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House oversight committee subpoenas Pam Bondi as part of Epstein investigation
The House oversight commitee subpoenaed attorney general Pam Bondi on Tuesday, requesting her to appear for a deposition on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, and compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act – the legislation which resulted in the justice department releasing millions of pages of documents related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s cases.
In a letter, chair James Comer requested Bondi’s appearance before the committee on 14 April.
Earlier this month, five oversight Republicans voted with Democrats and approved a motion to subpoena Bondi.
Separately, Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, will provide a private briefing for committee members on Wednesday.
Key events
Iran’s national security council confirms death of its chief, Ali Larijani
Patrick Wintour
Iran’s supreme national security council has confirmed the death of its chief, Ali Larijani, after Israel said it had killed him in an airstrike.
“The pure souls of the martyrs embraced the purified soul of God’s righteous servant, Martyr Dr Ali Larijani,” the council said on Tuesday evening, adding that his son and his bodyguards had died with him.
“After a lifetime of struggle for the advancement of Iran and of the Islamic Revolution, he ultimately attained his long-held aspiration, answered the divine call, and honourably achieved the sweet grace of martyrdom in the trench of service,” it added.
Israel said earlier it had killed Larijani, a linchpin of Iranian politics, in overnight strikes. He is the most senior Iranian figure to die in the war since the supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on its first day.
His death removes a pivotal figure at the heart of the regime’s political and security establishment at a moment of acute crisis and represents a devastating blow.
Tulsi Gabbard, who warned of war with Iran, now says it was up to Trump to decide if Iran was ‘an imminent threat’
Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, responded to the resignation of her deputy, Joe Kent, in a statement that does not refer to him directly, but takes issue with a central claim of his resignation letter: that “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” use misinformation to deceive Donald Trump “into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States”.
Gabbard wrote on social media that because Trump was “overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief… he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat”.
Her office, she added, “is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions.”
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” Gabbard concluded.
As soon as she posted her statement, observers noted that Gabbard did not say that she disagreed with Kent, or herself believed that Iran had posed an imminent threat or had seen any intelligence suggesting that was true.
Gabbard’s reticence to make her own view of the war clear is a sharp departure from comments she made during her run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, when she made campaign ads claiming that Trump wanted to start a war with Iran and warned Fox News viewers that “War with Iran would make Iraq/Afghanistan wars seem like a picnic”.
During that campaign, Gabbard also told supporters Trump had set “a dangerous precedent” in Iran by designating “the military of another country a terrorist organization”, and boasted that, as a congresswoman, she had introduced legislation, the No More Presidential Wars Act, that “would make it an impeachable offense for any president to bypass Congress and to unilaterally go and start waging a war in another country.”
When Trump ordered the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, in 2020, Gabbard took to the floor of the House to denounce the killing as an act of war.
“President Trump has committed an illegal and unconstitutional act of war, pushing our Nation headlong into a war with Iran without any authorization from Congress, a war that would be so costly and devastating, it would make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic,” Gabbard said then. “In doing so, he has undermined our national security”.
Last year, after her confirmation as the national intelligence director, Gabbard posted a video clip on her personal YouTube channel headlined: “Tulsi Gabbard On Preventing Conflict With Iran”. In the video, an interview with the former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Gabbard said: “we have people who are working within the intelligence community… who are coopted by the military-industrial complex, abusing their position to feed or manipulate intelligence, as we saw with the Iraq war, to start a new war.”
“The work that gets done in places like this every single day has that power, to be the fodder, the fuel, the seed that can lead to yet another unnecessary war,” she added.
On Tuesday, as he dismissed Kent’s claim that Iran posed no imminent threat to the US, Trump said repeatedly, in a confusing, roundabout manner, that Iran was an imminent threat because its leaders were just “two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon” and “they would’ve used it” before he ordered B-2 bomber strikes last year on its uranium enrichment sites.
The day before, the president made the entirely unsourced claim that Iran was not only pursuing nuclear weapons but planned to use them to first destroy Israel and then attack the United States, an idea for which he has presented no evidence at all.
There is no public evidence that Iran was ever weeks away from obtaining nuclear weapons, and US intelligence agencies reported in 2007 that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The administration has presented no evidence that Iran ever restarted that weapons program or planned to attack the US.
US Senate starts debate on restrictive voting bill
The Senate passed a measure to start debate on the legislation to restrict voting in US elections in a number of ways, by a vote of 51-48, along mainly partisan lines, with only Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, crossing party lines to vote with all Democrats against moving ahead with the bill.
The proposed law, branded the Save America act by its Republican sponsors, was approved by the US House earlier this year, but could be blocked by the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to move to final consideration.
As our colleague Rachel Leingang explained last week, if passed into law, the measure would upend voting for all Americans in the middle of a federal midterm election year and create costly, chaotic changes for elections workers.
The bill includes a proof of citizenship requirement to register to vote, meaning that citizens would need to produce birth certificates many do not have, and a very strict photo ID requirement for casting a ballot, as well as a provision that requires states to regularly turn their voter rolls over to the federal Department of Homeland Security.
The measure would also make it harder to vote by mail, which is how nearly 1 in 3 Americans voted in the 2024 federal election.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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A top counter-terrorism official in the Trump administration resigned over the ongoing war on Iran. Joe Kent, who reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said in his resignation letter that he “cannot in good conscience” support the conflict, adding that the US started this war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.
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In response, Donald Trump said that he thought Kent was “a nice guy” but “very weak on security”. After his resignation, the president said it was “a good thing” that Kent left the National Counterterrorism Center, before defending the initial strikes, and insisting that Iran posed a credible threat.
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The House oversight commitee subpoenaed attorney general Pam Bondi on Tuesday, requesting her to appear for a deposition on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. In a letter, chair James Comer requested Bondi’s appearance before the committee on 14 April. Earlier this month, five oversight Republicans voted with Democrats and approved a motion to subpoena Bondi.
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While hosting the taoiseach of Ireland, Micheál Martin, at the White House, Trump continued to berate Nato allies for their resistance to help the US reopen the strait of Hormuz. “We don’t need any help,” Trump said, adding that it was a “foolish mistake” by members countries to withhold assistance. “We don’t need them, but they should have been there,” the president said.
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A sweeping restrictive voting bill that would require proof of US citizenship for new voters, among other measures, is set for a lengthy debated in the Senate, starting as early as Tuesday. Ahead of a bill heading to the upper chamber floor, Trump took to social media to rally lawmakers to pass the legislation – vowing political retribution for lawmakers who defy his wishes. “I WILL NEVER (EVER!) ENDORSE ANYONE WHO VOTES AGAINST “SAVE AMERICA!!!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
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Senate Democrats sent over their latest counteroffer for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian. The official didn’t expand on any details of the latest proposal from Democrats, but noted that the White House is currently reviewing the offer. A reminder that several agencies within the DHS have been without funding for over a month, causing thousands of employees to go without pay.
House oversight committee subpoenas Pam Bondi as part of Epstein investigation
The House oversight commitee subpoenaed attorney general Pam Bondi on Tuesday, requesting her to appear for a deposition on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, and compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act – the legislation which resulted in the justice department releasing millions of pages of documents related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s cases.
In a letter, chair James Comer requested Bondi’s appearance before the committee on 14 April.
Earlier this month, five oversight Republicans voted with Democrats and approved a motion to subpoena Bondi.
Separately, Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, will provide a private briefing for committee members on Wednesday.
The Senate’s top Republican, John Thune, has been caught between a rock and a hard place in recent days.
The South Dakota lawmaker has come under increasing pressure from Donald Trump to pass his prized voter ID bill, known as the Save America act – which would require 60 votes in the upper chamber to overcome the legislative filibuster.
With Democrats resolute in their opposition to the bill, that leaves only 53 GOP senators in play. Conservatives who support the legislation have pushed for Thune to mandate a so-called “talking” filibuster, which would force Democrats to hold the floor to block the Save America act. However, the majority leader said this isn’t a feasible option.
“We don’t have the votes, either to proceed [to] a talking filibuster nor to sustain one if we got one,” Thune said last week. “That’s just a function of math. There isn’t anything I can do about that.”
While Thune has said he’s able to “guarantee the vote” on the legisaltion, he’s noted that he “can’t guarantee an outcome”, given the shortfall in the Senate.
Speaking to reporters today, he projected optimism for the uphill battle the bill faces. “I mean, we don’t know that we don’t have 60 votes yet,” Thune said. “You’re making an assumption that at the end of this debate none of the Democrats will be won over.”
Senate could require vice-presidential tie break if not enough Republicans vote to start debate on voter ID bill
As we reported earlier, debate on the voter ID bill that Donald Trump has made his “number one” legislative priority could start today.
However, before that gets going the Senate Republicans will need 51 votes for a procedural vote to actually kickstart discussion on the bill.
So far, there have been several reports which show that GOP senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have both indicated they’ll vote “no” on the motion. That means if one more Republican bucks their party, vice-president JD Vance will have to act as the tie-breaker in order to start debate on the Save America act.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator and one of Donald Trump’s staunch allies on matters of foreign policy, said today that he spoke with the president about Nato countries’ unwillingness to assist the US reopen the strait of Hormuz.
“I have never heard him [Trump] so angry in my life,” Graham said. “I share that anger given what’s at stake.”
The GOP lawmaker from South Carolina is a noted war hawk, and continued to defend the administration’s position on launching strikes, alongside Israel, on Tehran.
“The arrogance of our allies to suggest that Iran with a nuclear weapon is of little concern and that military action to stop the ayatollah from acquiring a nuclear bomb is our problem not theirs is beyond offensive,” Graham said, while adding that the repercussions of providing little help to the US, to keep the strait of Hormuz functioning, “are going to be wide and deep for Europe and America”.
While Graham said that considers himself “very forward-leaning on supporting alliances”, this “time of real testing” is causing him to “second guess” commitments. “I am certain I am not the only senator who feels this way,” he said.
On Capitol Hill, Donald Trump is speaking at the Friends of Ireland luncheon, but repeating many talking points about the success of the war on Iran.
In the last week he’s repeatedly referred to the conflict as a “little excursion” – a term he continued to use today.
“How are they [Iran] doing? Not so good,” Trump said. “They’re all gone … every one of them, they’re all gone.”
White House confirms it has received latest DHS funding counteroffer from Democrats
Senate Democrats sent over their latest counteroffer for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian.
The official didn’t expand on any details of the latest proposal from Democrats, but noted that the White House is currently reviewing the offer.
A reminder that several agencies within the DHS have been without funding for over a month, causing thousands of employees to go without pay.
Republicans have called Democrats’ demands, which include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to no longer wear masks while patrolling, and the need to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property, non-negotiables.
Trump says US ‘not ready to leave Iran yet’ but will be leaving ‘in very near future’
Asked whether he has a “day after” plan for Iran, Trump said that if the US left the military operation now it would take “10 years for [Iran] to rebuild”.
He added:
But we’re not ready to leave yet. But we will be leaving in the near future, we’ll be leaving in pretty much the very near future.
He repeated his point that the US has had “great support” from countries in the Middle East but has had “essentially no support” from Nato.
Asked about his relationship with UK prime minister Keir Starmer, Trump said Starmer “hasn’t been supportive”.
He said that Starmer was willing to send two aircraft carriers “after we won” when there was no threat for them because the war was already “won”.
I like him, I think he’s a nice man, but I’m disappointed.
Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin (who is still there) stepped in at this point to state that the transatlantic relationship between Europe and US is still “very, very important”.
He also vouched for Starmer, calling him an “earnest” and “sound” person that the US president has the capacity to get on with.
In response to a later question about Starmer, Trump repeated that he likes the UK prime minister but added that the US-UK relationship was always the best “before Keir came along”.
He then went on a tangent about windmills.
Trump says his meeting with China’s Xi will take place in five or six weeks
Donald Trump also confirmed that he’s “resetting” his meeting with Xi Jinping in China “in about five or six weeks”.
I look forward to seeing President Xi, he looks forward to seeing me – I think.
‘Iran was a threat’: Trump doubles down, claiming that Joe Kent was ‘weak on security’
Asked about the resignation of Joe Kent, his former director of national counterterrorism, who said he couldn’t remain in his job because he couldn’t support the conflict in Iran, Trump replied:
Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.
I didn’t know him well … But when I read his statement I realised that it’s a good thing that he’s out, because he said Iran was not a threat.
Iran was a threat, every country realised what a threat Iran was.
As Shrai reported earlier today, Kent, an Iraq war veteran and failed congressional candidate, said he “could not in good conscience” continue serving as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, due to the ongoing war on Iran.
In his resignation letter to Trump, Kent accused “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” of deploying “a misinformation campaign” that ultimately “sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran”.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you,” he wrote.
‘We don’t need them, but they should’ve been there’: Trump says Nato allies making ‘a foolish mistake’ by not helping with strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump was asked what progress he’s made in getting allies to help the US with escorting oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz.
“Well, we don’t need any help,” Trump said. Nato allies “agreed” what the US did, he claimed, adding that it was very important that they remove the nuclear threat from Iran.
He repeated his usual lines that they have successfully wiped out Iran’s military, navy and air force, and killed “one of their top people” yesterday – referring to Iran’s national security chief Ali Larijani, whom Israel claims to have killed.
Then circling back to Nato, Trump said they were making “a foolish mistake” and once again framed this issue as a loyalty test for Nato. He said Nato should’ve “been there” for the US, but also that the US didn’t need them anyway. He told reporters:
I think Nato’s making a very foolish mistake. And I’ve long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not Nato would ever be there for us. So this is a this was a great test because we don’t need them, but they should have been there.
Trump continued to berate Nato this morning over their resistance to assist the US in its war on Iran, in particular their ruling out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz. The US president previously warned that Nato faces “a very bad future” if allies failed to help the US reopen the vital waterway.
Back in the Oval Office, asked a follow-up question on French president Emmanuel Macron’s comments that France will not join a taskforce in the strait of Hormuz until the situation is “calmer”, Trump replied that Macron will be out of office soon.
Donald Trump has been taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office as he meets with the Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
Former Trump advisor says Joe Kent is a ‘crazed egomaniac’ making ‘a splash before getting canned’
In response to Joe Kent’s resignation as the Trump administration’s top counter-terrorism official, one of the president’s former advisors branded Kent as “a crazed egomaniac” who was “often at the center of national security leaks”.
Taylor Budowich, who served as Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications until he resigned in September of last year, also questioned whether Kent produced “any actual work”.
Earlier today, Kent, an Iraq war veteran and failed congressional canddidate, said he “could not in good conscience” continue serving as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, due to the ongoing war on Iran.
In his resignation letter to Trump, Kent accused “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” of deploying “a misinformation campaign” that ultimately “sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran”.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you,” he wrote.
Budowich, however, slammed Kent’s decision and undermined his overall performance on the job. “He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States,” Budowich said of the outgoing counter-terrorism official. “This isn’t some principled resignation-he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser.”
Trump continues to slam Nato allies for refusing to join war on Iran
Donald Trump continued to lambast Nato countries over their resistance to assist the US in the war on Iran. This comes after US allies in Europe and beyond ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz, despite threats from the president that Nato faces “a very bad future” if members fail to help reopen the vital waterway.
“I am not surprised by their action,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street.”
He said that the member countries “will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need” before heralding the success of US forces degrading Iran’s military capabilities, naval forces, and air defenses.
“We no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance – WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea,” Trump insisted on social media.
Top Senate intelligence Democrat agrees with Kent’s decision to resign
In response to Joe Kent’s decision to resign as the Trump administration’s top counter-terrorism official, the Senate’s top Democrat on the intelligence committee said that Kent is “right” about his decision to resign.
“There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East,” said Mark Warner, a lawmaker from Virginia.
Warner noted that Kent’s record is “deeply troubling”, and believes “he never should have been confirmed to lead the National Counterterrorism Center” to begin with, but agrees with Kent’s comments about the ongoing war on Iran.
“The United States cannot be led into conflict on the basis of politics, impulse, or a president’s desire for confrontation. We have seen where this road leads before,” Warner said in a statement.
Hugo Lowell
Joe Kent’s resignation from the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) is being met with derision inside the Trump administration this morning, making it unlikely that it will trigger internal splits or opposition to the war in Iran.
Several senior Trump advisers have long made clear that they have not cared about him or his views for some time, evidenced by the fact that Kent has played no role in any major operation or policy in Trump’s second term.
There does appear to be some anger towards Kent for making such a splashy resignation, however, including from his own former colleagues. DNI Tulsi Gabbard is set to face a bruising Worldwide Threats Hearing on Capitol Hill this week, where she is now certain to be asked about Kent’s resignation.
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