The CEO of a Los Angeles homeless services charity faces federal and state fraud charges after prosecutors said he lived a luxury lifestyle that included lavish vacations and designer clothes paid for with $23 million in public money meant to keep people off the streets. The 42-year-old was arrested at his $7 million home that investigators believe he afforded using funds that were supposed to support his nonprofit Abundant Blessings. A lawyer for the defendant didn't reply Monday to an email seeking comment on the case. The nonprofit was contracted to find shelter and provide meals for homeless residents. Instead, prosecutors say he bought a $125,000 Range Rover and a vacation home in Greece.
Jerome Powell isn't the first high-profile official to find himself targeted by the Justice Department since Donald Trump returned to the White House. The Republican president pledged in his inaugural address his government would apply the law fairly — unlike the way he said federal power had been turned against him. What's happened since is a string of indictments and inquiries and failed attempts at indictments against a long line of people who've crossed Trump. The list includes Federal Reserve governors who won't cut interest rates fast enough for Trump, former directors at the CIA and the FBI, and prosecutors who've investigated and even won cases against him.
By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press
John Bolton has pleaded not guilty in the Justice Department case accusing him of sharing classified information. Bolton was ordered released from custody after making his appearance before a judge in the third Justice Department case brought in recent weeks against an adversary of the Republican president. Bolton has signaled he will argue he is being targeted because of his criticism of the president, describing the charges as part of a Trump "effort to intimidate his opponents." The case, however, appears to have followed a more conventional path toward indictment than other recent cases against perceived Trump enemies.
On June 8, 2023, Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Miami on 37 felony counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents that had been moved to Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida home. (The case against Trump was abandoned following Trump's November 2024 presidential election victory.)
Donald Trump says that if wins the White House, he'll fire special counsel Jack Smith "within two seconds" of taking office. Smith has charged Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents. Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that the decision would be "so easy." Trump, if elected, could order the Justice Department to remove Smith, But Trump probably would not be able to do it on his own because Smith isn't a presidential appointee. When Trump, while president, was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump urged his then-White House counsel, Don McGahn, to press the Justice Department to terminate Mueller. McGahn refused.
