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Tag: EXCLUSIVE

EXCLUSIVE: Patel camp derides Durbin accusations as ‘politically motivated’ attempt to derail FBI confirmation

EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, pushed back Wednesday on allegations that he played a role in the firings of bureau personnel just hours after swearing not to do so during his confirmation hearing late last month – dismissing accusations from the panel’s top Democrat as a politically motivated effort to derail his confirmation.

Speaking to Fox News Digital Wednesday morning, a senior transition team official for Patel refuted the allegations made by the ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin, that Patel had orchestrated the firings after his confirmation hearing.

This person told Fox News that Patel had left Washington the night of his confirmation hearing to fly home to Las Vegas, where he has “been sitting there waiting for the process to play out.”

This person also refuted the notion that Patel has had anything to do with the firings of bureau personnel, as alleged by Durbin in Senate floor remarks the previous day.

FBI AGENTS SUE TRUMP DOJ TO BLOCK ANY PUBLIC IDENTIFICATION OF EMPLOYEES WHO WORKED ON JAN. 6 INVESTIGATIONS

Senate Judiciary ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Kash Patel and Judiciary Chariman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. ( AP/Getty Images)

“Mr. Patel has been going through the confirmation process, and everything he has done since his nomination has been above board,” this person said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “And any insinuation otherwise is false.”

In addition to his trip home to Vegas, Patel has also spent time hunting away from Washington, this person said, providing photographed evidence of Patel’s activities.

The news comes one day after Durbin’s team cited “highly credible” whistleblower reports his office had received in recent days, which they said indicated that Patel had been “personally directing the ongoing purge of FBI employees prior to his Senate confirmation for the role.”

Durbin’s staff also sent a letter Tuesday to the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, requesting an investigation into these allegations.

“I have received highly credible information from multiple sources that Kash Patel has been personally directing the ongoing purge of career civil servants at the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Durbin said in the letter to Horowitz.

“Although Mr. Patel is President Trump’s nominee to be FBI Director, he is still a private citizen with no role in government.”

If true, Durbin has alleged that Patel’s reported actions could put him on the hook for perjury.

Patel claimed during his Senate confirmation hearing late last month that he would use his role to protect agents against efforts to weaponize the bureau.

“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” Patel told Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., during that hearing.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have sought to discredit Patel’s confirmation in the days and weeks ahead of his confirmation – which they reiterated last week in a press conference, after announcing they would delay his committee confirmation vote by a full week.

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Durbin told Fox News last week that their aim in delaying the hearing is to raise more public awareness about Patel’s previous actions, in hopes that doing so will shore up new opposition from some Republicans in the chamber.

Ultimately, lawmakers noted they can only delay Patel’s committee vote through next week. Beyond that, they said, it is up to Republicans.

This is a breaking news story. Check back shortly for updates.

Breanne Deppisch is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI, and other national news.

February 12, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: US ally cautions world against doubting Trump’s ‘shockingly innovative’ Gaza proposal

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. “take over” the Gaza Strip has garnered negative reactions across the globe and even from within his own party.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó, however, doesn’t think the world should be so quick to dismiss President Trump’s proposal. Szijjártó compared the Gaza proposal to another one of Trump’s “shockingly innovative” ideas to a paradigm-shifting move the president made shortly before leaving office in 2020.

“I would like to remind everyone that when President Trump announced his plan regarding the Abraham Accords, there was hardly anyone in the world who would have believed in the success in those agreements, right? And at the end of the day, he made it, and the Abraham Accords have brought a totally new dimension to the life of the Middle East,” Szijjártó told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu answer questions during a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 4, 2025. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)

TRUMP SAYS US WILL ‘TAKE OVER’ GAZA STRIP, REBUILD IT TO STABILIZE MIDDLE EAST

The Abraham Accords saw Israel sign treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. There was speculation that had President Trump won the 2020 election, Saudi Arabia would have been next to sign a treaty. However, the Saudis made it clear on Tuesday that the country would not forge ties with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“This is maybe the most complicated issue nowadays in the world, how to make long-term peace in the Middle East,” Szijjártó said, adding that “when it comes to President Trump, I would not exclude anything.”

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first foreign dignitary to visit the White House since President Trump’s return to the Oval Office. His visit came as Israel continues to grapple with the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre nearly 16 months later.

During a joint press conference with Netanyahu, Trump announced his proposal to have the U.S. “take over” the Gaza Strip, saying it would give the Palestinians an opportunity to “live out their lives in peace and harmony.”

President Donald Trump, accompanied by National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, takes a question during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 4, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

HAMAS, WHICH SPARKED WAR WITH ISRAEL, SAYS TRUMP’S REBUILD GAZA PLAN IS A ‘RECIPE FOR CREATING CHAOS’

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” Trump said. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexplored bombs and other weapons on the site.”

“Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” he added. “Do a real job, do something different, just can’t go back. If you go back, it’s going to end up the same way it has for 100 years.”

President Donald Trump; rubble in Gaza (AP Photo/Morry Gash | Adel Hana)

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Hamas, the terrorist organization currently ruling over the Gaza Strip, broke its silence on Wednesday and slammed Trump’s proposal as a “recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.”

Rachel Wolf is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and FOX Business.

February 5, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: Rubio says ‘no choice’ but to bring USAID ‘under control’

EXCLUSIVE: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is accusing USAID of “rank insubordination,” adding “we had no choice but to bring this thing under control.” The top U.S. diplomat made the comments in an exclusive interview with Fox News in El Salvador, just after announcing he would take over as acting director of the humanitarian agency.

Rubio blasted USAID for being “completely unresponsive” telling Fox “they don’t consider that they work for the U.S., they just think they’re a global entity and that their master is the globe and not the United States, and that’s not what the statute says, and that’s not sustainable.”

US FOREIGN AID IS SUPPOSED TO SERVE AMERICAN INTERESTS, SAYS MARC THIESSEN

Rubio refused to say whether the agency “needs to die,” as DOGE chief Elon Musk is suggesting, instead stressing the goal was always to reform it.

“There are things that we do through USAID that we should continue to do, that make sense, and we’ll have to decide, is that better through the State Department or is that better through something, you know, a reformed USAID? That’s the process we’re working through.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused USAID of “rank insubordination” and other administrative shortcomings in an exclusive Fox News interview. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Despite plans for restructuring, Rubio said the United States would remain the “most generous nation on Earth,” but added, in a way that makes sense, that’s in our national interests.

Asked if changes to USAID would open the door for Communist China to increase its influence around the world, Rubio said “No, I mean, first of all, they don’t do that now. If they did, they’d be out there competing with us in these places. But my point is this, even if they did that, why would we fund things that are against our national interests or don’t further our national interests, whether China is there or not? If China wants to waste our money on something that’s against their China, their national interests, go ahead and do it. We’re not going to do it.”

Monday evening, the group and labor union that represents U.S. foreign service workers, released a statement opposing the Trump administration’s actions regarding USAID. “The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) strongly objects to the administration’s decision to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This will undermine U.S. national security, may subvert Congressional authority, and demonstrates a lack of respect for the dedication of the development professionals who serve America’s interests abroad.”

RUBIO HEADS TO PANAMA, LATIN AMERICA TO PURSUE TRUMP’S ‘GOLDEN AGE’ AGENDA

The wide-ranging interview came after Rubio’s visit to Panama and amidst repeated warnings from President Trump that the United State would “take back” the Panama Canal over concerns the Chinese have de facto operational control over it.

Following his visit with the Panamanian President, Jose Raul Mulino announced the central American nation would leave China’s Belt and Road initiative. Rubio welcomes the move but tells Fox that’s not enough and that he hopes to see “additional steps in the days to come.”

TOPSHOT – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio boards a plane en route to El Salvador at Panama Pacifico International Airport in Panama City on February 3, 2025. Rubio is in Panama on a two-day official visit. (MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/Pool AP/AFP via Getty Images)

President Trump announced 30-day pauses on tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Rubio acknowledge that “changes our economic relationship with our closest neighbors,” adding the State Department is not involved in any negotiations to make Canada the 51st state.

Despite Venezuela’s recent move to release U.S. hostages and accept migrants living illegally in the US, Secretary Rubio said there are still no plans to recognize the Maduro regime as legitimate. Rubio added “Maduro knows the US has many options to inflict serious damage on his regime.”

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Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, says he has “no intention” of going to Havana as America’s top diplomat “other than to discuss when they’re going to leave.” Rubio continues his western hemisphere trip Tuesday with stops in Costa Rica and Guatemala.

Nick Kalman is a Senior Foreign Affairs Producer based in Washington, D.C.

February 4, 2025
TikTok suppressed content critical of Trump, exclusive report alleges

EXCLUSIVE: As the Trump administration works to keep TikTok legally available in the United States, the wildly popular app has suppressed content critical of President Donald Trump, according to a new report shared exclusively with Fox News.

TikTok maintains the report has reached a false conclusion, and that the researchers used terms subjected to additional safety measures because they’ve been associated with election misinformation or profanity.

The report, from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) at Rutgers University, contained findings that “highlight TikTok’s ability to act as a powerful influence tool, adaptable to partisan politics, but with no inherent incentive for transparency or accountability.”

CHINESE AI STARTUP DEEPSEEK FACING HACK, BLOCKS QUESTIONS ABOUT COMMUNIST PARTY TIES

“What you’re seeing is not sweeping policies around content moderation that can be battle tested by the public or by researchers,” said Adam Sohn, an NCRI board member. “TikTok seems to be just sort of picking and choosing their policies based on political expediency, and that’s a big concern.”

President-elect Trump is pictured in front of the TikTok logo. (Getty Images)

NCRI said it analyzed TikTok, X, and Instagram “to evaluate their handling of specific hashtags associated with the 2020 election controversy” and that researchers received a response that “explicitly indicated content suppression based on TikTok’s enforcement of its community standards.”

The group said terms such as “#RiggedElection,” “#VoterFraud,” “#StopTheSteal,” and “#StolenElection” returned no results on TikTok in the U.S. Researchers said that when they searched using software that swapped their domestic location for one overseas, those terms produced video results.

Screen grabs provided by NCRI show a Jan. 24 TikTok search for “#F***JoeBiden” that returned 37,000 results. A search the same day for “#F***Trump” returned none. Three days later, Fox News replicated the search and there were videos listed under both.

REPUBLICAN STATE AGS AWAIT TRUMP-BROKERED TIKTOK DEAL, REMAIN SKEPTICAL ON APP SAFETY

“The concern is that the Chinese Communist Party and Bytedance and TikTok itself can consistently tweak its algorithm to cover up its tracks,” Sohn said.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC. The hearing was a rare opportunity for lawmakers to question the leader of the short-form social media video app about the company’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and how they handle users’ sensitive personal data. Some local, state, and federal government agencies have been banning the use of TikTok by employees, citing concerns about national security. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Our policies and algorithms haven’t changed in the last week,” said a TikTok spokesperson.

The company maintains hashtags regarding the 2020 election controversies have promoted election misinformation, which is why they’ve been unavailable. TikTok contends that because the anti-Trump and anti-Biden search terms contain profanity, the app can limit those results. The company also says it’s experiencing technical issues as it’s trying to return its service to normal.

Last year, Congress passed a bipartisan law that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, failed to sell the app by Jan. 19. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law. ByteDance still owns TikTok, but Trump signed an executive order delaying the ban’s enforcement for 75 days while his administration tries to negotiate an agreement for the app to comply with the law and keep it operating in the U.S.

NCRI has issued several reports on TikTok, concluding its search algorithm produced results to construct a favorable view of China’s government. TikTok has denied that allegation, calling NCRI’s work “flawed” and “clearly engineered to reach a false, predetermined conclusion.” In its arguments against TikTok, the Justice Department under the Biden administration cited NCRI’s reports.

A screenshot of an update in the TikTok app on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (Fox News Digital)

Cybersecurity experts told Fox that algorithms for apps like TikTok are held closely by their parent companies and can be difficult to evaluate.

“Doing sort of this community management of these vast social media platforms, especially TikTok, which is so popular, is a Herculean task,” said Theresa Payton, a cybersecurity expert and the White House Chief Information Officer in the George W. Bush administration. “It could be that as they were making tweaks to handle capacity, to be able to more closely evaluate things that could be perceived as election interference, things that are considered hate speech.”

Others note social media companies have sizable teams working with automated software to moderate content on their platforms.

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“Someone interprets something as in terms of a violation [that] may not match with someone else – it all sort of has to add up to a pattern,” said Pete Pachal, the Founder of The Media Copilot, a newsletter on AI changing media and journalism. “In the report, they do a very good job of showing that this pattern of supposed repression … content not appearing in searches does tend to happen more in one direction, and that should arouse a certain amount of suspicion.”

Rich Edson currently serves as a senior national correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the FOX Business Network (FBN) as a Washington correspondent in October 2007 and transitioned to FNC in 2015.

January 29, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: Gen. Milley to lose security detail and clearance

EXCLUSIVE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is “immediately pulling” retired Gen. Mark Milley’s personal security detail and security clearance, multiple senior administration officials tell Fox News.

The secretary is also directing the new acting Inspector General to conduct a review board to determine if enough evidence exists for Gen. Milley to be stripped of a star in retirement based on his actions to “undermine the chain of command” during President Donald Trump’s first term, officials say.

The Pentagon will also be removing a second portrait of Gen. Milley inside the Pentagon. This one is from the Army’s Marshall Corridor on the third floor honoring his service as chief-of-staff of the Army. Fox is told the removal of this second portrait will take place as soon as tonight. This means there will be no more portraits of Gen. Milley inside the Pentagon.

The first portrait of Gen. Milley, from his time as the U.S. military’s top officer, was removed from the Pentagon last week on Inauguration Day less than two hours after President Trump was sworn into office.

TRUMP REVOKES SECURITY CLEARANCES OF 51 INTEL OFFICIALS WHO SIGNED DISCREDITED HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP LETTER

The now retired Gen. Milley and other former senior Trump aides had been assigned personal security details ever since Iran vowed revenge for the killing of Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in 2020 ordered by Trump in his first term.

FILE – Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (AP/Jeremias Gonzalez)

On “Fox News Sunday,” the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tom Cotton said he hoped President Trump would “revisit” the decision to pull the protective security details from John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook who previously served under Trump.

Asked why these actions were being taken, a senior administration official who requested anonymity replied, “There is a new era of accountability in the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership—and that’s exactly what the American people expect.”

Gen. Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023 under both Presidents Trump and Biden.

BIDEN PARDONS MARK MILLEY, ANTHONY FAUCI, J6 COMMITTEE MEMBERS

FILE – Milley served under President Joe Biden and Trump. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

He served as the Army’s chief of staff, the service’s top officer, from 2015-2019.

In his new book “War,” Bob Woodward writes Gen. Milley told him at a reception at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. on March 6, 2023, that he believed Trump was “fascist to the core!”

Gen. Milley was still serving in uniform as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he reportedly made the remark.

FILE – Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley met with President Donald Trump and other senior military leaders at the White House in Washington, Oct. 7, 2019. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

FILE – A portrait of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley, was unveiled at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, Jan. 10, 2025. (DoD/U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders/Handout via REUTERS)

Woodward wrote that Gen. Milley, “shared with me his worries about Trump’s mental stability and control of nuclear weapons,” in a previous book.

When the leader of ISIS was killed in a daring raid carried out by U.S. Special Operations Forces in Syria in October 2019, President Trump praised Milley.

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“I want to thank General Mark Milley and our Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I also want to thank our professionals who work in other agencies of the United States government and were critical to the mission’s unbelievable success.”

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden pardoned Gen. Milley.

In their book, “Peril,” Bob Woodward and Robert Costa wrote that Gen. Milley called his Chinese counterpart on two occasions in the final months of Trump’s first term, warning him the U.S. military had no plans to strike China in a bid to avert tensions between nuclear-armed countries.

Lucas Y. Tomlinson serves as a correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, DC. Follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

January 28, 2025