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Former FBI Counsel Says DOJ’s Trump Investigation Appears Much Further Along Than Previously Thought
Andrew Weissmann, the former counsel of the FBI and prosecutor for Robert Mueller’s special counsel team, said that recent reports that the FBI is questioning more and more people suggests that the investigation into the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is moving much quicker than previously understood.
On a panel with former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi, Weissmann explained that the fact that the Justice Department is seeking information from Trump’s personal valet, Walt Nauta and the Presidential Records Act appointed aide Kash Patel “is a real sign that the investigation is way past the beginning stages.”
“I’m particularly intrigued by the fact that the government appears to be seeking an order from the chief judge of the D.C. District Court compelling Mr. Patel to testify,” Weissmann continued. “That is — that’s a very bold step to be taking at this point. It makes it clear that the government is not looking to bring a criminal case against Mr. Patel, but is willing to immunize him and put him in the grand jury, because they want to know the inside story of what he has to say, particularly, I would think, about the alleged declassification of documents. And the same with Mr. Nauta.”
He explained that the “strong grand jury process” gives the government the ability to compel testimony from those aides closest to Trump.
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“Obviously, if you’re the target of an investigation, that is a difficult situation to be in because you’re constantly guessing about what the government knows,” Weissmann continued. “And I think in Donald Trump’s case, trying to think how to thwart that — can be a form of obstruction if he engages in it.”
Over the past several months since the document scandal began, Kash Patel has been all over the map when it comes to his defense of Donald Trump. At one point he falsely claimed that the former president can declassify documents by simply standing over them and saying “they’re declassified.” In another interview, he claimed that Trump will never get in trouble because the General Services Administration (GSA) packed up Trump’s boxes and they were the ones who somehow forced Trump to steal the documents.
It isn’t true, as Figliuzzi explained, noting that the GSA asked the White House to sign a form saying that they packed the boxes “and that whatever is in there is necessary for you when you move out of the office.” It’s unknown who signed that document from the White House, but it is likely available via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Figliuzzi also said that Patel can get out of trouble by saying he simply didn’t know, despite his legal education, that Trump had no right to the documents and couldn’t magically declassify them.
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“But the key to Patel is whether he had direct conversations with Trump or those immediately around Trump about obstructing, by saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this for you, boss. I’m going to say, you declassified these. And I’m going to make that argument that I somehow knew about that.’ Maybe he’s clairvoyant. I don’t know. You and I talked about this before. There has to be a tangible process. There has to be a defensible process around the declassification of documents. And there’s no evidence here. And Trump knows that, and Kash Patel knows that.”
Figliuzzi also said that Patel might be someone, like many of those around Trump, who wants to take the fall and save Trump, regardless of what that means.
“Let’s remember something, Trump was thinking about making Patel either the deputy director of the CIA or the deputy director of the FBI,” he also recalled. “By the way, those are career positions. You just don’t grab somebody off the street for those. But that is the influence that Patel had with Trump, and vice versa. So, he’s the fascinating piece of this.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
