Trump accuser said she ‘laughed out loud’ when she heard him again deny her assault allegation
CNN
Jessica Leeds, who previously accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and was a trial witness in a high-profile case against the former president, said Monday that she “laughed out loud” when she heard he recently disputed her allegation and said she “would not have been the chosen one.”
Jessica Leeds, who previously accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and was a trial witness in a high-profile case against the former president, said Monday that she “laughed out loud” when she heard he recently disputed her allegation and said she “would not have been the chosen one.” “I laughed out loud. I couldn’t believe that he was using that word like some sort of cult figure,” Leeds told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “AC360.” Leeds was one of the first women to come forward during the 2016 presidential campaign to allege that Trump sexually assaulted her. She said she was seated in first class on an airplane next to Trump in the 1970s when he suddenly began groping her. Leeds said she fought off Trump and moved to the back of the airplane. “I was not the first, of course I was not the last. But there have been enough so that he doesn’t remember,” Leeds told Cooper Monday. Asked about Leeds’ comments, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung again denied Trump had ever met Leeds and said that “whatever fable she’s trying to peddle is only meant to interfere in the election and distract from” Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival. Leeds had been called to testify during Trump’s sexual abuse and defamation trial last year brought by E. Jean Carroll, who accused the former president of assaulting her in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996. She was one of two women Carroll’s lawyers called to allege Trump had a modus operandi of sexually assaulting women and then attacking their appearance and credibility when the allegations became public.

White House officials are heaping blame on DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro over her office’s criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, faulting her for blindsiding them with an inquiry that has forced the administration into a dayslong damage control campaign, four people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The aircraft used in the US military’s first strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a strike which has drawn intense scrutiny and resulted in numerous Congressional briefings, was painted as a civilian aircraft and was part of a closely guarded classified program, sources familiar with the program told CNN. Its use “immediately drew scrutiny and real concerns” from lawmakers, one of the sources familiar said, and legislators began asking questions about the aircraft during briefings in September.

DOJ pleads with lawyers to get through ‘grind’ of Epstein files as criticism of redactions continues
“It is a grind,” the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division said in an email. “While we certainly encourage aggressive overachievers, we need reviewers to hit the 1,000-page mark each day.”

A new classified legal opinion produced by the Justice Department argues that President Donald Trump was not limited by domestic law when approving the US operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro because of his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief and that he is not constrained by international law when it comes to carrying out law enforcement operations overseas, according to sources who have read the memo.









