When Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden faced intense scrutiny for their handling of classified material, top officials now serving in Trump’s Justice Department and FBI demanded criminal probes and severe penalties.
Yet today, those same figures – including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, and DC interim US Attorney Ed Martin – have all declined to publicly criticize senior Trump officials who used Signal to share military attack plans in a chat that inadvertently included a journalist.
The Trump administration has denied any classified information was discussed in the text messages released by The Atlantic about plans to bomb rebels in Yemen, but CNN reported that information shared in the chat was highly classified at the time it was sent.
Bondi, now the country’s highest ranking law enforcement official, vigorously defended the officials who participated in the Signal chat, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and suggested it was unlikely their actions would be investigated criminally. But previously, Bondi argued that both Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin needed to face charges after emails that contained classified information were found on the computer of her ex-husband, former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner.
“This has everything to do with the security of our country,” Bondi said in January 2018 on Fox News. “When you have the top-secret security clearance that Huma Abedin had – you know when you send those emails that you are violating the law, and there is no objective law enforcement officer in this country that would not charge her based on that. Alright? No one.”
Bondi repeatedly framed the Clinton email investigation as a clear-cut legal issue in her appearances on Fox News reviewed by CNN’s KFile, saying that “we live in a nation of laws” and that Clinton “jeopardized our national security.”
On Thursday, Bondi defended the officials in the Signal chat, saying the chat included “sensitive information, not classified.”
“What we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission,” she told reporters. “If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was at Hillary Clinton’s home, the classified documents in Joe Biden’s garage.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said Bondi’s public comments last week “speak for themselves.”
Similarly, Patel has previously called for harsh prison sentences for leaking classified information.
“A leak of classified information — that’s a federal offense punishable by, I think, over a decade in prison, off the top of my head,” Patel said in 2021 when discussing leaks to the media during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. “It’s a pretty serious matter. But no one’s been prosecuted for a leak of classified information.”
In another interview in September 2024, Patel criticized the decision by special counsel Robert Hur not to charge Biden for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
“They let the guy off the hook,” he said of Biden, who was investigated over classified documents found at his private residence in Delaware. “They just said it doesn’t matter … you’ve made up a new legal standard that applies to exonerate him and to not even charge him.”
Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and now the FBI’s second-in-command, frequently also accused Democrats and the Biden administration of mishandling classified information and using encrypted apps to avoid accountability, including the app Signal.
“This was a travesty of justice, there’s no other way to look at it,” Bongino said regarding the recommendation by former FBI Director James Comey not to charge Hillary Clinton in 2016. “And having worked as a federal agent for 12 years of my life and as a local police officer before that, I’m intimately familiar with the elements of crimes, the elements of an investigation, and good, solid, packaged federal cases. This thing was in a bow.”
“What Jim Comey laid out yesterday that for 15 minutes what Mrs. Clinton did — in the federal system, you can put forth information in a complaint or an indictment. If that went in front of a judge and jury, he could have convicted Mrs. Clinton just on that information alone.”
In since-deleted tweets, Bongino also took aim at Abedin and questioned if former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may have used unsecure communications to handle classified information.
“Either Huma knew she was sending classified emails to Weiner, & was doing so illegally, therefore she committed a crime. Or, Huma didn’t know sending classified emails was a crime & had absolutely no business having access to the Clinton political machine & insiders in our govt,” he said in a deleted tweet from late 2017.
In a February 2018 tweet Bongino wrote, “Here’s the next shoe to drop -> was Andy McCabe using secure comms to send/receive classified information? Someone should check on that.” McCabe, a longtime target of Bongino’s, was a part of the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Patel and Bongino have not publicly criticized the officials involved in the Signal chat. The FBI declined to comment to CNN.
Ed Martin, now the acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia and the official who could oversee any prosecution related to the Signal chat, has previously taken a hardline stance on the handling of classified material.
“When he took them he couldn’t have done anything but broken the law, period,” Martin said on his radio show in 2023, referring to Biden’s possession of classified documents.
In a 2018 tweet, Martin wrote that “almost anyone” who leaked classified information would “go to jail.” And in 2024, he asked, “Was it not a crime for a vice president to remove top secret and classified documents from the White House and store them unsecured in his garage…? If it’s not, it should be.”
Martin has not commented publicly on whether the Signal chat warrants investigation.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to comment to CNN.
Up to 1M migrants who used Biden’s CBP One app ordered to deport by Trump admin
The app previously allowed migrants to schedule appointments at official ports of entry before they were paroled into the US
Migrants who entered the U.S. under the Biden-era CBP One app have had their parole protections terminated and ordered to leave the U.S. immediately or face a permanent ban from reentry.
The app was used by nearly 1 million migrants to schedule appointments at official ports of entry before they were paroled into the U.S. The migrants were permitted to seek asylum and given temporary work authorization for two years while they waited for the outcomes of their respective proceedings.
Trump ended the use of the CBP One app to parole migrants on his first day in office. His administration has also paused applications for parole programs and allowed ICE to cancel parole statuses of migrants.
Migrants who entered the U.S. under the Biden-era CBP One app have had their parole protections terminated and ordered to leave the U.S. immediately or face a permanent ban from reentry. Migrants entering the U.S. via Mexico, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. (Carlos A. Moreno/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images), left, ALEX BRANDON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images, right.)
The Trump administration has now begun notifying migrants who used the app, telling them their legal status has been revoked, according to a report by CBS, citing a Homeland Security message the outlet obtained.
“If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States — unless you have otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain here,” the message reads, per the outlet.
The notification encourages migrants to sign up for self-deportation through the CBP One app, which is now called CBP Home.
“Again, DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you,” the notice says. “Please depart the United States immediately.”
CBS reported that the message was verified by DHS. Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for confirmation but did not immediately receive a response.
The CBP One app launched in January 2023 and was used to admit more than 936,500 people through December 2024, the New York Post reports, citing DHS data.
A migrant uses the CBP One application during an Al Otro Lado training session in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023. (Sandy Huffaker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App,” a DHS spokesperson said, per the outlet. “Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry,”
The Biden administration had expanded the use of the CBP One app to allow migrants to enter the U.S. at ports of entry or via a separate parole process. That process involved them uploading information including a photograph.
The Biden administration also allowed for the app to be used by migrants for air travel. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was permitted to verify a migrant without sufficient ID by comparing a photograph of a migrant to DHS records and also using biometric matching. Those verified would also receive additional physical screenings.
Migrants with CBP One App interviews enter the United States at the Chaparral pedestrian border on May 16, 2023, in Tijuana, Mexico. The Trump administration has ordered migrants who used the Biden-era CBP One app to leave the U.S. immediately and terminate their parole status. (Carlos A. Moreno/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The administration has also canceled extensions of Temporary Protected Status for some nationalities, including for more than 600,000 Venezuelans.
TPS grants protection from deportation and allows work permits for nationals living in the U.S. from countries deemed unsafe for them to be returned. Then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced extensions for TPS for Venezuela, as well as El Salvador, Sudan and Ukraine, for an additional 18 months in the final few days of the Biden administration.
The Trump administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status has been held up in the courts.
In a new book, top Biden aide describes ‘out of it’ president before Trump debate
Ron Klain tells author Chris Whipple then president could not focus and obsessed about foreign leaders ahead of debate that ended his campaign
In a new book, Joe Biden’s former White House chief of staff paints a devastating picture of the then US president’s mental and physical state before the debate with Donald Trump that sent his 2024 campaign into a tailspin, resulting in his relinquishing the Democratic nomination to Kamala Harris.
Ron Klain served Biden from 2021 to 2023, then returned to his side last June to run debate preparation as he had for numerous Democratic presidents before.
According to Klain, it turned out that Biden “didn’t know what Trump had been saying and couldn’t grasp what the back and forth was”; left preparation and fell asleep by the pool; obsessed about foreign leaders, saying “these guys say I’m doing a great job as president so I must be a great president”; “didn’t really understand what his argument was on inflation”; and “had nothing to say about a second term other than finish the job”.
As described by Klain to the reporter Chris Whipple, at one point Biden had an idea.
“If he looked perplexed when Trump talked, voters would understand that Trump was an idiot. Klain replied: ‘Sir, when you look perplexed, people just think you’re perplexed. And this is our problem in this race.”
Whipple’s book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Biden is reportedly planning his own book but Whipple’s blockbuster is not even the first such volume to hit the shelves. This week saw the publication of Fight, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, which also contains extensive reporting on Biden’s decline and Harris’s struggle to win over party elites.
Like Parnes and Allen, Whipple reports both sides of a campaign Trump won despite a criminal conviction, civil penalties including one related to an allegation of rape, and indictments over election subversion and retention of classified information.
But Whipple focuses another harsh spotlight on Biden, an octogenarian president long beset by questions about his fitness for office.
Last week, Whipple told Politico: “I have fresh reporting on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis of Biden’s final days, and obviously his decline is a major part of the story.
“I happen to think that to call it a ‘cover-up’ is simplistic. I think it was stranger and way more troubling than that. Biden’s inner circle, his closest advisers, many of them were in a fog of delusion and denial. They believed what they wanted to believe.”
In early 2024, as the campaign warmed up, Klain was among those who said he believed Biden was the right candidate to beat Trump a second time, telling the New York Times: “If I thought he wasn’t the right candidate to beat Donald Trump, I wouldn’t be for him running. But I think he is the right candidate.”
Even after the disastrous debate, by his own telling to Whipple, Klain believed Biden should have stayed in the race – a statement that jars with Klain’s account of debate prep at Camp David.
“At his first meeting with Biden in Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin,” Whipple writes, Klain “was startled. He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool.
“That evening Biden met again with Klain and his team, [Biden aides] Mike Donilon, Steve Richetti, and Bruce Reed. ‘We sat around the table,’ said Klain. ‘[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted. And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with Nato leaders.’”
Klain, Whipple writes, “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of Nato instead of the US. ‘He just became very enraptured with being the head of Nato,’ he said. That wouldn’t help him on Capitol Hill because, as Klain noted, ‘domestic political leaders don’t really care what [Emmanuel] Macron and [Olaf] Scholz think.’”
Klain, fellow aides and visitors including the film mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg tried to get Biden into shape. Two mock debates were organized, focusing on domestic policy.
“The first was scheduled to last 90 minutes but Klain called it off after 45. The president’s voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject. All he really could talk about was his infrastructure plan and how he was rebuilding America and 16 million jobs. He had nothing to say about his agenda for a second term.”
Klain says Biden grew irritable, saying he would not make promises as he would be criticized for failing to deliver. Klain says he tried to persuade Biden to run on unfinished business, including his attempt to “subsidize state and local efforts to do childcare and bring down the cost to $20 a day. And you ought to try to fight for it again.”
“I happen to think that to call it a ‘cover-up’ is simplistic. I think it was stranger and way more troubling than that. Biden’s inner circle, his closest advisers, many of them were in a fog of delusion and denial. They believed what they wanted to believe.”
In early 2024, as the campaign warmed up, Klain was among those who said he believed Biden was the right candidate to beat Trump a second time, telling the New York Times: “If I thought he wasn’t the right candidate to beat Donald Trump, I wouldn’t be for him running. But I think he is the right candidate.”
Even after the disastrous debate, by his own telling to Whipple, Klain believed Biden should have stayed in the race – a statement that jars with Klain’s account of debate prep at Camp David.
“At his first meeting with Biden in Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin,” Whipple writes, Klain “was startled. He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool.
“That evening Biden met again with Klain and his team, [Biden aides] Mike Donilon, Steve Richetti, and Bruce Reed. ‘We sat around the table,’ said Klain. ‘[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted. And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with Nato leaders.’”
Klain, Whipple writes, “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of Nato instead of the US. ‘He just became very enraptured with being the head of Nato,’ he said. That wouldn’t help him on Capitol Hill because, as Klain noted, ‘domestic political leaders don’t really care what [Emmanuel] Macron and [Olaf] Scholz think.’”
Klain, fellow aides and visitors including the film mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg tried to get Biden into shape. Two mock debates were organized, focusing on domestic policy.
“The first was scheduled to last 90 minutes but Klain called it off after 45. The president’s voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject. All he really could talk about was his infrastructure plan and how he was rebuilding America and 16 million jobs. He had nothing to say about his agenda for a second term.”
Klain says Biden grew irritable, saying he would not make promises as he would be criticized for failing to deliver. Klain says he tried to persuade Biden to run on unfinished business, including his attempt to “subsidize state and local efforts to do childcare and bring down the cost to $20 a day. And you ought to try to fight for it again.”
“Biden seemed befuddled,” Whipple writes. “‘Well, that just seems like a big spending program,’ he said.
Klain said: “No, sir. It brings down costs for people. It’s responsive to inflation. It will bring more people into the workforce. It’s good economics. And you know this is something you’re for.”
But “Biden didn’t want to talk about it” and “25 minutes into the second mock debate, the president was done for the day. ‘I’m just too tired to continue and I’m afraid of losing my voice here and I feel bad,’ he said. ‘I just need some sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’ He went off to bed.”
“The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,” Whipple writes. “Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.”
It was. On 27 June, Biden arrived at the Atlanta venue with minutes to spare – because, Klain said, “He was the president of the United States. They weren’t going to start without him.” Onstage, for two hours and six minutes, Biden stumbled, stared and mumbled.
As described by Whipple, Jill Biden praised her husband’s performance but all others around the president could see “something was terribly wrong”. Whipple quotes an unnamed close friend of Biden who took a call from Valerie Biden Owens. The president’s sister and longtime adviser was “so angry, she was practically incoherent”. The same friend reports a later call from Biden, laughing at his predicament and sounding like the senator and vice-president of old.
“Where did that voice go?” the friend wondered … “Where did that guy with that voice go? What the fuck happened to this guy?”
To Whipple, that was a question “on which the political fate of the nation would turn”.
Eventually, Biden bowed to reality. On 21 July, Klain took a call from Jeff Zients, his successor as chief of staff. Biden was out. Despite the debate disaster, the news was a “gut punch” to Klain.
“Jeff, that’s too bad,” he said. “I think that’s a mistake. I think this was an avoidable tragedy.”
Harris faced opposition from Democratic grandees including Obama and Nancy Pelosi, but wrapped up the nomination by August. In early September, Klain gave Whipple his interview. With the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate, Harris mounted an energetic campaign. In November, she lost to Trump.
Biden skipped White House meeting after Trump debate for photoshoot, new book says
Ron Klain tells author Chris Whipple that Biden opted for Annie Leibovitz shoot at critical moment in campaign
As described by Klain to Chris Whipple, the author of an explosive new book on the 2024 campaign, Biden “seemed to relent. ‘OK,’ he said.”
“But the president’s resolve didn’t last,” the book continued. “That weekend, Biden and his family were at Camp David having their pictures taken” by Leibovitz.
The president did speak to the progressives by Zoom, Whipple writes, only to scold them over their stance on Israel and claim to have stronger progressive bona fides than they did.
Whipple’s book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Klain was White House chief of staff from 2021 to 2023. He became chief legal officer for Airbnb but returned to Biden’s side last June to prepare him to debate Trump.
Concern over the octogenarian president’s fitness for the job was a feature of Biden’s White House term. As reported by the Guardian, Klain told Whipple debate preparations left him alarmed by Biden’s physical and mental decline.
But Klain told Whipple: “This was about something other than his age. It was a struggle over power in our party.” According to Klain, Democratic donors were “tired” of Biden because of his ties to labor, and wanted a more business-oriented leader.
Such calls grew deafening after the debate, in which Biden performed with painful, halting confusion. According to Whipple, Klain called Biden the next day, 28 June, and said: “Look, we’re hemorrhaging badly. We need to get the progressive caucus to the White House this weekend. And you need to agree with them on an agenda for a second term, and they will endorse you. So you can walk out there with one hundred members of Congress saying, ‘You should stay in the race.’
“Biden wasn’t convinced: ‘Well, I’m supposed to go to Camp David this weekend for a photo shoot with my family.’”
Klain offered his “blunt” advice and Biden seemed to back down, Whipple writes. But the president left Washington anyway, for a stay with family members who were widely reported to be urging him not to drop out of the race.
“Klain was angry,” Whipple reports. “He called [Jeff] Zients, his successor as White House chief of staff. The president needed to rally the progressives ASAP, Klain told him. But Zients didn’t share his alarm. ‘Look, we’ve got a plan,’ he told Klain. ‘We’ve got a schedule. We’re going to stick to the schedule.’”
Zients and his team had been trying to rally support for Biden from Democrats in Congress but Klain “felt more drastic action was needed”. A Zoom call was set up with the progressives. It proved a “fiasco”, with Biden giving members of Congress led by Pramila Jayapal of Washington state “a scolding”, saying: “All you guys want to talk about is Gaza … What would you have me do?” and “I was a progressive before some of you guys were even in Congress.”
Jayapal called Klain. Klain called Zients. Zients passed blame to another Biden aide, Steve Ricchetti, “the progressives’ least favorite White House official”. Klain told Zients: “Jeff, this is life or death for this presidency this weekend.” Zients pushed back. Klain was convinced Biden’s aides did not have “a strategy to save his presidency”.
The battle to force Biden out continued. On 21 July, the president bowed to pressure and quit. Klain told Zients: “Jeff, that’s too bad. I think that’s a mistake. I think this was an avoidable tragedy.”
Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, fought off attempts to deny her the nomination, then fought a 100-day campaign that ended in defeat by Trump.
Despite his first-hand experience of Biden’s struggles, and his failure to corral the president into doing simple political legwork instead of attending a glitzy photoshoot, Klain still thought Biden could have won a second term.
In August, he told CNN the president was “clearly up to the job. He’s doing it every day. He’s doing it successfully.”
He also said Biden had “done well” in debate preparation.
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