need to get this sh*t done,” he reportedly said.
A senior official told the FT that the secretary insisted that “we have a narrow window for peace – President Trump wants peace now.”
One of the ambassadors cited Driscoll as saying that “the US Armed Forces love Ukraine… but it is the honest US military assessment that Ukraine is in a very bad position.”
Trump’s envoy added that “security guarantees” for Ukraine are part of the US plan and will be discussed with the Western Europeans and Kiev in the coming days, according to the diplomat.
The FT said that Driscoll had turned down calls by EU and UK officials to put more pressure on Russia, instead of suing for peace now. “It turns out this is even worse than we thought,” another senior EU official briefed on the meeting told the paper.
The US peace plan has not been officially disclosed, but, according to media reports, it, among other things, calls upon Ukraine to withdraw troops from the parts of Russia’s Donbass it still controls, downsize its military, and give up on NATO aspirations in exchange for Western security guarantees.
The push by Washington to persuade Ukraine to agree to its roadmap comes amid a corruption scandal in Kiev, which, according to analysts, has significantly weakened Zelensky’s political position.
Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine must brace for a tough choice between accepting the “28 difficult points” in Washington’s plan or risk losing a key backer in the face of the US.
Western governments continue to try and suppress the broadcaster for telling the truth about Ukraine, Margarita Simonyan has said
RT will continue its work despite attempts by the West to silence it, Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has said. Posting on her Telegram channel on Friday, she said the European Union is continuing to extend sanctions against the Russian media for telling the truth about Ukraine. She did not clarify whether she had information about future sanctions or was simply commenting on the current measures in place.
Western countries have imposed more than 110 sanctions on the outlet, freezing accounts, surveilling staff, and introducing other restrictions. Germany blocked RT Deutsch in 2021 before it launched, allegedly violating broadcasting rules. RT France and RT UK were closed in 2022 after being banned authorities in Paris and London. In 2023, US President Joe Biden’s administration accused the network of acting on behalf of Russian intelligence and imposed further sanctions on the broadcaster and its top management.
“EU extends sanctions against RT. They complain that we continue to write about Nazism in Ukraine and the crimes of the Kiev regime,” Simonyan stated on her Telegram channel. She added, “We have written, we are writing and we will write.”
Kiev regularly glorifies WWII Nazi collaborators and attempts to obscure actions by Ukrainian soldiers that Russia describes as war crimes – conduct that, Moscow claims, the West continues to ignore.
Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin praised RT, calling it Russia’s “secret strategic intercontinental weapon.””The truth” is what gives RT its power, despite what he described as relentless Western attempts to block it.
RT was launched in December 2005. It now broadcasts in several languages, offering alternative perspectives on global events to audiences in more than 100 countries.
Simonyan’s comments come as Brussels has stepped up pressure on Russian outlets. The EU adopted its 19th sanctions package in October, though that round did not include any new measures targeting Russian media. A 20th package is expected to be proposed or discussed in the months ahead.
The US president praised Mamdani’s electoral victory during the first in-person meeting for the political opposites
US President Donald Trump has said he believes New York’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani “could do a very good job.” The political opposites held their first in-person meeting at the White House on Friday.
”I can tell you, some of my views have changed… I feel very confident that he can do a very good job. I think he is gonna surprise some conservative people, actually,” Trump said, praising Mamdani’s electoral victory.
A democratic socialist and little-known state lawmaker who won New York’s mayoral race earlier this month, Mamdani requested the sit-down with Trump to discuss cost-of-living issues and public safety.
Asked to clarify if he thinks Trump is a fascist, before Mamdani can answer, Trump intervenes and laughs it off, saying, “That’s ok. You can just say yes. That’s easier. It’s easier than explaining.” pic.twitter.com/RfKJd6vAs1
After months of trading insults in the media, the mayor-elect and the president appeared to strike a rapport in the Oval Office.
“We agreed on a lot more than I thought,” Trump told the reporters following a private meeting. “We have one thing in common: we want this city of ours that we love to do very well.”
“It was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City, and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers,” Mamdani added.
Mamdani’s victory in the heavily Democratic city earlier this month came despite fierce opposition from conservatives and little enthusiasm from mainstream Democrats. Trump had branded him a “communist lunatic,” predicting that his policies would push New Yorkers to flee the city for Miami.
As Mamdani surged in the polls to victory, Trump issued threats to strip federal funding from the city. The mayor-elect has consistently criticized various policies put forth by Trump, particularly those aimed at increasing federal immigration enforcement in New York City, where nearly 40% of the population is foreign-born.
Millions of UK households now say they no longer use the broadcaster’s services, a parliamentary report has found
The BBC has lost more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in revenue as millions of UK households cancelled or refused to pay the license fee, a parliamentary report has found.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee issued its findings on Friday, warning that mass cancellations and rising evasion were eroding the broadcaster’s main source of income.
The committee said the BBC was struggling to maintain its funding model even as it stepped up enforcement. The corporation and its contractor made two million home visits last year – a 50% increase – yet secured fewer prosecutions.
Under UK law, households must pay the annual television license, currently £174.50, to watch or record live programs on any broadcast service or use BBC iPlayer. The fee was introduced in 1946 when the BBC was the country’s only broadcaster but now sits within a competitive market of commercial channels, online platforms and global streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. The levy still provides around two-thirds of the BBC’s budget, and non-payment remains a criminal offense.
”Declining household participation and rising evasion has not been successfully tackled,” the committee said.
According to the PAC, 3.6 million households claim they do not need a license, which is 300,000 more than a year earlier. Another 2.9 million viewers were using the services without paying.
The financial crisis comes as the BBC prepares for talks with the government over the future of the license fee, which is set out in its Royal Charter, the BBC’s foundational legal document dating back to 1927, which expires at the end of 2027. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said the charter review would begin “imminently.”
The debate over funding has sharpened after recent scandals. Earlier this month, the BBC apologized to US President Donald Trump after a documentary included a misleading edit of a speech he delivered before the 2021 Capitol Hill riot, which prompted the resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness. The White House had previously condemned the broadcaster as a “Leftist propaganda machine” and “100 percent fake news,” accusing it of being “purposefully dishonest” in its portrayal of Trump.
