TV News LIES

An appeals court in Washington on Wednesday removed the head of a federal watchdog agency in the latest twist in a legal fight over Republican President Donald Trump's authority to fire the special counsel.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the Trump administration in allowing the immediate removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel while the court battle continues. Dellinger is likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than eight decades ago.

But the recent actions at the U.S. Social Security Administration by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com.

“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

Ahead of any interruption in benefits, “people should start saving now,” O’Malley said.

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A federal judge on Tuesday reinstated a member of the board that oversees personnel disputes for federal workers, ruling President Donald Trump wasn't authorized to remove her without justification.

This case represents a constitutional clash between the branches of government because Trump claims the authority to hire and fire everyone in the executive branch while Congress sets limits on the removal of leaders of independent agencies such as the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Members of the board, designed to protect federal civil service workers from being fired for issues unrelated to their performance, are appointed to seven-year terms and can be removed under a 1978 statute “only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office."

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For more than 100 years, the role of FBI deputy director has been filled by a career agent with previous bureau experience and an insider's understanding of day-to-day operations of federal law enforcement. As the FBI's own website puts it, the deputy director "oversees all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities."

In a break with tradition, the Trump administration instead tapped Dan Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent turned pro-Trump influencer.

For the last several years Bongino has ranted against the FBI on his podcast, saying it should be "disbanded immediately" and calling agents "thugs." Bongino will now help run federal law enforcement as the number two official at the FBI, behind Director Kash Patel.

Patel himself has expressed a number of conspiratorial and hard-right views and is the first FBI director to win confirmation with the support of only one political party.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi was duped into thinking she had all the files related to investigations into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, she told Fox News host Mark Levin over the weekend while defending Thursday’s widely mocked document dump.

“I kept saying, there has to be more. There has to be more,” Bondi said Saturday. “I was assured that’s it.”

Epstein, who hobnobbed with celebrities, royalty and other powerful people, died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.