Top Democrats demand clarity from Jeanine Pirro over threat to reopen investigation into Jerome Powell – live

A decade on from the 2016 election, when then FBI director James Comey called Hillary Clinton “extremely careless” for using a private email server to conduct official business as secretary of state, concerns about cybersecurity seem to have almost evaporated around the Trump White House.

Last year, the Atlantic reported that Donald Trump had refused to stop using a personal iPhone, “with a broadly circulated number” despite having been warned in 2024 that Chinese hackers had gained access to US commercial telecommunications infrastructure and so could be listening to his calls.

On Friday, we got visual evidence that Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, appears to be similarly unconcerned with keeping his official calls secure, or even secret.

A photograph taken outside the White House on Friday showed Vance holding up his iPhone as he spoke to the president, or another caller with the name “Donald J. T-” and the initials “DT”.

The name of the caller, and the make of the phone, was visible because Vance held the phone away from his ear, even though the speakerphone was not engaged, at a distance that suggested the person he was listening to speaks at a volume typical of those on the cusp of their 80h birthdays.

A second image showed the vice-president, who was left behind as Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, traveled to Pakistan without him for a second round of talks, speaking with two contacts: a “JK” and an “SW”.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrats on the Senate banking and judiciary committees, wrote to Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, demanding that she explain her threat that she could reopen a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, and asking whether Fed governor Lisa Cook is still under investigation.

Both Powell and Cook have been identified by Donald Trump as enemies he wants to force out of the central bank so he can replace them with appointees who might be more compliant with his desire to cut interest rates despite the risk of inflation.

“In recent months, your office has been engaged in a pretextual investigation into Chair Powell,” Warren and Durbin wrote in their letter to Pirro. “Though nominally an examination of his congressional testimony about the Federal Reserve’s renovation of two Washington, D.C. office buildings, the investigation was, in reality, driven by President Trump’s displeasure that Chair Powell had not voted to lower interest rates at his request”.

“Earlier today, you promised a temporary pause to the investigation. Specifically, you announced, ‘This morning the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the (Fed’s) building costs overruns … I expect a comprehensive report in short order … Accordingly, I have directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry.’ Your announcement also contained a stark warning that you were prepared to reopen the criminal probe at any moment: ‘Note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.’”

“These probes should be closed – and should stay closed, with a clear statement that there is no basis for reopening them,” the senators wrote. “Instead, your announcement leaves the door wide open for you to relaunch the criminal probe against Chair Powell – or future baseless investigations into Powell or other Fed Governors and a future Fed Chair – should it once again become politically expedient for you to do so.”

The senators requested written responses to a series of questions about the two investigastions, and about Trump’s role in them, by Monday.

After the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia blocked Donald Trump’s executive order suspending asylum access, ruling that federal law gives people the right to apply for asylum at the border, lawyers for a coalition of rights groups that successfully challenged the attempted ban expressed relief.

“This decision puts an end to the inhumane Trump policy of sending people, including families with little children, back to horrific danger without even a hearing,” Lee Gelernt, who argued the appeal for the ACLU, said. “The court made clear that the president does not have the unilateral power to wipe away all of the asylum laws enacted by Congress.”

“The circuit court reaffirmed our conviction that a president cannot unilaterally eliminate the right to seek asylum by executive order. We hope that the U.S. government remembers its obligation to consider applications for refugee protections and recommits to upholding the basic rights of people fleeing persecution,” Keren Zwick of the National Immigrant Justice Center said.

“Since January of last year, the government has used the proclamation to implement a near-total shutdown of asylum processing, slamming the door on vulnerable families, children, and adults seeking refuge,” Melissa Crow of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies said. “As the court rightly concluded, U.S. law is clear: People seeking safety have a legal right to apply for asylum. The government cannot wield racist, baseless claims of an ‘invasion’ to override Congress and deprive them of that right.”

As Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, points out, Donald Trump “is once again refusing to call the effort by the Ottoman Empire to annihilate Armenians what it was – genocide,” in his presidential statement on the start of the genocide on this day in 1915.

Schiff went on to call Trump’s statement “a tragic retreat from U.S. recognition of the genocide during the prior administration”.

Unlike Trump, and Barack Obama, during his presidency Joe Biden did refer explicitly to “the Armenian genocide” in his statements on the anniversary from 2021-2024, casting aside concerns about angering Turkey’s government.

Biden, of course, is held responsible by many Americans for not only failing to call Israel’s US-backed assault on the Palestinian population of Gaza a genocide, but also enabling it by providing arms and diplomatic support.

Trump’s reversal of Biden’s precedent also enraged the Armenian National Committee of America.

“President Trump is doubling down on his disgraceful surrender to Turkish threats – continuing, now for the sixth time, enforcing Ankara’s gag-rule against honest American remembrance of this crime – despite recognition by the White House, Congress, all fifty states, and more than a dozen NATO allies,” the ANCA’s director, Aram Hamparian, said in a statement.

• Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Isalamabad, Pakistan tomorrow for further talks with Iran. The press secretary added that vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio will be waiting here in the US for updates. They will be on standby and will be prepared to dispatch to Pakistan if necessary.

• Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit the highest level of his second term, according to a polling average from the New York Times. Fifty-eight per cent of Americans disapprove of the president’s performance, while only 39% approve according to a collation of polls from the Times.

• The US justice department announced on Friday that it is taking steps to “strengthen the federal death penalty”, including bringing back firing squads and readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump administration. The justice department also said that it is “streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases”. In addition, the justice department said that it has “rescinded” the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and has “authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants”.

The Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee, Roger Wicker, has said that “the time is over for negotiations with Iran’s regime.”

On social media, the GOP lawmaker from Mississippi said that the “radical successors” of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can “never be trusted to keep any promise or agreement”.

Wicker added that Trump should direct the military to “finish destroying Iran’s conventional military capabilities and eliminating any last remnants of their nuclear program”.

Earlier this week, Wicker chided administration officials for critcizing Nato allies and their reluctance to assist the war in Iran.

“These alliances continue to pay dividends for the United States. People need to stop saying otherwise,” Wicker said.

Tim Scott, the Republican chair of the Senate banking committee, said that despite the justice department’s decision to close the criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the “American people deserve answers about the unacceptable cost overruns at the Federal Reserve”.

Scott has invited the inspector general of the central bank to present the banking committee with findings of a Fed renovation review in the next 90 days.

“These serious concerns warrant scrutiny, and l’m pleased this matter is continuing to receive it,” the GOP senator said.

The US justice department announced on Friday that it is taking steps to “strengthen the federal death penalty”, including bringing back firing squads and readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump administration.

“Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences – clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals,” the justice department said in a news release.

In the statement, the department said that the actions taken include “readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration” which “relies on pentobarbital as the lethal agent”, and “expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad”.

The justice department also said that it is “streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases”.

In addition, the justice department said that it has “rescinded” the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and has “authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants”. The statement added that Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, has “already authorized seeking death sentence against nine of these defendants”.

Shortly after taking office last January, Donald Trump signed an executive order committing to pursue federal death sentences and directing the attorney general to ensure that states have sufficient supplies of lethal injection drugs for executions.

Read the full report:

Earlier, when Karoline Leavitt spoke to reporters, she noted that today’s gaggle would probably be her last before she gives birth to her second child and takes some parental leave.

“I know all of you have the president’s phone number personally, so I have no doubt that you won’t have a shortage of statements and news from this building while I’m gone,” she joked.

Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit the highest level of his second term, according to a polling average from the New York Times.

Fifty-eight per cent of Americans disapprove of the president’s performance, while only 39% approve according to a collation of polls from the Times. Dissatisfaction with Trump’s job performance appears to spike after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran at the end of February, and the ensuing hike in gas prices across the nation.

In response to the news that the justice department has dropped the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, Karoline Leavitt said that the inquiry “still continues” under the Office of the Inspector General.

The White House also urged Thom Tillis, the Republican senator who was blocking any nomination from moving forward, to confirm Kevin Warsh – the president’s pick to lead the central bank – as “speedily as possible”.

Tillis had threatened to stall Warsh taking over until the investigation into Powell was closed.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with travel to Isalamabad, Pakistan tomorrow for further talks with Iran.

The press secretary added that vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio will be waiting here in the US for updates. They will be on standby and will be prepared to dispatch to Pakistan if necessary.