DC Wrap: Trump huddles with aides on Iran deal; judge strikes down Kennedy Center actions; Bondi testifies – Spectrum News
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U.S. President Donald Trump held a White House Situation Room meeting with his advisers as he pondered moving forward with a deal to extend the Iran ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said the agreement has not been finalized.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump said he was looking to make a "final determination." A senior administration official later said the roughly two-hour meeting with national security aides had concluded.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say whether Trump had made a decision to sign off on the tentative agreement.
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—The Associated Press
A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was "ill-informed and seemingly preordained" with no regard for its legal obligations.
Cooper also concluded that the board "overstepped its statutory bounds" by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.
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—The Associated Press
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to answer questions Friday on President Donald Trump’s involvement in the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files as she defended the Trump administration’s actions before House lawmakers scrutinizing a process that was delayed and included personal information of potential victims.
Bondi, who arrived Friday morning on Capitol Hill for her closed-door interview, was defiant in previous public testimony when she was confronted by lawmakers about the Epstein investigation. In her opening statement, she kept to the same tack and said that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, now the acting attorney general, had overseen the process to release the Epstein case files as mandated by a law passed by Congress and signed by Trump last year.
"The bottom line is: justice and transparency in this matter have been delivered at the direction of President Trump and his administration," she said, according to a written copy of her opening statement.
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—The Associated Press
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from processing or paying any claims through a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for the Republican president’s allies who believe they were victims of a weaponized government.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, also barred the government from moving forward with the fund’s creation or operating it while litigation is pending to challenge it.
The judge, who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend the order blocking payouts from an "Anti-Weaponization Fund." The government created the fund to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
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—The Associated Press
A star-studded concert series for the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this summer is getting attention for all the wrong reasons.
Country star Martina McBride, rocker Bret Michaels, and the funk and soul group The Commodores have now joined the list of artists who say they will not perform, bringing the total number of musical guest cancellations to five out of the nine who were announced this week.
“I’ve spent my entire career bringing people together through music, positivity and good vibes. My shows have never been about politics,” Michaels, best known as the frontman of the band Poison, wrote on Instagram on Friday morning in a post announcing he would not perform at the show because the event celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary had become “divisive” and raised safety concerns.
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—Spectrum News’ Susan Carpenter
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