In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story. The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner’s phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account. What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man. The story sounded preposterous, I told my source. And yet.

Six months later, I found myself speaking with someone else about the UAE government and their use of mercenaries in conflicts around the Middle East and Africa when I asked, on a whim, whether they knew anything about Kushner and bank transfers from a UAE account. My acquaintance grew quiet. Then they replied, “Yes.”

Over the next four years, I came to learn that, sometime in late 2017, the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) made a startling discovery. A General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) operative, a dark web hacker specializing in stolen bank data, was traveling to the UK for an espionage mission. They reached out to the British government for permission to apprehend him when he arrived. The British agreed.

When the Russian national arrived in England, the Dutch informed him that he had two options: he could work for them against the GRU, or the British would arrest him. Once in UK government custody, the operative would be charged with espionage. If convicted, he would spend years in a British prison. The Russian chose to change his employer.

Later that year, the Russian operative gave the Dutch spies access to one of the GRU’s most sensitive assets. Located in Rostov, Russia, the GRU’s hacking and cyber team operated a remote server on which they stored some of their bounty. During their search through these secret files, the Dutch found something astonishing: screenshots of Jared Kushner’s iPhone.

In The Hague, the MIVD hacking team tried to reverse engineer the Russian penetration of Kushner’s iPhone. Kushner owned what was then the latest model, the iPhone X. Released in November 2017, it featured Face ID, a state-of-the-art security feature that Apple had promoted at its launch. The Dutch team had been trying to pick the phone’s door lock, so to speak, when it occurred to them that the Russians may have found an unlocked window to gain entry instead. Their hypothesis was correct. By early 2018, the MIVD had found a vulnerability in the iPhone that gave them access. The security exploit wasn’t perfect, however. Some malware allows a hacker to turn a victim’s phone into a microphone and video camera, turn the phone on or off, and pull and add files. The Dutch solution did not provide that level of access. Instead, when Kushner used the phone, they could see his screen. Almost as soon as they got inside, the intelligence service began capturing every image of Kushner’s screen as he used it, filing their own cache of surveillance on their internal computer servers.

As they monitored Kushner’s phone, they discovered he used it to log in to a UAE bank account. By the time the Dutch spies had visibility into the phone, the account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. Their initial assessment was that the bank account was affiliated with the government there.

For the MIVD hackers, the bank account became an intelligence mystery to unravel. Nearly everything they worked on had a tinge of Russian conspiracy. A little over a year into Trump’s first presidency, the MIVD, like FBI agents and federal prosecutors in Washington working on the Robert Mueller investigation, had only part of the story.

Kushner, UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia, converged at an auspicious moment. MBS wanted to be crown prince. MBZ wanted to blow up Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, and Kushner wanted both to help him force the Palestinians into a deal that Israel would accept. Despite the perception of his wealth, Kushner was not entirely financially independent of his parents, and the family business, Kushner Companies, faced a billion-dollar loan coming due on their trophy property, the Manhattan office building at 666 Fifth Avenue.

Early in the first Trump administration, MBZ and MBS offered to pay for a slush fund dedicated to helping the new administration with foreign policy goals. The idea was to help pay for Trump’s promised wall between Mexico and the US, for example, in an effort to secure a second term in the White House. The two Arab royals initially discussed with Kushner putting more than $10 billion into the effort. Within months, though, as MBZ pushed the Trump administration to help back MBS’s effort to become his country’s crown prince—and future king—the broader foreign policy slush fund idea fizzled. Instead, MBZ and MBS initially, and then MBZ alone, put at least $2 billion into at least two bank accounts for Kushner. It is unclear how the royals organized their $2 billion in combined payments, but they effectively split the cost. For the purposes of explanation, it is best to understand where and how each bank account was controlled.

Bank account Alpha was held at First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest in the UAE, and was overseen by MBZ’s brother, Tahnoon bin Zayed, who served as the bank’s chairman. Beginning in 2017, the Saudis and Emiratis transferred roughly $750 million into the Alpha account. Alpha would be used as a foreign policy fund. This money would be overseen and partially managed by Kushner and MBZ, who, in their effort to strike a grand bargain to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, believed the region’s map needed to be redrawn.

“Jared was looking for shortcuts in his diplomacy,” a source who knew of the UAE’s deal with Kushner said. This person held discussions with both senior UAE and Israeli officials about the secret financial arrangement between Kushner, the UAE, and, at least initially, Saudi Arabia. “Jared promised MBZ that he’d push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a fund. He wanted normalization with Israel so that business could take off.” A slush fund—a shared pool of money for off-the-books diplomatic objectives—was a common form of Gulf Arab government corruption, this person explained. “The Emiratis and the Saudis do this once a year. A billion or two is nothing for them, and if it gets them what they want, it’s money well spent.”

The Alpha account looked like the funding source of a UAE government program, by which MBZ paid his bureaucrats their salaries or funded government-run schools. But how and through whom the money flowed into the Alpha account revealed that it was intended to remain secret, more akin to a covert and illicit scheme, given that it was managed in part by a senior advisor to the president of the United States.

The Dutch spies who monitored the Alpha account noted that all of it was sent by a bank in Azerbaijan in American dollars. Azerbaijan plays a unique role in money laundering. Its central bank maintains high levels of US dollars in its reserves but does not adhere to the highest standards of bank transparency. As a result, Azerbaijani banks have well-established but unadvertised practices of serving as way stations for large transfers, in which a foreign currency is exchanged for an equal amount in dollars. For a roughly 6 to 7 percent fee on the transaction, some Azerbaijani banks will accept a transfer from a client who wishes to move Saudi riyals or Emirati dirhams totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. The Saudi or Emirati client sends the money to the Azerbaijani bank, which then uses a different internal bank account to transfer the equivalent US dollars to the client’s requested destination. For auditors, this shadow trade can’t be discerned.

A shallow audit, as the Dutch tried while monitoring Kushner’s iPhone, revealed nothing more than what appeared to be an Azerbaijani government–linked bank account that sent hundreds of millions of dollars to an account in Dubai. But there was another aspect of the Alpha account that the Dutch couldn’t see or understand, one that helped reveal the secret purpose of the money. Kushner did not own the bank account at First Abu Dhabi Bank. He was a signatory for an account managed and owned by an Emirati charity.

When MBZ and MBS first began contributing to the Alpha account in 2017, the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a UAE government-funded charity, was run by Dherar Belhoul Al Falasi. Al Falasi was a technocrat and a member of the Federal National Council, and friends with one of MBZ’s closest friends and advisors. As a result, Al Falasi and the Watani Foundation had a second mission. The charity was used as a cover to move money in support of the country’s secret military and intelligence operations overseas. Under the Watani cover, Al Falasi helped facilitate the UAE’s secret weapons-purchasing programs, one confidential source who had direct knowledge of the charity’s proliferation program revealed. This source said that the Emiratis believed that the program’s status as a charity made its international transactions less likely to be scrutinized and therefore served as a useful cover for funding MBZ and his brother’s secret wars.

MBZ and Tahnoon made Kushner a signatory on the Alpha account with Watani. As a signatory, Jared had access to it and could, in theory, make transactions, but it technically wasn’t his account. One way to view what Kushner did with the Alpha account is to imagine him as the director of the CIA. Had he been running the government entity that managed and ran secret foreign programs, maintaining the account, again, with presidential approval and congressional disclosure, Kushner’s conduct would have been within his job’s responsibilities. But he was not the director of the CIA, whose position is approved by the Senate and whose operations are overseen and accountable to Congress. Instead, Kushner was overseen only by his father-in-law, who, according to four senior Trump administration officials—two national security advisors, a White House chief of staff, and a former CIA director—were unaware of any presidential authorization for Kushner to access a foreign government bank account. (Kushner’s counsel, however, said Kushner did not make any agreements or arrangements with leaders or officials in foreign countries that were not agreed to by the President of the United States and in the best interests of the United States.)

Regardless of whether he was a signatory or the owner, Jared was required by federal government regulations and the Internal Revenue Service to disclose his access to the account. Unless disclosed to and approved by the US government and reported on his tax returns, Kushner’s access to the Alpha account may have violated US law. (A lawyer for Mr. Kushner denied that his client had any knowledge of or connection to Al Falasi, the Watani charity, or a UAE bank account and stated that he had complied with all legal requirements when dealing with foreign governments.)

In addition to the Alpha bank account, MBZ put money into at least one other account intended for Kushner. By the spring of 2018, the crown prince had moved roughly $1 billion to Israel via Azerbaijan for Kushner. We will refer to this account as the Beta bank account. It is unclear how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first learned of MBZ’s money for Kushner, but a person briefed on the Beta account told me that the prime minister encouraged Kushner to have the money deposited in the Israeli Central Bank, in what would appear to be a government account. It is also unclear how Kushner used the money the UAE deposited into the Beta account for him, but according to the person with knowledge of the money, its allocation was for Kushner’s personal benefit. But as with the Alpha account, there were clues in the way the Beta account was managed.

Israel’s Central Bank does not operate personal accounts. The bank holds and transfers only government funds. The government accounts use a dual-key system, which requires two authorized individuals to make any transfers from the account as an oversight mechanism. Netanyahu required Kushner to inform him before making any transactions from the Beta account.

To do so, Kushner passed his messages through Ambassador David M. Friedman, who frequently met with Netanyahu. With the money in the Central Bank, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to connect MBZ’s payment to Jared. It is unclear if spies in the Netherlands had any indication of the Beta account. (Ambassador Friedman denied that he had any knowledge of, or involvement with, any UAE money made available to Kushner, or that he passed messages on Kushner’s behalf. “I know absolutely nothing about any of these allegations,” Friedman said, “and the specific allegations about me or my alleged involvement in this alleged scheme are 100% false.” Kushner’s counsel also said Kushner “has no idea” about any such account, and insisted that “there are no accounts and never were.”)

Apparently, Kushner faced the challenge of moving money from the Beta account in Israel to other accounts where he could have untraceable access to the funds. One person who worked with Kushner to move the money out of Israel said that much of it went to bank accounts in Cyprus before being moved elsewhere.

During Kushner’s secret financial arrangement with MBZ, he helped negotiate a third, altogether distinct account. As part of what was, at the time, a secret warming of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Kushner helped negotiate an agreement by Israel to help defend the UAE from a major Iranian military attack. The UAE needed to cover the cost of the emergency defense, however, and the government secretly made another transfer to Israel’s Central Bank. This was something like a rainy-day defense fund. Combined, the three accounts represented a secret foreign policy negotiated by Kushner with the leaders of Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Although Kushner’s position as senior advisor to the president was unpaid, he was an official government employee. Not only did his position require financial disclosures for ethics regulations, but each year he worked in the White House, he had to file both a public and confidential financial form, known as the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, also known as a 278e disclosure. Because he had access to classified government secrets, Kushner was required to disclose any bank account to which he had signatory—or beneficiary—access.

Kushner’s apparent betrayal of the public trust, however, went further than his failure to disclose the secret Alpha account in the UAE or the Beta account in Israel. By giving him access to roughly $2 billion, regardless of how the money was used, MBZ and MBS were paying for his influence within the US government. Any efforts he made to shape US policy that came from a foreign government that had provided him with money would make him an agent of a foreign power. US law requires citizens who lobby on behalf of a foreign power to declare themselves and the country they are working on behalf of to the Justice Department.

One former prosecutor who worked on the Mueller investigation said that if Kushner promised anything to MBZ and MBS in return for the money they offered him—even if it was just speaking to his father-in-law—he may have violated federal bribery laws, as well as the foreign agent statute. (Mr. Kushner’s lawyer denied that Kushner violated any laws while serving in the White House.)

Since filing its lawsuit against California last week, the Trump administration has frequently shifted the language it has used to describe the more than 20,000 people it wants the state to block from voting.

At times, it has called them ”verified” noncitizens, and at other times, “confirmed.” But at still other times, it has said only that they’re “likely” or “highly likely” noncitizens. And it even has called them “suspected” noncitizens.

At one press conference, a Trump administration official added to the confusion, acknowledging “we’re not perfect,” and saying that the names on the list contains are the ones where “we’re kind of the most confident that they are noncitizens.”

The changing language — which has come in legal briefs, social media posts, and other public statements — matters. The administration is seeking extraordinary election-related relief — as well as warning California election officials that they could face criminal consequences for failing to comply — based on a list whose level of certainty it has described in markedly different ways.

By and large, the department’s legal filings have been more cautious than some of its officials’ public statements, relying on terms such as “likely,” “highly likely,” “reasonably believes” and “suspected.”

Public statements by prosecutors, by contrast, have repeatedly dropped those qualifications altogether.

Asked to explain the administration’s shifting descriptions and which description accurately reflects the department’s current position, DOJ provided a statement that did not address the discrepancies.

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, in new comments Thursday, did not rule out that the Department of Justice (DOJ) could try to prevent a state from certifying its election results — a process over which the federal government has no authority.

Though Blanche said the department doesn’t intend to improperly interfere in elections, his remarks will add to existing concerns that the Trump administration could try to intervene if results don’t go its way.

Speaking with reporters, Blanche was asked whether DOJ might try to block a state from certifying results.

“Yes. Of course there are scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically — some doomsday scenario, for example,” he responded. “So I don’t think it’s proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what’s going to happen in the future because I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. It is not DOJ’s intention — and it’s never our intention — to improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process, but to say that there’s no circumstances that we would ever do that — of course I’m not going to say that.”

“Am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no,” he added.

States and Congress have authority for running elections, but the federal government has no role in the process of state certification of election results.

In his July confirmation hearing, Blanche drew fire for avoiding any commitment to not deploy immigration agents at the polls, instead vaguely affirming that he will “follow the law.” In September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin similarly left open the possibility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could make arrests at the polls.

After Blanche’s July statement, a dozen Democratic senators warned Mullin, Blanche and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that any attempts to deploy agents are illegal.

“Senior Trump administration officials have repeatedly refused to rule out deploying federal law enforcement officers at November 2026 mid-term election polling places and other election sites, despite such action being illegal under federal law,” the Democratic senators wrote.

Jared Kushner raged on social media Thursday at a book excerpt published in Vanity Fair alleging his phone had been hacked by Russian security services, revealing secret bank accounts and hundreds of millions in foreign transfers.

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special envoy took to X and blasted the reporting, writing, Vanity Fair “posted an excerpt from a book containing outrageous and categorically false allegations.”

“The allegations made by this author are completely insane and never happened. We denied every one of these claims on the record, yet the author failed to provide a single shred of evidence to substantiate any of them. No bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, transaction dates, or other verifiable details were provided to support these extraordinary accusations,” Kushner fumed, adding:

During the period in question, I was one of the most scrutinized people in the world, subjected to intense media coverage, multiple congressional investigations, and a special counsel investigation. I voluntarily cooperated with these investigations, providing over 30 hours of testimony. None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened.

These are outrageous fabrications being presented as investigative journalism. This is not journalism. It is a mixture of fantasy, fiction, and advocacy, written by someone who is either deeply disturbed or acting with sinister intent.

The excerpt is from the upcoming book titled “Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East” by Matthew Cole, a former Intercept reporter. Vanity Fair ran the excerpt under the headline, “The Art of the Deal: Jared Kushner’s Hacked Phone Revealed His Secret Negotiations—Including More Than $700 Million in Transfers.”

Axios’s Barak Ravid was quick to weigh in and added, “There are many things in this book excerpt that was published in Vanity Fair that don’t add up, but two are extremely questionable.” He added:

1. I don’t think it is even technically possible to put together such an account in the bank of Israel, Netanyahu can’t really be a signatory and these accounts are under significant monitoring by career civil servants

2. To suggest that this whole thing happens in a triangle between Kushner, Friedman and Bibi seems to me impossible considering what I know about the relationships

Ravid was commenting on part of Cole’s reporting which alleged that in 2017 the Saudis and Emiratis set up an account with some $750 million to be used as a kind of foreign policy slush fund and made Kushner a signatory on the account.

Cole added that a second account was also set up involving Israel. “In addition to the Alpha bank account, MBZ [the Saudi crown prince] put money into at least one other account intended for Kushner. By the spring of 2018, the crown prince had moved roughly $1 billion to Israel via Azerbaijan for Kushner,” Cole wrote, adding:

We will refer to this account as the Beta bank account. It is unclear how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first learned of MBZ’s money for Kushner, but a person briefed on the Beta account told me that the prime minister encouraged Kushner to have the money deposited in the Israeli Central Bank, in what would appear to be a government account. It is also unclear how Kushner used the money the UAE deposited into the Beta account for him, but according to the person with knowledge of the money, its allocation was for Kushner’s personal benefit. But as with the Alpha account, there were clues in the way the Beta account was managed.

Cole also cited high-ranking officials in Trump’s first administration in his report. “As a signatory, Jared had access to it and could, in theory, make transactions, but it technically wasn’t his account. One way to view what Kushner did with the Alpha account is to imagine him as the director of the CIA,” Cole wrote, adding:

Had he been running the government entity that managed and ran secret foreign programs, maintaining the account, again, with presidential approval and congressional disclosure, Kushner’s conduct would have been within his job’s responsibilities. But he was not the director of the CIA, whose position is approved by the Senate and whose operations are overseen and accountable to Congress. Instead, Kushner was overseen only by his father-in-law, who, according to four senior Trump administration officials—two national security advisors, a White House chief of staff, and a former CIA director—were unaware of any presidential authorization for Kushner to access a foreign government bank account.

After Trump left office in January of 2021, Kushner announced he started a private equity firm, Affinity Partners, which was funded with billions of dollars from foreign governments including Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Ukraine's military Starlink service is still operating at a speed cap of 161 kilometers per hour, a Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent on Oct. 22.

The official's statement contradicts claims quoted by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which reported on Oct. 22 that Starlink functionality was back to normal in Ukraine following a phone call between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump called Musk on Oct. 21 to request he lift restrictions on Ukraine's Starshield service, the military application of the Starlink program, according to the WSJ. Following the call, sources reportedly told the outlet that Starlink was functioning more normally — though some Ukrainian officials said it wasn't fully restored.

But when asked about these claims, a Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent they were "all false."

"Overall, nothing has changed anywhere," the official said. The 161 kph speed cap remains in place, severely limiting key military operations, including mid-range strikes and high-speed drone interceptions.

Trump was evasive about whether or not he called Musk, but also claimed that Starlink was back up and running as usual in Ukraine in comments to reporters.

"Yeah, I don't want to comment on it, whether I called, or whether somebody else called, it doesn't make a difference," Trump told a journalist when questioned about the WSJ story.

"The bottom line, (Musk) put it back."

Ukraine has been trying to sort out the reasons behind the restriction — and restore service to its previous speed level — ever since Starlink was disrupted without warning on Oct. 14. While fingers have been pointed at SpaceX, the White House, and a Trump-Musk alliance, no one has claimed responsibility for the move.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that Trump had a hand in the change, saying on Oct. 18 that "no one at the White House ordered anyone to slow down internet or slow down speed."

Zelensky spoke with Rubio again on Oct. 20, as Starlink disruptions persisted. Zelensky told reporters on Oct. 22 that he was waiting for a response from Rubio as to whether Starlink communications could be restored to speeds of up to 400 kph.

Rubio promised to get back with him within 48 hours, Zelensky said, but definitive answers may take longer.

"Maybe something will become clear by morning," the official who spoke to the Kyiv Independent said.

"For now, the main interesting aspect of this is that there are absolutely no explanations for what's happening. Even though this is a top-priority system."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement extended this week a contract worth up to $982 million with the company hired to process medical claims for detainees.

Acentra Health this month launched the processing services for health providers caring for people in immigration detention, nearly a year after ICE originally contracted the company to pay out the claims, according to the company’s website.

During the lapse in claims processing the agency has racked up millions owed to ambulance services, hospitals and other providers. Detainees have received bills for medical care, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

And Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that the lack of payment for off-site medical claims led to an increase in detainee deaths and health complications. Acentra Health has said government shutdowns caused the delay.

The Virginia-based company could get paid the sum to process the claims until Oct. 24, 2030, according to a federal contracting database.

So far, ICE has committed to paying the company nearly $134 million, according to the contracting database. ICE extended the work with Acentra Health on Tuesday, increasing the potential award amount, according to a government notice.

“Any lapse in the current medical claims management and provider payment support would create immediate and significant risks to [ICE Health Service Corps] operations and to the health and safety of the detained population,” a document ICE published Tuesday says. “Maintaining support through Acentra mitigates these risks because the contractor is already performing the required services.”

ICE rushed in October 2025 to find a contractor after the Department of Veterans Affairs abruptly ended the two decade-long agreement to handle the claims. The health care technology company has also processed medical claims for the VA since 2017, according to an FAQ page about the contract with ICE.

The agency originally awarded the contract to Acentra Health without any competition because it was urgent to hire a company to pay out the claims to ensure immigrants got timely critical medical care, according to a document from the agency.

Acentra Health remains the only contractor that can provide support immediately after the agency tried to identify other potential vendors in June, ICE stated in its justification for extending the contract on Tuesday. But the company repeatedly pushed back the date for when it would start processing the claims, first expected to begin by April 30.

Lindsey Rodarmer, Acentra Health’s public relations manager, told The Washington Sun in July that the Department of Homeland Security shutdown had delayed implementation of the system. The company was required to pause its work until it received an extension in June, according to its FAQ on the contract issue.

“Acentra Health began implementation work at its own financial risk in late October 2025, before receiving payment for that work,” the company website says. “This work included establishing technical environments, setting up data services and software configurations, and recruiting and training staff to support the letter contract.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is questioning whether the Board of Peace can deliver on President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza without more planning and resources from the U.S. government, according to a cable the embassy sent to State Department leadership Thursday that was obtained by POLITICO.

The cable, which has not been previously reported, was signed by Huckabee and voiced concern that neither the organization nor the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem have the personnel to move forward with plans to disarm and rebuild the Palestinian enclave.

Huckabee’s questions focus on whether the main hub set up to coordinate between the U.S., Israel and international partners — the International Gaza Support Center — will be able to sustain operations after the Pentagon draws down its personnel as planned over the next year, according to the cable. The current plan is for civilians to take over those jobs, the cable notes.

“Embassy Jerusalem is not currently staffed to assume these roles, but can be if it has an idea of the human, financial and logistical resources that will be needed,” he wrote. “The BoP is working to increase staff but its ability to cover all functions at the IGSC remains unclear.”

The Board of Peace, created by Trump and launched in February, has a U.N. mandate to set up and coordinate funding for Gaza’s reconstruction, and Europeans who refused to join the board have agreed to align their work with it. However, more than a year after a ceasefire agreement, Israeli strikes continue, and the majority of Palestinians remain displaced from the homes Israel destroyed during its response to the October 2023 Hamas attacks.

As recently as two weeks ago, Huckabee told Fox News that the Board of Peace “could be moving forward progressively, but the only reason that there’s any slowdown is because of Hamas.” In particular, he said on Fox that Hamas had not followed through on its commitment to disarm.

The International Gaza Support Center, which is led by the U.S. and based in Israel, is expected to play a key role in the International Stabilization Force that the Board of Peace plans to deploy to the Gaza Strip.

In the cable, marked “sensitive but unclassified,” Huckabee argued that civilians leading the effort at the coordination center “could complicate the coordination dynamic” with the Israeli military, “especially on the intelligence-sharing front.”

“How will roles and responsibilities shift to State and the BoP as DoW reduces its presence?” he asked State to answer. “How will we keep critical IGSC workstreams running and what conditions should be met before this transition begins?”

Huckabee also noted that the IGSC is reorganizing after the Board of Peace took over its financing Oct. 11. The Board of Peace didn’t confirm the reorganization. The hub was launched last year by U.S. Central Command as the Civil-Military Coordination Center and later rebranded.

The Board of Peace said in a statement that it was not familiar with the cable and that it is “confident in the highly detailed plans that have been developed for improved humanitarian assistance, security, governance, the rule of law, infrastructure development, and reconstruction in Gaza. Our capacities and systems in place are strong and ready for implementation.”

The Pentagon referred questions to the State Department, which declined to comment.

POLITICO read excerpts of the cable in an interview to Thomas Warrick, who served as deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

“The embassy is clearly pressing Washington for clarity and additional resources in order to make the Trump plan work,” he said. “Hamas is getting stronger, and it’s looking like the Board of Peace is too slow to get on the ground in Gaza with a plan that will get results.”

The cable also suggests that the Palestinian technocratic body set up to govern the strip, called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, could be undermined by delays in reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.

“Humanitarian assistance should surge in line with NCAG and administration priorities. It should also complement longer-term reconstruction efforts to prevent backsliding and demonstrate the NCAG’s credibility,” Huckabee wrote, adding that the U.S. will press foreign donors to “do their fair share to address humanitarian needs.”

The cable comes as the Gaza Strip remains volatile. On Thursday, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the Israeli military presented U.S. Army officers with intelligence concluding Hamas was preparing for renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip and could only be disarmed by a return to war. Earlier this month, The Guardian reported that Israel was blocking the construction of a base in Gaza that would house international troops intended to stabilize the territory.

President Donald Trump on Thursday encouraged Vivek Ramaswamy to continue running a widely controversial ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent in the Ohio governor’s race, Amy Acton.

The president’s support of the ad comes as Democrats and Republicans, including GOP Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, called on Ramaswamy to take it down.

“I suggested, on the other hand, that Vivek should keep it up, and let everyone listen to the mother of a defective, dishonest, and incapable Candidate, explain how the daughter is a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “I only wish the mothers of my opponents would be so brave as to come forward and explain that their son or daughter is a liar, and much worse.”

He slammed DeWine for urging Ramaswamy to take down the ad, calling the GOP governor “disloyal to the Republican Party.”

“He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he is capable of doing,” Trump said.

DeWine’s office declined to comment.

Trump commented on the ad a day after Vice President JD Vance said he was “disgusted” at Republicans across the country for “whining” about the attack ad, which sparked backlash among Ohio Republicans as well as several national Republican figures, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

The ad started circulating on social media earlier this week and features Acton’s mother calling her daughter a “liar” and urging voters to back Ramaswamy. Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, condemned the ad and said it weaponized her sister’s childhood abuse and sexual assault for political gain.

Acton has previously said that she was estranged from her mother since she was child. Acton’s stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12, and her mother chose to stay with him. Her stepfather pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to court documents provided by Acton’s campaign, and he fled the state.

Ramaswamy’s campaign has defended the video and said it would spend $4 million to promote it.

“Who wouldn’t use such an Ad?” Trump said. “I would.”

Justice Department prosecutors are investigating allegations of contract misconduct at the Department of Homeland Security, including the role of Corey Lewandowski who worked as de facto chief of staff to former Secretary Kristi Noem, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.

The probe follows a criminal referral for Lewandowski from the DHS Inspector General’s office, which has been examining contracting practices at the agency during Noem’s and Lewandowski’s tenure, according to one of the people familiar.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the matter.

“Mr. Lewandowski has not been contacted by the Justice Department regarding any investigation, and he denies any wrongdoing when he was proudly serving his country in a voluntary capacity,” Lewandowski’s attorney Adam Trigg told CNN.

The referral is an unusual move for the Trump administration, which has been hesitant to criminally investigate its own members.

Critics have instead largely accused the Justice Department of improperly targeting the president’s political enemies and accused DHS of protecting their own employees from scrutiny.

In recent months, as the allegations of possible corruption emerged, Washington, DC, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro told officials in her office that she wanted investigators to look into claims of kickbacks connected to contracting at DHS, according to a second source familiar with the investigation.

It’s still not clear which US Attorney’s office is leading the investigation.

Prosecutors have been awaiting results from the DHS inspector general probe, the person familiar with the probe said.

Lewandowski, a Republican operative, became a fixture at DHS early in President Donald Trump’s second term, serving as Noem’s chief adviser. But on paper, he was originally tapped to serve as a special government employee — a unique role meant to span a limited number of days.

Lewandowksi’s straddling of senior government functions at DHS and service as a special government employee was uncharted territory, according to multiple people who spoke with CNN.

Homeland Security officials ultimately viewed Lewandowski, a Trump ally, as Noem’s gatekeeper. He left the department when Trump fired Noem.

Noem’s handling of contracts within DHS was one of the main catalysts for her ouster by Trump earlier this year, notably when she claimed that Trump knew of a $220 million ad campaign prominently featuring the secretary.

During her tenure, Noem also tightened her grip on her department’s purse strings, ordering that every contract and grant over $100,000 had to cross her desk for approval — a move that Noem frequently defended as intended to cut down on waste but that multiple Homeland Security officials found unusual and unnecessary.

The inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, complained to Congress in early March that Homeland Security leadership had been obstructing some of his work.

Trump, when asked by a reporter on Thursday about the Lewandowski investigation, said he didn’t know much about it as he only just learned of it. He repeatedly said, however, that if people working for him are dishonest, he wants them prosecuted.

“They’re stealing from me, so I want my people to be honest,” Trump said. “And if they’re not honest, I’ll have my DOJ go and do whatever they have to do.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at lowering homeownership costs less than two weeks before the midterm elections dominated by affordability concerns.

The executive order reflects a draft previously published by POLITICO and directs various agencies to reduce mortgage costs and support the development of manufactured housing.

“Homeownership is a vital pillar of our great Nation, and President Trump and his Administration are working tirelessly to cut burdensome costs and red tape to make the American dream of homeownership more affordable for all Americans,” the White House said in a statement.

The order comes amid a slow housing market and rising lending costs. The growing cost of housing has loomed over a midterm election cycle that has centered on voters’ economic frustrations.

The executive order directs the Federal Housing Finance Agency to create a pilot program proactively canceling mortgage insurance for eligible borrowers with government-backed home loans. The order also directs FHFA to expand an existing program allowing borrowers to qualify for government-sponsored mortgages by using less expensive alternatives to title insurance.

The document calls on the departments of Veterans Affairs and Agriculture to reduce the interest rates on the single-family mortgages offered by their housing programs.

The order also establishes a multiagency task force to support innovation in the development of manufactured homes, which the administration and Congress have bolstered as a potential solution to the increasing expense of housing construction.

The Trump administration apparently still hasn’t learned its lesson about double-checking sources.

A federal labor agency flagged so many problems in a recent arbitration filing that it suggested the Department of Health and Human Services used artificial intelligence to draft its brief.

In a section where HHS was arguing that an arbitrator got key facts wrong, one of the government’s “supporting legal authorities has a fictitious citation,” a Federal Labor Relations Authority decision says.

“The Agency cites ‘U.S. Dep’t of the Air Force, 913th Air Wing, 57 FLRA 469, 472 (2001),’ which does not exist,” the decision says in a footnote.

It was one of 10 “entirely fictitious” citations the agency says it found. And overall, 22 of the HHS filing’s 29 footnotes — and 35 of the 42 total legal or record citations — “are fictitious, erroneous, or irrelevant.”

This is not the first time HHS has had trouble with citations in the second Trump administration. Last year, The Washington Sun found the department inaccurately cited more than 500 scientific sources to back up its “Make American Healthy Again” commission report — in some cases even making up studies.

In this latest incident, multiple times the decision points out where HHS attorneys cited a case that refers to an irrelevant part of the law. There are also incorrect page numbers, case numbers and other details.

“Based on the nature and scope of these errors, it appears that the Agency may have used a generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tool in drafting its brief,” the decision says.

HHS was asking the FLRA to reverse a decision from a third-party arbitrator who sided with a labor union in a challenge to a presidential memorandum sending federal workers back to in-person work.

HHS not only didn’t get what they wanted, but it also got a lecture from FLRA about using AI.

“While nothing prohibits parties from using AI tools when preparing filings for submission to the Authority, we caution those who do so to be aware that AI continues to present significant risks of error,” the FLRA wrote.

“Therefore, parties should take steps to verify the accuracy of any AI-generated material and ensure that their filings satisfy all regulatory requirements.”

The FLRA used its own footnote there, pointing to a 2024 guidance on the use of AI-based tools in court “on how to follow filing rules when drafting documents using AI, including reviewing and correcting AI-generated text.”

The HHS Office of the General Counsel did not respond to a request for comment about whether it used AI to write its filing.

And the issue has popped up elsewhere as AI use has become more widespread. In July, a federal judge cautioned an attorney with the Justice Department about AI use that led to inaccurate citations in an immigration case.

President Donald Trump has embraced artificial intelligence, and multiple agencies across the federal government have confirmed they are using the technology.

The Treasury Department on Thursday proposed new regulations to bar large institutional investors from buying up single-family homes, the latest step in the process to implement the most controversial section of the sweeping bipartisan housing law passed this summer.

Under the law, the ban — which prohibits investors with more than 350 houses from purchasing additional single-family homes – goes into effect Jan. 7, a short runway Treasury acknowledged in the 96-page proposal.

“Given this short implementation period and the need for market participants to make decisions regarding homebuilding, acquisitions, ownership structures, investment arrangements, and compliance systems, Treasury currently intends to take a phased rulemaking approach,” the agency said.

The institutional investor restrictions were part of a populist affordability pitch by President Donald Trump, who declared, “People live in homes, not corporations.”

Critics have argued, though, that the policy could create a chilling effect for builders, and in turn, be a drag on supply.

Market participants were still reviewing the proposal Thursday morning.

“This is a very complicated provision and a very complicated rule as a result of that,” said David Dworkin, president and chief executive officer of the National Housing Conference. “The bottom line is going to be whether the market continues to build desperately needed rental housing or not. And if we see that builders continue to construct rental housing, regardless of whether it is stacked on top of each other or side by side, I think that Treasury successfully navigated the issue.”

“If on the other hand the market stops investing in rental housing, then what we’ve done is simply exacerbated the affordable housing crisis,” Dworkin added.

The bipartisan housing law aimed to alleviate a supply crunch that has contributed to voters’ frustrations over affordability. In addition to the institutional investor restriction, the law includes new rules making it easier to develop factory-built housing and encouraging localities to remove barriers to construction.

President Trump called Elon Musk and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said.

The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn’t restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap.

Trump told Musk said he was frustrated the system’s speeds remained capped at around 100 miles per hour, officials said. The speed limit rendered some of Ukraine’s offensive drones and interceptors powerless against Russian attacks. Their conversation followed a Wall Street Journal report revealing that Musk ordered the slowdown, though SpaceX and the White House have differing accounts about whether the world’s richest man acted alone or at the administration’s behest.

Trump has told aides and allies this week that he wanted to reverse the slowdown of Starlink, which Ukraine’s forces use to defend themselves along the frontline, the officials said.

“Removal of the throttle limit will do much to enable Ukraine’s strike capabilities at operational depths and its current effort to scale up deployment of jet powered interceptors,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on the war at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kofman added that he had heard from Ukrainian military units that early tests suggest the system is now working more regularly.

The White House referred the Journal to Trump’s recent denials that he had asked Musk to throttle Starlink’s speeds or knew who issued the order. Trump and Musk spoke about Ukraine and Starlink on the day the slowdown became public, the Journal previously reported.

President Trump isn’t done trying to rename things.

The president told a rally audience in South Carolina Wednesday evening that he tried to rename the Atlantic Ocean to “Trump Ocean,” but ultimately decided against it.

“I only like two oceans, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, I’m not going to put either Trump or America on any other ocean but these two. So, we seriously looked at the Atlantic Ocean and I called Google Maps who were really great with the lake and really great with …” Trump said, trailing off but referring to the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump said he called Google CEO Sundar Pichai and asked him, “I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean, can you handle it? ‘No no no, this time I’m not doing it,’ he said.”

The audience and Trump laughed.

“He said, he said, he said, ‘Oceans are different, sir. You know, they cover, they cover a lot of, they cover really a lot of countries. Please, don’t ask us to do that.’ So I’ll probably pass. Should I pass it? I think let’s keep it the Atlantic Ocean,” Trump said.

Trump’s ego knows no bounds if he was seriously considering having Google change the name of the Atlantic Ocean. He has signed executive orders changing the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario to the Gulf of America and Lake America, respectively. He’s proposed renaming the Strait of Hormuz to “Trump Strait,” and earlier this week again mused about renaming New Mexico to “New America.” Meanwhile, the economy is suffering as a result of his failed policies and ill-advised war with Iran, and the Republican Party is facing heavy losses in November’s midterm elections.

The Trump administration is seeking to restrict American investment in Chinese biotechnology companies, potentially complicating financial ties at a time when US drugmakers are increasingly turning to China for new medicines.

The US Treasury Department on Thursday proposed adding biotechnology to a list of sensitive technologies subject to restrictions on American investment in foreign adversaries, citing national security concerns.

The proposed regulations would require American investors to notify the government about certain transactions involving foreign companies developing sensitive technologies and prohibit others entirely. The rules would expand an existing program targeting investments in areas including artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum computing.

Chinese biotechnology companies have become a source of innovation for the pharmaceutical industry. US drugmakers are increasingly turning to China to license promising treatments as they search for new products to replenish their pipelines.

The proposed regulations would also restrict investment in Chinese brain-computer interface companies, a growing field of startups that aim to build technologies that allow people to control electronics directly with their brains. China and the US both have burgeoning brain tech industries, with startups racing to develop implants, helmets and other devices.

The restrictions could complicate investments in Chinese biotechnology companies, though their impact on pharmaceutical partnerships remains unclear. The Treasury Department is seeking public comments before issuing a final rule. The restrictions won’t take effect until that process is complete.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has banned Defense Department personnel from using nonpublic information to bet on U.S. military operations, according to a memorandum obtained by CBS News.

In the Oct. 20 message to senior Pentagon leadership and combatant commanders, Hegseth said the prohibition would apply to classified and unclassified information and specifically includes prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, which are named in the memo.

The defense secretary warned that financial transactions on prediction markets could expose sensitive military movements to foreign adversaries and endanger American troops.

"Make no mistake why this matters. Our enemies watch movements in these markets," Hegseth wrote. "When an American Service member, intelligence professional, or other Department civilian engages in a financial transaction on a military outcome, they create a signal."

Hegseth warned that foreign intelligence services could analyze betting activity to anticipate American military movements, targets and timing of an operation. The memorandum said violations could result in administrative disciplinary or criminal action under federal law or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the laws and regulations governing the U.S. military.

The directive follows growing scrutiny of service members participating in military-related prediction markets. In April, a U.S. Special Forces soldier involved in the military operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was arrested after allegedly betting on Maduro's removal from office before news of the raid was made public.

Federal investigators believe U.S. Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke made bets of more than $33,000 on the prediction market Polymarket within hours of President Trump's announcement in January that Maduro had been captured. The bets resulted in winnings of more than $409,000.

The soldier entered a not guilty plea in New York federal court.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is sending election monitors to GOP stronghold Utah, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor announced on Thursday.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah’s top election official, said she was notified of the move but hasn’t received information on where the monitors will be located or exactly how many the Trump administration is deploying to the state.

Henderson has clashed with the Trump administration before, defying demands to turn over the state’s unredacted voter rolls. The administration claimed it needed those records, which include sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers, to identify alleged noncitizens registered to vote. In response, DOJ sued Utah and launched an investigation into Henderson.

The DOJ earlier this year announced plans to enlist 1,000 election monitors to observe midterm elections around the country, which it touted as the largest number in history. .

While election monitors have historically been deployed to document potential civil rights violations, the DOJ’s expansion was met with skepticism from voting rights advocates given the Trump administration’s extraordinary attempts to exert more federal control over the election process.

Utah is one of just a handful of states that offer universal mail voting, making it a frequent target of President Donald Trump and his administration despite it being a Republican stronghold. Ballots went out to all registered voters in the state last week, and the in-person early voting period began this Tuesday.

While the federal election monitors won’t be wearing badges or insignia to signal their presence to voters, Henderson said they will identify themselves to poll workers and are required to follow state laws.

The lieutenant governor also explicitly laid out ground rules for the monitors, saying they “won’t speak to or approach voters” and that they will “not be armed or carrying concealed weapons.”

“They’re not allowed to interfere in any way,” Henderson concluded.

Federal agents have been spotted outside polling locations in two Florida counties this week during early voting, a presence that local election officials say is intimidating and illegal.

Mark Earley, the supervisor of elections in Leon County, said Monday that two Customs and Border Protection vehicles were parked outside the county’s busiest early voting site in Tallahassee for about 10 minutes.

“I have lodged a formal complaint with the FBI, and to their credit, they are taking this seriously,” Earley said in a statement. “Voters should never experience intimidation from anyone when they are voting, and that includes being intimidated by law enforcement or any other governmental officials.”

In Monroe County, masked federal agents were seen conducting an arrest at an intersection near a polling place. Florida’s Local 10 news reported that the location was clearly near an early voting site in Key Largo, with signs that read “Go Vote” and “Vote Here” around the area.

The county’s supervisor of elections, Sherri Hodies, says it violates the law.

“I’m not happy about it. Frankly, I was stunned about it,” Hodie told Local 10 News. “It’s hard to take these phone calls from voters who are frightened. Their voices are shaking.”

Hodie added that she reached out to Customs and Border Protection after the arrest and informed them of all the early voting sites in the county, urging them to conduct business a distance away from those places.

Federal law prohibits federal agents from being present at polling places. But the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections has been rife with concerns from lawmakers and election officials about whether the Trump administration will follow that law or find ways around it.

At Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing in March, Mullin refused to rule out that agents would stay away from the sites entirely.

“The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation,” he said.

The State Department has asked some foreign service officials up for promotion who they voted for in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, raising concerns the agency is violating a federal law that bars politicized personnel decisions within the nonpartisan ranks.

Top officials in the State Department made clear that only candidates who voted for President Donald Trump would be eligible for the mid-to-upper level foreign service roles. They also told candidates that their campaign donation history would be examined and any donation to Democrats would be disqualifying.

The Washington Sun spoke to six current and former State Department officials familiar with the line of questioning around candidates’ voting histories. Three of the sources had spoken directly with individuals who had been asked the questions.

Congressional Democrats have been preparing to probe such incidents.

“The Committee has been following allegations that the Trump Administration is making political affiliation a factor in employment for some time now,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Washington Sun in a statement. “These are critical national security positions and individuals should be chosen for their experience and ability, not their political loyalty. We are working with the House and other relevant committees to thoroughly investigate all such claims.”

While the federal government employs thousands of political appointees who turnover with each administration, the vast majority of the government workforce are permanent, career staff intended to be shielded from political interference.

Federal law directly prohibits federal officials from making any personnel decisions on the basis of political affiliation.

A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the voting history questions but emphasized the importance of “fidelity” in a statement.

“Fidelity means upholding the Constitution and the law and executing policy with loyalty to the American people and their interests,” the spokesperson said. “It emphasizes the critical importance of service, integrity, and policy alignment across the Foreign Service. It is not about partisan behavior but rather about executing the president’s vision for foreign policy.”

The spokesperson added that Secretary Marco Rubio has prioritized merit and rewarding “demonstrated performance on behalf of administration priorities” in promoting career staff into leadership positions.

In July of last year, the State Department added a “fidelity” section to the foreign service’s performance-evaluation process, requiring managers to assess employees’ commitment to “completely aligning oneself and one’s team to the most current [U.S. government] goals.”

The department also announced last year it was remaking the Foreign Service Officer Test, which all candidates must pass. One person who recently took the exam said it included questions about the impact of former President Ronald Reagan’s tax policies and the accomplishments of Trump’s Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of State during Trump’s first term.

“There was just something about the test that made it seem like they weren’t looking for the highest scores but people who answered a certain way on specific questions,” the person said.

Trump and Rubio have moved to remake the nation’s diplomatic corps. The State Department has shed nearly one-fourth of its workforce through layoffs and various separation incentives. It has awarded a $1 million, no-bid contract to a recruitment firm whose CEO has said more Christians should serve in government and hiring at the department had become too “woke.”

As The Washington Sun reported, veteran foreign service officials have also been boxed out of senior positions, asked to resign and sidelined in major foreign policy decisions. Those efforts have led to a wave of recent departures from the diplomatic corps’ top ranks.

“This is more evidence that there is conduct to get rid of folks because of perceived political affiliations,” one congressional aide not authorized to speak to the press said of the State Department asking foreign service candidates about their voting history.

The Trump administration has faced some legal action against its efforts to identify supporters among the civil service.

It previously overhauled the federal hiring process by requiring applicants to write short essays on their favorite Trump policies, but it subsequently replaced those questions under court order.

Federal workers’ unions have also sued over the administration’s plans to create a new class of workers who can be fired for any reason.

Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a good government advocacy group, said State’s latest actions mark an “appalling and flagrant disregard of federal law” designed to protect federal workers from being evaluated based on political allegiance.

“This is yet another shocking example of the Trump administration hurtling our government back in time to the spoils system of the 19th century,” Stier said. “Ultimately, it’s the safety and security of the American people that are being compromised.”

A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as BBC’s lawyers complained that Trump had delayed his appearance. Attorney Charles Tobin said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.”

He noted there was an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but that the Republican president canceled it for a “matter of national importance.” Tobin he said Trump was in fact campaigning in Georgia.

“He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” Tobin said.

Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit -– unless the discovery period was extended past Dec. 18.

It was early this year when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted to move the world. A replica of it, anyway.

Two floor globes said to be used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II are housed in the Pentagon, where subsequent generations of Army leaders became custodians of the artifacts, according to people familiar with the globe’s lineage and an accompanying plaque dating them to the 1930s.

The historical significance was attractive to Hegseth, these people said, and his staff requested that the secretary’s office become the new home to one of the 30-inch globes.

Ordinarily, moving historical items within the building is a deliberate process overseen by trained curators. Instead, Hegseth’s staff dispatched its own team to relocate an Eisenhower globe. They lost control of the artifact and dropped it, sending the globe crashing onto its base and impaling the fragile shell near Antarctica, according to those familiar with the incident. The resulting gash appears to be several inches wide.

Pentagon officials denied The Washington Post’s request for a photo of the globe or to examine the artifact in person, but The Post separately obtained images of the damage.

The Army, in an email to The Post, acknowledged that the globe was damaged and said it occurred during an “attempted move” Feb. 3. Aside from the hole, “the spherical portion of the globe was detached from the metal mounting that allows it to rotate,” spokesman Christopher Surridge said in response to questions. Ultimately, the damaged relic was not relocated, he said.

Asked where the movers came from, Surridge referred The Post to Hegseth’s office. Spokespeople for the defense secretary did not respond to a request for comment.

The Army office in possession of the globe had expected to consult with experts at the U.S. Army Center of Military History on how to ensure its safe transport and properly document its new relocation to Hegseth’s office, according to two people familiar with the matter. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a previously undisclosed incident that is viewed as an embarrassment within the Defense Department.

The history staffers were furloughed due to a partial government shutdown stemming from a dispute in Congress over aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration policy. When the experts could not be reached, Hegseth’s staff decided to move the globe themselves, these people said.

It is unclear why Hegseth’s team did not wait for experienced help to move the artifact during the partial government shutdown, which ended the same day the globe was damaged. An “apparent lack of patience,” said one person familiar with the situation, appeared to be a factor.

The episode became instant fodder for gossip and jokes inside the Pentagon, with some decrying the apparent brashness and affinity for World War II nostalgia that they characterized as common themes throughout Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary.

Hegseth, a former National Guard officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, uses the title “secretary of war.” He carried out Trump’s executive order last year to rebrand the Defense Department as the War Department, reverting to the name that was used from 1789 to 1947. Congress has not authorized either name change.

Eisenhower served as a five-star general during the war and is credited with coordinating the defeat of Nazi Germany through major operations, including the D-Day landings in France in 1944. After retiring, he went on to become president from 1953 to 1961, leading the United States through the early days of the Cold War.

Since the agency became the Defense Department under President Harry S. Truman, “we haven’t won a major war since,” Hegseth said last year.

Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who taught history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, lamented news that the globe had been damaged.

“Hegseth wants an Eisenhower totem to be like Ike, brilliant in war and peace,” Seidule said. He has criticized the defense secretary previously for overriding a policy change that removed Confederate names and symbology from several military bases located in the southern U.S., an effort Seidule helped lead.

“Hegseth is no Ike. The globe won’t give him Ike’s attributes of humility, intellect and judgment,” Seidule said.

It is unclear whether Hegseth personally ordered the globe’s relocation, or if another senior official in his office may have done so. It also is unclear whether Hegseth’s aides were prepared with the appropriate materials to move the artifact.

Another globe similar in design and linked to Eisenhower was transferred in recent years from a military history storage site in Alabama to a nearby Army installation. That globe was wrapped in protective covering and secured in a crate before it was moved.

“Since the globe is considered priceless, we knew its value was much greater than financial, and that our team was heavily relied upon for a safe delivery,” the moving company Craters and Freighters wrote in a 2022 account published online.

A sign on display with the globe that was damaged said that it is one of two “Eisenhower globes” that the Army possesses within the Pentagon, according to the photographs obtained by The Post.

“According to popular theory, the one in this room was first used by Dwight D. Eisenhower while serving on the General Staff as Chief of the War Plans Division from February to March 1942 and Operations Division from March to June 1942,” the sign states. “It is conjectured that this was retained by the successors to the Operations Division, known today as the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-35.”

The other globe is on display in the office of the chief of staff of the Army, the service’s top general, and has pen marks on it from both Eisenhower and Gen. Omar Bradley, another iconic senior officer during World War II, officials said.

Eisenhower had a well-known fondness for globes and is seen in numerous historical photographs posing with them.

Apart from the three globes known to the Army, he sent another to Truman after the war, which remained in the Oval Office through the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, according to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. That globe is on loan to the Truman library in Missouri.

The Trump administration has approved wind projects in Maine and South Dakota in an attempt to ease resistance among Senate Democrats to advancing a bipartisan permitting reform bill that could prove essential to President Donald Trump’s ambitions for energy and artificial intelligence.

A White House official confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Thursday morning that the Department of War had cleared its “first tranche of wind projects” that were still under review. The administration’s efforts to stall wind projects had led key Democratic negotiators to withhold support for the infrastructure bill.

“The Trump administration is removing all barriers clearing the way for the Senate’s permitting reform bill to pass,” the official said.

The projects in Maine and South Dakota were advanced earlier Thursday after officials determined that they pose no national security concerns.

“More are expected in the coming days/weeks after all the proper reviews have been completed,” the White House official continued, adding that the Pentagon will be evaluating each wind project on a “case-by-case basis.”

The Pentagon has come under fire over the last few months for stalling military reviews of proposed onshore wind farms since April. These reviews have long been considered routine and are conducted to determine that new turbines do not interfere with military operations, local radar, or flight paths.

In August, a federal judge ruled in favor of a group of renewable energy groups that claimed the department was unlawfully delaying dozens of wind projects, costing states $47 billion by freezing its review of onshore wind projects.

While still court-ordered, advancing the Maine and South Dakota projects could be viewed as a sign of good faith for Democrats worried about whether the administration will fairly implement permitting reform not just for fossil fuel projects favored by the president but also for renewable energy projects.

Earlier in the week, key negotiator Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-NY) indicated that the administration could be threatening the legislative deal struck last month, as the Department of Justice sought to remand permits of several offshore wind farms.

“This is how you blow up a permitting deal,” he told Politico.

Despite concerns from Democrats, the Trump administration has continued to support the bipartisan permitting deal publicly, with a White House official saying there is “NOTHING left to do but vote.”

“The Administration has done EVERTHING it has promised to do,” the official added. “If this deal does not pass, it is ENTIRELY on the Democrats own internal fights and finger-pointing.”

Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company’s Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine, which has been muddled in uncertainty over the culprit.

Looking to deflect the controversial move — which was swiftly admonished by powerful Congressional Republicans and Democrats — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Ukraine’s access to Starlink was up to Musk and not the White House.

“The bottom line is that that is governed by a private commercial contract as to how their stuff can be used and what speeds they’ll allow it to be used at,” Rubio told reporters while traveling to India.

And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking to reporters a day prior on Tuesday, suggested Starlink’s slowdown was a commercial matter and not a result of any orders from the White House.

“There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to, and that’s where Starlink has the option to make those decisions,” Hegseth said.

Taken together, the comments are a change of tune to President Trump’s original assertions last week that neither he nor Musk were responsible for the disruption. Rubio also on Saturday had insisted that no one ordered the slowdown.

The about-face comes after The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Musk had ordered the slowdown of the satellite services, a vital tool Ukraine uses to defend itself from Russian missile and drone attacks.

Trump’s role is unclear. The Journal reported that at least one person claimed Musk and Trump spoke prior to the slowdown. Reuters reported last week that the order to throttle Starlink came from inside the White House, in a directive to the Pentagon. Sources speaking to Reuters did not specify who at the White House made the decision or who was responsible for implementing the order.

“I don’t know who did it but I was not involved,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked.

Trump and Musk have experienced periods of fall-out in their relationship but appear on the upswing today. The nadir of their relationship occurred during a major public spat in June 2025, where Musk alleged that files on the disgraced financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were kept secret to protect Trump.

But the relationship has rebounded since then. Trump awarded Musk the National Medal of Science earlier this month. And Musk has provided more than $276 million for Republicans in the midterm elections, the New York Times reported.

Outgoing Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) on Wednesday said he doubted Trump had no hand in the slowdown, as he doesn’t believe that Musk “would do this without at least the acquiescence of the White House.”

“I think it’s frankly shameful,” Cornyn said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “I think we should be supporting the victim, not the aggressor.”

Starlink’s slowdown in Ukraine came after Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelensky lashed out at Trump for waiving sanctions on Russia and making a deal to purchase diesel from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky called Trump “weak” for making the deal.

Part of Trump’s response to Zelensky was to blame him as the obstacle to peace with Putin.

Republicans holding back blame on Trump for Starlink’s throttling are demanding an investigation and accountability. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and outgoing congressman Don Bacon (R-Neb.) have threatened to block Trump’s agenda during the lame-duck session if answers are not provided.

“This is a very, very serious matter. It cannot be glossed over,” Fitzpatrick told CNN on Tuesday, following the Journal report.

Fitzpatrick said if Musk ordered Starshield’s slowdown, “that is likely a violation of the law.”

“He has decision-making authority over Starlink, the civilian commercial product, but not Starshield, which is a military grade national security tool. No individual civilian should have any decision-making authority over how that’s deployed,” he said.

Adding to the confusion, Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, has said Ukraine does not have access to Starshield.

“Starshield is a defense product… the United States military uses,” Rubio told reporters last week.

“It’s not at this moment available to Ukraine, and that’s under conversation. It’s under discussion right now of how they would want to use it.”

Zelensky on Tuesday said he discussed with Rubio “the situation with Starlink/Starshield, which needs to be restored,” and called the conversation “constructive,” in a post on the social platform X.

Part of that conversation is whether the U.S. could give Ukraine the ability to hit targets deep inside Russia, in particular missile launchers, in exchange for halting Ukrainian strikes against Russian oil refineries.

Trump has demanded Ukraine halt strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, claiming that they are related to high diesel prices in the U.S. that largely stem from the U.S. war against Iran.

Russia has refused to halt strikes against Ukrainian energy sites, in particular civilian electricity and heating infrastructure. Zelensky’s allies in Congress have backed a proposal for the U.S. to give Ukraine the ability to hit Russian missile launchers in exchange for halting Ukrainian strikes against Russian energy facilities.

“President Trump can lower prices at the pump today by simply agreeing to this deal!” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) wrote in a post on X Sunday. Wicker’s pushback came after Trump announced he would buy Russian diesel to lower prices in the U.S.

Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian launchers would rely on accessing Starlink inside Russia, where it’s currently blocked. A bipartisan group of lawmakers — seven Republicans and 16 Democrats — wrote to Trump on Wednesday urging him to call Musk and give Ukrainians that access.

“With one phone call, you could both save lives and give Vladimir Putin greater incentives to negotiate,” the lawmakers wrote.

“If Ukraine cannot reliably intercept Russian ‘arrows,’ it must be able to shoot the ‘archer.’ The Starlink system run by Mr. Musk’s company SpaceX could help with that.”