By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump leapt to the defense of Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday in the face of mounting criticism from far-right influencers and conservative internet personalities over the Justice Department’s abrupt refusal to release additional documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation.

When a reporter attempted to ask Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting, Trump headed off the questions and scolded the journalist: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years.”

“At a time like this,” he added, “where we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas, it just seems like a desecration.”

The comments appeared to signal continued job security for Bondi and amounted to a striking rebuke of members of Trump’s base who have called for her resignation and mocked her for what they believe to be her failed commitment to release incriminating files from the Epstein investigation. A supposed Epstein “client list” that Bondi once intimated was sitting on her desk for review does not exist, the Justice Department acknowledged in a two-page memo Monday that further riled conservative critics who’d been hoping for proof of a government cover-up.

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The pressure is on Bondi

Bondi has faced pressure after a first document dump she hyped failed to deliver revelations. Far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.

But after a months-long review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department said in Monday’s memo that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

The only evidence disclosed as part of the memo was a video meant to definitively prove that the wealthy financier had taken his own life in jail in 2019, but even that disclosure did little to quiet conspiracy theorists who believe he was killed.

It’s not a happy development for online detectives

The department’s client list revelation was especially dismaying for conservative influencers and online sleuths given that Bondi in a Fox News interview in February had intimated that such a document was “sitting on my desk” for review. Bondi insisted Tuesday that she had been referring to the Epstein case file as being on her desk, as opposed to a specific client list.

“That’s what I meant by that,” she said.

She also defended her earlier public statements suggesting that the FBI was reviewing “tens of thousands” of videos of Epstein with “children or child porn.” The Associated Press published a story last week about the unanswered questions surrounding those videos and the Justice Department’s refusal to provide clarity.

The memo Monday did not suggest that the videos in the government’s possession depicted Epstein with children, instead referring to images of Epstein as well as more than 10,000 “downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography.”

“They turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein,” she said.

But she did not explain why the department could not release other files from the “truckload” of evidence she said was delivered to the agency months ago.

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s “not happy” with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine is “killing a lot of people” on both sides.

“I’m not happy with him, I can tell you that much right now. This is killing a lot of people,” Trump said of Putin during a meeting with his Cabinet.

The president also acknowledged that his previous suggestions that he might be able to cajole Russia’s president into bringing the fighting to a close and quickly ending the war in Ukraine has “turned out to be tougher.”

It was notable for a president who has all but aligned himself with Putin at moments in the past and has praised the Russian leader effusively at times — though less so in recent months.

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The Cabinet meeting comments came a day after Trump said the United States will now send more weapons to Ukraine — dramatically reversing a previous announcement of a pause in critical, previously approved firepower deliveries to Kyiv in the midst of concerns that America’s own military stockpiles have declined too much.

“We wanted (to) put defensive weapons (in). Putin is not, he’s not treating human beings right,” Trump said during the Cabinet meeting, explaining the pause’s reversal. “It’s killing too many people. So we’re sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine and I’ve approved that.”

Trump’s decision to remove the pause follows his privately having expressed frustration with Pentagon officials for announcing a halt in some deliveries last week — an action he felt wasn’t properly coordinated with the White House, according to three people familiar with the matter.

But the president refused to provide more details on that matter Tuesday.

“I don’t know,” he said sarcastically to a reporter who pressed him on the weapons pause’s original approval. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Still, his expressing open displeasure with Putin — especially after approving a resumption of U.S. weapons to Ukraine — underscores how much Trump’s thinking on Russia and Ukraine policy has shifted since he returned to the White House in January. It also lays bare how tricky navigating the ongoing conflict has proved to be.

Trump suggested during last year’s campaign that he could quickly end the Russia-Ukraine war. But by April, he was using his Truth Social account to exhort Putin to end military strikes on the Ukrainian capital.

“Vladimir, STOP!” he wrote. But large-scale Russian attacks on Ukraine have continued since then and Trump’s public pronouncements on Putin have continued to sour.

Trump said after a call last week with Putin that he was unhappy with Russia’s president and “I don’t think he’s looking to stop” the war. Then, speaking at the start of a dinner he hosted for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday night, Trump said, “I’m not happy with President Putin at all.”

Asked during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting what his growing displeasure with Putin might mean for U.S. foreign policy, Trump declined to discuss specifics.

“I will say, the Ukrainians were brave. But we gave them the best equipment ever made,” Trump said. He also said that without U.S. weapons and military support, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 might have otherwise sparked what “probably would have been a very quick war.”

“It would have been a war that lasted three or four days,” he said, “but they had the benefit of unbelievable equipment.”

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs will be sentenced in his federal criminal case on Oct. 3, a judge said Tuesday after probation officials rejected the defense and prosecution’s plan to move the date up by about two weeks.

Combs, who remains jailed after a split verdict last week, spoke briefly to his lawyer Marc Agnifilo during a virtual hearing on the scheduling issue that lasted all of two minutes. At one point he asked the lawyer to turn on his camera so they could see each other’s faces.

The hip-hop mogul’s lawyers had been urging Judge Arun Subramanian to sentence him as soon as possible after jurors acquitted him last week on racketeering and sex trafficking but convicted him on two prostitution-related charges.

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Combs, 55, faces up to a decade in prison for each of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution for flying people around the country, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, for sexual encounters. A conviction on racketeering conspiracy or sex trafficking could have put him in prison for life.

Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Combs’ lawyers and prosecutors filed a joint letter proposing a Sept. 22 sentencing date, subject to the consent of the U.S. Probation Office. A short time later, they filed a second letter stating that all parties — including the probation office — were on board with the Oct. 3 date Subramanian originally proposed.

Combs got a standing ovation from fellow inmates when he returned to jail after the verdict last week, Agnifilo said. The Bad Boy Records founder will remain at the federal lockup in Brooklyn where he’s been held since his arrest last September after Subramanian last week rejected his request for bail.

The judge, citing a now-infamous video of Combs beating a former girlfriend and photographs showing injuries to another ex-girlfriend, made clear that he plans to hold Combs accountable for the years of violence and bullying behavior that were exposed at his eight-week trial.

Combs’ lawyers want less than the 21 to 27 months in prison that they believe the sentencing guidelines recommend. Prosecutors contend that the guidelines, when properly calculated to include Combs’ crimes and violent history, call for at least four to five years in prison.

Combs’ punishment is Subramanian’s decision alone, and the judge will have wide latitude in determining a sentence. While judges often adhere to the federal judiciary’s formulaic guidelines meant to prevent disparity in sentences for the same crimes, they are not mandatory.

As part of the sentencing process, Combs must give an interview to probation officers for a pre-sentence investigation report that will aid the judge in determining the proper punishment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.

The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency.

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The court said in an unsigned order that no specific cuts were in front of the justices, only an executive order issued by Trump and an administration directive for agencies to undertake job reductions.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a “demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.”

Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE. Musk recently left his role.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.

In May, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found that Trump’s administration needs congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Illston’s order, finding that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nation’s food-safety system and health care for veterans.

Illston directed numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston was nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The labor unions and nonprofit groups that sued over the downsizing offered the justices several examples of what would happen if it were allowed to take effect, including cuts of 40% to 50% at several agencies.

Among the agencies affected by the order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, State, the Treasury and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

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