Blanche says he won’t recommend pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell

WASHINGTON— Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers Tuesday he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a federal prison sentence for her role in a sex trafficking scheme involving deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The head of the Justice Department made the remark during a budget hearing on Capitol Hill under questioning from Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee.

“I can commit to that, of course,” Blanche said.

Trump, as president, ultimately holds the power to pardon Maxwell. A judge in 2022 sentenced Maxwell to 20 years in prison for her part in a scheme involving the sexual exploitation and abuse of minor girls, according to the Justice Department.

The Justice Department’s treatment of Maxwell while in custody has sparked concern from House Democrats.

In a letter last year to Justice Department officials, a group of House Democrats said the department transferred Maxwell from a federal correctional institution to a “relatively luxurious” minimum security prison camp in Texas, a facility that was more comfortable and lower security.

The transfer, according to the letter, came days after Blanche had met with Maxwell.

—CQ-Roll Call

Mangione fans who praised CEO's death shouldn’t have gotten NYC press passes, Mayor Mamdani says

NEW YORK— Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Tuesday the Luigi Mangione supporters who celebrated the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson should not have been issued New York City press credentials, adding that his administration is looking into “what the immediate next steps are” for changing the system of handing out the passes.

The supporters’ inflammatory comments to the Daily News a day earlier, including that they didn’t give a “flying f---” that Thompson had been killed and that his children would be better off without him, set off outrage around the idea that the fans could purport to be journalists.

“My administration is reviewing the entire process and the standards for press credentialing,” the mayor said at a press conference in Queens. “... There is a good-natured debate to be had about where a press pass should extend and where it shouldn’t.

“However, the three people that we are talking about don’t fall within that debate.”

Mangione allegedly gunned down Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown on Dec. 4, 2024, as the healthcare executive from Minnesota arrived for an annual conference. The 28-year-old has pleaded not guilty in both his state and federal cases.

With many Americans fed up with the U.S.’s inordinately expensive healthcare system, Mangione has garnered considerable support and millions in public donations toward his defense. Federal prosecutors earlier this year said they were eager to put him on trial to publicize evidence that would dispel his Robin Hood image.

—New York Daily News

Attorney General appeals Pennsylvania court ruling that recognized abortion access as a right

PHILADELPHIA — Attorney General Dave Sunday appealed a Commonwealth Court ruling that struck down Pennsylvania’s ban on public funding for abortion and recognized “a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy” in the state constitution.

The case now heads back to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where three justices previously signaled their willingness to rule that abortion access is a right.

The Republican attorney general stepped in Tuesday to defend the state law limiting Medicaid funding for abortions after Gov. Josh Shapiro told the court in July 2024 that his administration “cannot advance a meritorious defense” of the policy.

The appeal asks the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review whether the Commonwealth Court judges were wrong to recognize abortion access as a constitutional right instead of leaving such “important policy considerations” to the “People’s representatives.”

Sunday also asked the justices to consider whether the Commonwealth Court should have avoided addressing a right to reproductive autonomy all together, and whether the court was too dismissive of the state’s justifications for the ban.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Trump escalates Cuba pressure, building case for potential military action

As Cuban leaders reject reforms and talks with the United States stall, the Trump administration appears to be building a case to justify potential military action in Cuba if diplomacy and sanctions don’t prompt major changes on the island, military experts and former U.S. officials told the Miami Herald.

Only a few days ago, there were few signs that military action was high on the list of U.S. policy options to try to change the trajectory of Cuba, a country President Donald Trump initially labeled a “failing nation” that would fall on its own.

The administration had threatened Cuba’s oil suppliers, leaving the island with no more fuel than what it can produce domestically, and it sanctioned the military conglomerate GAESA and its head, along with several members of the government and the military. It also engaged in talks with Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, in the hopes he could help strike a deal.

The Trump administration would rather not use the military in Cuba, and military action does not seem imminent, experts say, but as Cuban leaders have dug in, refusing to make political concessions or enact major economic reforms at a fast pace, the administration has ramped up the pressure, signaling that it is preparing to move beyond economic coercion and diplomatic pressure.

In a rapid escalation, the Trump administration sent CIA Director John Ratcliffe to deliver a warning to Havana last week — to make changes now, to take Trump seriously, to expel foreign adversaries from the island — and indicated it was moving to indict Raull Castro for the shootout of two civilian planes of the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue.

The CIA visit and the looming indictment are part of a pressure campaign on the Cuban government to extract concessions or fracture Cuban power elites, said Bryan Fonseca, a former analyst at the U.S. Southern Command who is vice provost for defense and national security research at Florida International University. But the measures could also be seen as “the first stages in beginning to say, if things don’t change, we’re going to go kinetic,” a military term for combat. “I think it’s a signaling. It doesn’t mean that they’re going in tomorrow.”

—Miami Herald