The US Justice Department’s deputy chief conducted a second day of questioning Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose infamous case has dragged President Donald Trump into a political firestorm.Todd Blanche, who is also Trump’s former personal attorney, has so far declined to say what he discussed with Maxwell in the highly unusual meetings between a convicted felon and a top DOJ official.Maxwell’s lawyer David Markus said Friday afternoon that she was asked about “everything” and “answered every single question” during the second day of questioning at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.”They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine,” Markus told reporters outside the courtroom, without elaborating.But he did say there was “no offers” of clemency made to Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex trafficking charges.Trump is looking to move past the Epstein scandal, which has seen him on rare unsure footing over claims his administration mishandled a review of the notorious case.On Friday, Trump again sought to put distance between himself and Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.”I have nothing to do with the guy,” Trump, whose past friendship with Epstein has received much media attention this week, told reporters ahead of a visit to Scotland.- ‘Never briefed’ -Trump urged journalists to “focus” instead on Democratic Party figures like former president Bill Clinton and his treasury secretary, former Harvard president Larry Summers, whom the Republican claimed were “really close friends” of Epstein.Asked whether he was considering a pardon or commutation of Maxwell’s 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Trump said it was something “I haven’t thought about” — but stressed he had the power to do so.He also denied multiple US media reports that he was briefed in the spring by Attorney General Pam Bondi that his name appeared multiple times in the so-called “Epstein Files.””No, I was never — never briefed, no,” Trump said.Multi-millionaire Epstein was accused of procuring underage girls for sex with his circle of wealthy, high-profile associates when he died by suicide in a New York jail cell.His death fueled conspiracy theories that he was murdered to stop him testifying against prominent accomplices.Trump, who had promised his supporters revelations about the case, infuriated some after his administration announced in early July that it had not discovered any new elements warranting the release of additional documents.The Department of Justice and the FBI said there was no proof that there was a “list” of Epstein’s clients, while affirming he died by suicide.- ‘Scapegoat’? -Ahead of the second round of questioning, Markus told reporters “Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now” and described her as a “scapegoat.””Everything she says can be corroborated and she’s telling the truth. She’s got no reason to lie at this point and she’s going to keep telling the truth,” he added.Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate who has been convicted, was jailed in 2022 for grooming underage girls between 1994 and 2004 so that Epstein could sexually exploit them.Her lawyer said she still intended to appeal her conviction in the Supreme Court.The Wall Street Journal reported  Wednesday that Trump’s name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of Epstein’s case files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the Journal last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson cut short the legislative session this week, sending lawmakers home on summer recess a day early to avoid potentially combustible debate — particularly among Trump’s Republicans — on the release of files.

Disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was expelled from the US Congress for using stolen donor cash to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, reported to prison Friday to start his seven-year sentence, authorities said.Santos, 37, had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft for his elaborate grifting while a lawmaker representing New York.He turned himself in Friday at the federal prison in Fairton, New Jersey, the Bureau of Prisons told AFP.Despite his guilty plea, prosecutors insisted Santos’s social media showed his claims of remorse “ring hollow” and Judge Joanna Seybert in April handed down a sentence of seven years and three months.The downfall of the congressman from Long Island came after it was revealed he had fabricated almost his entire backstory including his education, religion and work history.Santos was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2022 and indicted the following year for stealing  campaign donors’ identities and using their credit cards, among other charges.Santos used the stolen funds for Botox treatments and the OnlyFans porn website, as well as luxury Italian goods and vacations to the Hamptons and Las Vegas, according to an investigation by a congressional ethics committee.Santos’s bizarre biographical fabrications included claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs, being Jewish and having been a college volleyball star.He was ultimately doomed by the congressional probe that found overwhelming evidence of misconduct and accused him of seeking to “fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy.”Santos was expelled from the House in 2023, becoming only the third person to be ejected as a US lawmaker since the Civil War, a rebuke previously reserved for traitors and convicted criminals.

US President Donald Trump landed in Scotland on Friday for a five-day visit set to mix diplomacy, business and leisure, as a huge UK security operation swung into place amid planned protests near his family-owned golf resorts. The president, whose mother was born in Scotland, will split his time between two seaside golf courses bearing his name, in Turnberry on the southwestern coast and Aberdeen in the northeast.Air Force One, carrying the president and White House staff, touched down at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow shortly before 8:30 pm (1930 GMT). Police officers lined surrounding streets and several hundred curious Scots came out hoping for a glimpse of the US leader as he then made his way to Turnberry by motorcade.Trump has no public events scheduled for Saturday and is expected to play golf at his picturesque resort, before meeting EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday for trade talks.Trump is also due to meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the trip.He said the meeting would be “more of a celebration than a workout,” appearing to row back on previous comments that a bilateral trade deal struck in May needed “fine tuning”.”The deal is concluded,” he told reporters on the tarmac at Prestwick.But the unpredictable American leader appeared unwilling to cede to a UK request for reduced steel and aluminium tariffs.Trump has exempted British exports from blanket 50 percent tariffs on both metals, but the fate of that carve-out remains unclear.”If I do it for one, I have to do it for all,” Trump said in Washington before embarking on his flight, when asked if he had any “wiggle room” for the UK on the issue. The international outcry over the conflict in Gaza may also be on the agenda, as Starmer faces growing pressure to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and announce that Britain will also recognise a Palestinian state.- Protests -Trump is due to return to the UK in September for a state visit — his second — at the invitation of King Charles III, which promises to be lavish.During a 2023 visit, Trump said he felt at home in Scotland, where his mother Mary Anne MacLeod grew up on the remote Isle of Lewis before emigrating to the United States at age 18.”He’s original, he does things the way he wants to. I think a lot of our politicians could take a good leaf out of his book,” 45-year-old Trump fan Lisa Hart told AFP as she waited to see his plane touch down.But the affection between Trump and Scotland is not always mutual.Residents, environmentalists and elected officials have voiced discontent over the Trump family’s construction of a new golf course, which he is expected to open before he departs the UK on Tuesday.Police Scotland, which is bracing for mass protests in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as close to Trump’s golf courses, have said there will be a “significant operation across the country over many days”.Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who will also meet Trump during the visit, said the nation “shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries”.Trump has also stepped into the sensitive debate in the UK about green energy and reaching net zero, with Aberdeen being the heart of Scotland’s oil industry.In May, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the UK should “stop with the costly and unsightly windmills” as he urged incentivising drilling for oil in the North Sea.- US discontent -The trip to Scotland puts physical distance between Trump and the latest twists in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier accused of sex trafficking who died in prison in 2019 before facing trial.In his heyday, Epstein was friends with Trump and others in the New York jet-set, but the president is now facing backlash from his own MAGA supporters who demand access to the Epstein case files.Many support a conspiracy theory under which “deep state” elites protected rich and famous people who took part in an Epstein sex ring. But Trump is urging his supporters to move on from the case.The Wall Street Journal, which published an article detailing longstanding links between Trump and the sex offender, is being punished by the White House.Its reporting team plans to travel to Scotland on their own and join the White House press pool. But it has now been denied a seat on Air Force One for the flight back home.While Trump’s family has undertaken many development projects worldwide, the president no longer legally controls the family holdings.But opponents and watchdog groups have accused him of having many conflicts of interest and using his position as US president to promote private family investments, especially abroad.aue-jkb-jj-pdh/dc

Fake AI-generated photos and videos purporting to show Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein socializing with underage girls have flooded social media, racking up millions of views, researchers said Friday.The surge in deepfakes comes as the US president — frequently photographed with Epstein during their 15-year friendship — attempts to distance himself from the disgraced financier, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. One widely circulated AI-generated video appears to show Trump and Epstein leering at a group of young girls dancing, with the song “Is it a Crime?” by the English band Sade added as background music.At least two other fake photos appear to show the pair on a couch alongside underaged girls.Another such photograph purports to shows Trump dancing with a teenage girl on Epstein’s private island. Overlaying the image is the caption: “Trump was in his 50’s when this was taken. What kind of man does that?”At least seven such AI-generated images and one video cumulatively garnered more than 7.2 million views across social media platforms, according to a conservative estimate by disinformation watchdog group NewsGuard.The watchdog said it used multiple detection tools, including Hive and IdentifAI, to establish that the content was fabricated using AI tools and the actual number of views was likely much higher than its manual tally of high-engagement posts.Trump’s ties to Epstein are extensive, and the pair were frequently pictured partying together during their friendship before they fell out in 2004 over a property deal.But there appear to be no known authentic photographs of the pair with underage girls or of Trump visiting Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, NewsGuard said.AI slop — low-quality visual content generated using cheap and widely available artificial intelligence tools –- increasingly appears to be flooding social media sites, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.Many content creators on YouTube and TikTok offer paid courses on how to monetize viral AI slop on tech platforms, many of which have reduced their reliance on human fact-checkers and scaled back content moderation.AI-generated images of Trump spread rapidly after the FBI and Justice Department said in a July 7 memo that there was no proof that Epstein kept a “client list” of elite co-conspirators as conspiracy theorists have contended.Trump’s core Make America Great Again (MAGA) base erupted in anger over the memo, calling on the White House to release the so-called “Epstein files.”Some even within the Republican president’s own party have demanded the files be released, but his administration has declined to do so. Fake images appear to be gaining traction in that vacuum.The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the president’s name was among hundreds found during an official review of the files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the newspaper last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.