quarta-feira, 30 de setembro de 2026
Macron and Sánchez say UK would be ‘welcome’ back in EU
.jpeg)
Macron
and Sánchez say UK would be ‘welcome’ back in EU
Andy
Burnham’s suggestion that the U.K. could rejoin the EU was met with a more
muted response from Brussels itself.
September
30, 2026 4:35 pm CET
By Jon
Stone, Esther Webber and Caroline Hug
https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-and-sanchez-say-uk-would-be-welcome-back-in-eu/
LONDON —
French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have
welcomed Andy Burnham’s plan to unpick Brexit.
Speaking
at a joint press conference on Wednesday, Macron said Britain returning to the
EU would be “excellent news” while Sánchez said the U.K. would be welcomed “with open arms.”
“This is
very good news, both for his country and for Europeans,” Macron told reporters
of the U.K. prime minister’s policy shift. “Welcome back.”
Rejoining
would be “a wise decision” and Burnham was “right to show such boldness,”
Macron added.
Speaking
at the same press conference, Sánchez said: “Spain would welcome Britain's
return with open arms.”
Burnham
told Labour’s conference in Liverpool yesterday that Brexit had done more “harm
than good” and that he would lay out the “different options” available to
repair the damage at a forthcoming U.K.-EU summit expected in November.
Speaking
to broadcasters the morning after the speech, the PM confirmed the options
could include rejoining the single market, the customs union, or even going
“all the way” and rejoining the EU entirely.
But the
U.K. prime minister’s announcement was met with a more muted response from
Brussels itself.
A
European Commission spokesperson said: “The U.K. is a close and valued partner
of the European Union. It is for the U.K. Government to set out how it wishes
to develop its relationship with the EU going forward. We remain open to
engaging on the options it may put forward.”
‘We’ll
wait for concrete proposals’
EU
officials and diplomats, however, told POLITICO that behind the scenes the
speech had been received positively in the European capital.
“The mood
is positive and commitment to have a good summit is definitely there,” said one
EU official, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak
candidly. “There is a lot of work ongoing to prepare for it.”
Diplomats
say that reaction among other EU member countries has also so far been broadly
positive — if somewhat wary.
One EU
diplomat wondered aloud whether Burnham’s grand about-face would undermine the
rationale for the upcoming U.K.-EU summit — which is yet to get a date but
which was meant to conclude talks on a number of side-deals begun by Keir
Starmer.
“Why
bother with difficult negotiations on SPS, emission trading and youth mobility
if the U.K. wants a completely new deal?” they said.
A second
EU diplomat said the speech had been positively received, but added: “The U.K.
will have to decide for itself what it wants. We’ll wait for concrete proposals
from London.”
A third
noted: “We will see what he says. It will most likely take longer than November
[to discuss], probably some time next year.”
Sandro
Gozi, the MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s parliament's delegation to
U.K., said that Burnham’s “call for a new course deserves a serious European
response.”
“Let’s
turn that opening into concrete choices for a closer EU-U.K. partnership to
give citizens and businesses on both sides of the channel a more prosperous,
secure future,” he said.
Farage spoils for a Brexit brawl with Burnham
.jpeg)
Farage
spoils for a Brexit brawl with Burnham
Reform UK
leader will attack the prime minister’s turn towards Europe in a major speech
Thursday.
Exclusive
September
30, 2026 3:55 pm CET
By Sam
Blewett
https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-andy-burnham-brexit-eu-debate/
LIVERPOOL,
England — Nigel Farage will use a speech in a Brexit-backing Labour heartland
to start the fightback after Andy Burnham reignited Britain’s EU debate.
The
Reform UK leader — a key architect of Brexit — will make a “major speech” in
Doncaster on Thursday to rail against the Labour prime minister opening the
door to a possible return to the bloc, a senior Reform official told POLITICO.
Burnham
used his first Labour conference as leader, in Liverpool on Tuesday, to snip
three political livewires in British politics, including proposing a change to
the “triple lock” protecting the state pension and electoral reform.
Farage is
spoiling to address all these fault-lines on Thursday.
“He will
talk about Burnham wanting to take us into the Euro, return us to freedom of
movement with 500 million people and losing the ability to nationalize key
industries,” said the Reform official, speaking on the condition of anonymity
to discuss the pending speech in Doncaster.
The
Yorkshire city voted 69% in favor of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum,
making it one of the most pro-Brexit areas in the U.K. One of its MPs is
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband.
Burnham
has reopened the debate in Labour and beyond by saying he will canvass opinion
on several options for Britain’s future arrangement with Brussels and set them
out around the time of a EU-U.K. summit later this year.
Those
options, he has said, could include rejoining the single market, the customs
union, or “go all the way,” which Reform is interpreting as scrapping the Pound
in favor of the Euro. Burnham has not made that specific pledge, and Labour
resisted Britain joining the single currency when it was introduced.
Farage is
meanwhile planning to argue that EU re-entry would curb the ability of British
governments to nationalize key industries — a play by the Reform leader that
upends the traditional left-right debate in British politics. Burnham has put
emphasis on bringing back “public control” of privatized utilities rather than
public ownership, but Farage has changed tack from his Thatcherite credentials
to express support for nationalization in some sectors.
So far
most of Farage’s criticism of Burnham’s speech has centered on accusing Labour
of “going after pensioners” on the triple lock.
But his
stance on the PM announcing a commission to investigate overhauling Britain’s
first-past-the-post electoral system will be one to watch.
The
current voting system makes it incredibly hard for insurgent parties, like
Reform, to get a foothold in Parliament. But after a certain polling threshold
is crossed it rewards parties with vast numbers of seats on proportionally
little of the vote.
Farage
has long been in favor of changing this system — but his party has recently
attacked Labour’s reversion to a more proportional voting system in mayoral
races as being an “establishment stitch-up.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order officially rebranding "Artificial Intelligence" to "Super Intelligence" (SI) following a high-profile White House summit with the country's top tech executives.
.jpeg)
Trump met
with all the tech top leaders and names AI as super intelligence
President
Donald Trump signed an executive order officially rebranding "Artificial
Intelligence" to "Super Intelligence" (SI) following a high-profile White House
summit with the country's top tech executives.
The
executive order mandates that all departments and agencies within the executive
branch use the terms "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in
official correspondence, public communications, and policy documents, while no
longer acknowledging the old terms.
Key
Highlights of the Summit & Executive Order
- The Rebranding Rationale: Trump stated that the word
"artificial" makes the technology "sound fake,"
whereas it is actually "extreme," "superior," and
"supreme" intelligence. A separate White House fact sheet noted
that "Super Intelligence" better conveys capabilities that
unlock human creativity rather than just automating or imitating human
actions.
- The "Morally Binding"
Accord: During
a White House luncheon, Trump and the attendees signed a voluntary
agreement called the Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities
(or the White House Accord on Super Intelligence). Under this pact, tech
companies agreed to "self-police" through internal and external
safety audits.
- Prioritizing the Tech Race Over
Guardrails: Trump
made it clear that the U.S. government will not stifle the technology with
heavy regulations, warning that slowing down would mean losing the data
center and SI race to China. "Whoever wins SI is going to win,"
Trump told reporters.
- New Oversight: Trump announced plans to
appoint an "AI czar" and establish a safety board to oversee the
technology. Additionally, the administration's science and technology
advisor has 60 days to propose formal statutory definitions for
"SI".
Who
Attended the Meeting?
The summit
brought together a "who's who" of tech billionaires and leaders
building frontier models.
|
Executive |
Company
/ Role |
Signed
the Safety Accord? |
|
Elon
Musk |
SpaceX /
Tesla / xAI |
Yes |
|
Mark
Zuckerberg |
Meta |
Yes |
|
Sundar
Pichai |
Alphabet /
Google |
Yes |
|
Jensen
Huang |
Nvidia |
Yes |
|
Dario
Amodei |
Anthropic |
Yes |
|
Greg
Brockman |
OpenAI
(President) |
Yes |
|
Jeff
Bezos |
Amazon
(Founder) |
Present
(Did not sign accord) |
|
Satya
Nadella |
Microsoft |
Present
(Did not sign accord) |
|
Lisa Su |
AMD |
Present
(Did not sign accord) |
|
Alex
Karp |
Palantir |
Present
(Did not sign accord) |
Note:
Government attendees alongside Trump included House Speaker Mike Johnson, Vice
President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott
Bessent, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Critics'
Response
The move has
faced swift pushback from lawmakers and tech policy experts. Critics, including
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), argue that changing the name does nothing to
mitigate real-world technical risks. Experts from organizations like the Berkman Klein Center criticized
the vague, voluntary nature of the self-policing agreement, stating that
meaningful safety can only come from robust legal liability and formal
regulation rather than letting companies police themselves.
Trump announces vague ‘morally binding’ AI deal among tech CEOs for ‘tremendous self-policing’
Trump
announces vague ‘morally binding’ AI deal among tech CEOs for ‘tremendous
self-policing’
US
president also issues executive order officially rebranding ‘artificial
intelligence’ as ‘superintelligence’
Nick
Robins-Early
Wed 30
Sep 2026 01.21 CEST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/29/trump-ai-deal-tech-ceos-superintelligence
Donald
Trump announced on Tuesday that the heads of the largest US tech and AI
companies had signed on to a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on
artificial intelligence. He announced the deal, called the Joint Commitment On
Frontier Responsibilities, following a White House luncheon with top tech
executives.
“It’s
almost like a constitution in a way, and the biggest people in the world
signed that, and I signed it as president, and it really is a form of protection,” Trump said.
Trump
also signed an executive order renaming artificial intelligence to
“superintelligence”, similar to a declaration he made at the United Nations
last week.
“The
Order directs all departments and agencies to use the terms ‘Super
Intelligence’ and ‘SI’ in official correspondence, public communications,
policy documents, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch and
to no longer acknowledge the terms ‘Artificial Intelligence’ or ‘AI’,” the
order declared.
The
agreement, which Trump suggested would allow the companies to perform
“tremendous self-policing” of their products and technologies, outlines a vague
framework for how AI firms would establish safety standards as they test out
new products. The tech industry has faced increased public scrutiny following a
series of incidents where major AI companies inadvertently hacked into outside
organizations during safety tests.
While
lawmakers, AI researchers and even some AI companies have called for more
government oversight of artificial intelligence, Trump has broadly rejected
calls for more regulation of the technology – citing competition with China and
threats to economic growth.
The joint
commitment that Trump posted to his Truth Social account on Tuesday appears to
carry no enforcement mechanisms or legal implications and is instead a
voluntary commitment.
The
document outlines four “layers of controls and audits” for AI companies. The
first involves implementing internal safety monitoring during training –
something that already exists at major labs and has failed to prevent testing
failures thus far. The second calls for empowering an internal team to make
sure the first layer of monitoring is operating correctly, while the third
agrees to give an external auditor the ability to independently assess safety
controls. Finally, the agreement calls for companies to designate an
independent board to review reports about those safety controls.
None of
the controls listed in the agreement involve government regulators or include a
commitment to publicly detail the findings of independent evaluations. The
agreement also appears to allow companies to pick their own evaluators, appoint
their own oversight boards and decide whether to publish their results.
Trump
made the remarks after holding a luncheon with tech leaders including Elon
Musk, the SpaceX CEO; Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO; Jensen Huang, the CEO of
Nvidia; Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO; and other top industry executives. The
tech industry, which has largely aligned itself with the Trump administration,
has lobbied against strict regulatory oversight while arguing that it would
stifle the economy.
Zuckerberg,
flanked by Trump and other tech moguls, told a press conference after the lunch
that he was proud of the agreement and said that it was created to assure the
American public that their technology was trustworthy.
“This is
a start and an accord that the whole industry could come to,” Zuckerberg said.
“It was sort of a historic conversation.”
Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us―and How to Stop It by Garrison Lovely
Obsolete:
The AI Industry’s Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us―and How to Stop It
English
edition by Garrison Lovely (Author) Format: Paperback
Depending
on who you ask, artificial intelligence is our salvation or our doom; an
overhyped, bigoted hallucination machine or the ticket to immortality and
utopian abundance; just another tech fad or the last invention we need ever
make. The AI discourse is confusing, messy, and frustrating. But the technology
-- and our response to it -- will shape the future, whether or not we're part
of the conversation.
Obsolete
is for those who are interested in learning more about AI, but unsure of where
to start and who to believe. They may feel intimidated by the technical jargon,
put off by dry and abstract prose, or skeptical of the loudest voices on the
issue (like Elon Musk and Sam Altman). Obsolete will introduce readers to the
basics of AI, the idea that it could lead to human extinction, the roiling
three-sided debate surrounding extinction fears, and the people and companies
trying to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) -- that which can outwit
humans across the board. The book will grapple with the core arguments
animating the AI debates, which are, by turns, uncritically parroted and unduly
dismissed. It will also cut through industry hype while seriously entertaining
the implications of AGI.
The risk
that AGI could result in our extinction is being recognized by a significant
and growing number of leading AI researchers, industrialists, and policymakers,
along with the wider public. Existential risk from AI has been explored in
other books, but Obsolete will be the first to center its analysis on how both
capitalist and great power competition make AI more dangerous.
Obsolete
will also tackle questions like: Can machines actually outsmart humanity? If
so, when could that happen? If AGI is possible, is it inevitable? Why are
people trying to build a technology they claim could end the world? Is the idea
of AI-driven extinction the product of a big tech conspiracy aiming to hype the
technology and control its regulation? Why has the left mostly ignored or
dismissed existential risk from AI? Why do some powerful techies welcome human
extinction? How could AI enable stable authoritarian regimes? How could killer
robots reshape war and the balance of power? What do China and the US want from
AI? And why has it become the front line of their brewing Cold War? And
finally: What can and should the left do about it?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing intense political backlash following allegations from multiple media outlets that he received explicit warnings from foreign leaders shortly before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
Bibi KNEW
Oct 7 Was Coming
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing intense political
backlash following allegations from multiple media outlets that he received
explicit warnings from foreign leaders shortly before the October 7, 2023,
Hamas attacks. While
Netanyahu has aggressively denied these claims—calling them an "absolute
lie"—the revelations have upended Israeli politics just weeks ahead of the
October 27, 2026, national elections.
The Core
Allegations
Major
reporting from outlets like Haaretz,
The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal,
and The Atlantic
outlines two specific high-level warnings allegedly delivered to Netanyahu:
- United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Warning: On
September 8, 2026, Haaretz reported that UAE President Sheikh
Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) called Netanyahu roughly 10 days before October 7.
During a 45-minute phone call, MBZ reportedly warned that Gaza's Hamas
leader, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation ("zilzal"
or earthquake). Netanyahu allegedly downplayed the risk, countered that an
attack was more likely to originate from the West Bank, and failed to pass
the intelligence to Israeli security chiefs.
- Egyptian Intelligence Warning: Recent reporting by The
Atlantic indicates that Abbas Kamel, the former head of Egyptian
intelligence, also sought to personally warn Netanyahu of an imminent,
major event in Gaza roughly a month before the attack, which Netanyahu
reportedly ignored.
Netanyahu's
Defense and Refutations
Netanyahu
and the Prime Minister’s Office have launched a strict counter-offensive
against these claims:
- Complete Denial: Netanyahu stated he never spoke
with MBZ during the timeframe in question and received no such warnings.
He has threatened legal action and libel suits against Haaretz and
its journalists.
- Intelligence Routing: Netanyahu’s office maintains
that any actionable foreign intelligence between nations is strictly
routed through established intelligence channels (such as Mossad or Shin
Bet), rather than direct political phone calls.
- Blaming Security Failures: Netanyahu has shifted focus to
the defense establishment, claiming in campaign videos that military and
security officials failed to immediately wake him on the morning of
October 7 despite their own localized warning signs.
Current
Political Fallout
The timing
of these investigative leaks is highly sensitive given Israel's upcoming tight
parliamentary elections.
- Opposition Backlash: Former Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett publicly validated the Haaretz report as "true".
Bennett, along with opposition leaders Yair Golan and Gadi Eisenkot,
issued a rare joint statement declaring Netanyahu and his partners
"unfit to continue in office" and demanding an independent state
commission of inquiry.
- International Ambiguity: The UAE Foreign Ministry issued
a calculated response, stating it "does not comment on media stories
or speculation regarding conversations between government leaders"
but noted that all relevant intelligence continues to be shared through
proper channels. Reports have since surfaced alleging Netanyahu made an
unannounced dash to the UAE to request an outright denial of the call from
MBZ, which the UAE declined to provide
As Jack Smith Testifies, a Senator's Accusation of Perjury Falls Apart / Smug GOP senator faceplants with humiliating 'gotcha' failure
As Jack
Smith Testifies, a Senator's Accusation of Perjury Falls Apart
During a
U.S. Senate hearing on September 29, 2026 , a perjury charge brought by
Republican Senator Eric Schmitt against former Special Counsel Jack
Smith completely collapsed. Schmitt accused Smith of lying about an alleged
secret visit to a basketball game in Atlanta, but the senator turned out to
have confused the Atlanta Hawks (NBA) with the Iowa Hawkeyes (college
basketball)
The
accusation
Senator Eric
Schmitt (Missouri) tried to demonstrate that Jack Smith had secretly traveled
to Georgia to collude with local district attorney Fani Willis , who was
also leading a criminal case against Donald Trump at the time.
- The "proof": Schmitt triumphantly displayed
a board with intercepted text messages from Smith's team discussing
tickets for a "the Hawks" game on February 3, 2024.
- The accusation: When Smith denied under oath
that he had attended that NBA game in Atlanta, Schmitt snapped at him: "I
think you just committed perjury ." Shortly afterward, he even
called the prosecutor a "total dirtbag . "
The error
Jack Smith
responded calmly but confusedly, stating that around that date he had gone to a
university game in Maryland accompanied by the Marshals Service to see
the famous basketball star Caitlin Clark play.
It soon
became clear that Schmitt's team had made a crucial mistake by confusing the
team names:
- Schmitt's assumption: An Atlanta
Hawks NBA game
in Atlanta, Georgia.
- The reality: A women's college basketball
game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the University of Maryland,
played at College Park, Maryland.
Reactions
in the Senate
Democratic
Senator Amy Klobuchar had the location of the match investigated during
the hearing. After confirming that Smith was indeed in Maryland, she accused
Schmitt of spreading false information and stated that he owed an apology. She
added that people "need to get their facts straight before calling
others 'dirtbags' . "
Footage of
the moment—including the live collapsing accusation and the stunned faces of
bystanders—immediately went viral on social media
Smug GOP
senator faceplants with humiliating 'gotcha' failure
During a
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 29, 2026, Republican
Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri experienced a highly publicized and
widely mocked "gotcha" failure while questioning former special
counsel Jack Smith.
According to
reports from outlets like The Independent and The
Bulwark, Schmitt attempted to accuse Smith of perjury based on a
conspiracy theory. Schmitt claimed he had "smoking gun" evidence—in
the form of text messages displayed on a large poster board—proving that
Smith's team had lied about his whereabouts. Specifically, Schmitt asserted
that Smith was in Atlanta, Georgia, attending an NBA game. He used this
allegation to suggest that Smith was secretly colluding with Fulton County
District Attorney Fani Willis regarding prosecutions involving Donald Trump.
However,
Schmitt's accusation collapsed due to a severe factual mix-up:
- The Team Confusion: Schmitt's staff found texts
referencing a basketball game and assumed it meant the NBA's Atlanta
Hawks.
- The Reality: As Jack Smith and Democratic
Senator Amy Klobuchar quickly pointed out, Smith was actually attending a
college women's basketball game featuring the Iowa Hawkeyes (led by
Caitlin Clark).
- The Location Error: Rather than being in Atlanta,
Georgia, the Iowa Hawkeyes game took place in Maryland.
Despite
having completely confused the "Hawks" with the "Hawkeyes,"
Schmitt initially doubled down on his aggressive questioning. The botched
ambush went viral across social media and news broadcasts, with commentators
and fellow lawmakers labeling the display a spectacular and humiliating
political faceplant.
As Jack Smith Testifies, a Senator’s Accusation of Perjury Falls Apart
As Jack
Smith Testifies, a Senator’s Accusation of Perjury Falls Apart
A
Republican eager to prove the former special counsel was dishonest appeared to
instead demonstrate his own confusion over basic facts.
Devlin
Barrett Charlie
Savage
By Devlin
Barrett and Charlie Savage
Reporting
from Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/politics/jack-smith-congress-testimony.html
Sept. 29,
2026
It was
meant to be a dramatic confrontation, a public accusation of perjury against
Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump. Instead,
Senator Eric Schmitt’s amateur sleuthing into basketball led him to the wrong
game, league and state.
During a
four-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Schmitt, a Republican from
Missouri, struck a conspiratorial tone and asked Mr. Smith if he had attended
an Atlanta Hawks home game in February 2024.
Mr.
Schmitt focused on the basketball game in the hopes that he could show Mr.
Smith had perjured himself and was involved in a conspiracy with local Atlanta
prosecutors to ensnare Mr. Trump. In a hearing where Republicans repeatedly
accused Mr. Smith of lying, what Mr. Schmitt first presented as smoking-gun
evidence against Mr. Smith turned out to be a misfire.
During
his testimony, Mr. Smith appeared deeply confused by Mr. Schmitt’s question. “I
definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” he said. “I’m sure of that.”
Mr.
Schmitt seemed confident he had just caught Mr. Smith in a lie. It was part of
a broader effort by Mr. Trump’s Republican allies to characterize Mr. Smith as
politically partisan, a man with an ax to grind not just against a former
president, but also the Republican establishment. Mr. Smith has already
defended his work before Congress, and Republicans have claimed that his past
testimony included perjury.
On
Tuesday, Mr. Schmitt argued that Mr. Smith had lied again, this time about a
basketball game. If the prosecutor was in Atlanta, Mr. Schmitt suggested, he
might have met with the local district attorney, Fani Willis, who also pursued
a criminal case against Mr. Trump.
Mr.
Schmitt’s Republican colleague from Louisiana, John Kennedy, stood next to him
helping hold up a poster board showing text messages among members of Mr.
Smith’s special counsel team from Feb. 3, 2024, discussing seats at a
basketball game.
“I don’t
think you know we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so
you don’t perjure yourself,” Mr. Schmitt said, even as the poster board was
swiftly taken down, too quickly for most in the room to read it.
When the
former special counsel insisted he had not gone to see the Atlanta Hawks play
in that time period, Mr. Schmitt declared, “I think you’ve already perjured
yourself,” and called Mr. Smith a “dirtbag.”
The
accusation appeared to unravel almost immediately.
Invited
to respond by Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, Mr. Smith said he
had, in fact, attended a basketball game on that day, but it was to see the
Iowa Hawkeyes at the University of Maryland. That night, Caitlin Clark, the
star point guard who now plays in the W.N.B.A., scored 38 points and had 12
assists.
Ms.
Klobuchar suggested that Mr. Schmitt’s accusation was rooted in the senator’s
confusion between the “Hawks” of Atlanta and the “Hawkeyes” of Iowa.
Mr.
Schmitt declared that he still stood by calling Mr. Smith a “dirtbag,” then
left the hearing.
The
exchange took up just four minutes of the hearing. But it showed how eager the
Republicans were to paint Mr. Smith as an out-of-control partisan — and to find
a basis to accuse him of a crime at a time when the Justice Department has
proved receptive to pursuing the people who investigated Mr. Trump.
A central
issue was Mr. Smith’s subpoenas for lawmakers’ phone records as he and his team
sought to trace Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on Congress to block Joseph R.
Biden Jr.’s Electoral College certification.
As part
of that effort, investigators also examined whether Mr. Trump had defrauded his
supporters when he raised vast sums after the election promising to expose
fraud that did not happen. They also subpoenaed financial records of
Republican-aligned groups as they traced what actually happened to the money.
That
effort did not result in charges.
Senator
Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and others argued that when Mr. Smith subpoenaed
phone records of Republican lawmakers, and sought court orders keeping those
subpoenas secret, he showed that his prosecutorial ambitions extended far
beyond Mr. Trump.
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“Is it a
crime to be a Republican?” Mr. Cruz asked angrily. “Absolutely not,” replied
Mr. Smith.
Senator
Darline Graham, the sister of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died in July, also
confronted Mr. Smith over a subpoena of her brother’s phone records. Like Mr.
Cruz, she focused on how an application for nondisclosure order to the phone
companies raised the risk that if the subpoena became public, a target could
destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses.
“Do you
really believe that Lindsey was going to destroy evidence that was not even in
his possession?” she asked.
“No, I
believe your brother was a patriotic public servant. He was not a target of our
investigation, and in fact he likely would have been a witness in our case”
against Mr. Trump, Mr. Smith replied.
He told
both Mr. Cruz and Ms. Graham that his team sought the records to investigate
the conduct of Mr. Trump, not the lawmakers. The concern was not whether the
lawmakers would destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses, but whether Mr. Trump
or his associates would seek to do so.
Democrats
countered Republican accusations by pointing to the evidence Mr. Smith gathered
against Mr. Trump, leading to indictments for his efforts to undo the results
of the 2020 election, and for his handling of classified documents at his
Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Senator
Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, said the G.O.P. anger directed at Mr.
Smith and the F.B.I. was a smoke screen for facts they would rather not face —
that the former president had engaged in wrongdoing, and that the witnesses
against him in both cases were largely Republicans.
Senator
Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, called the hearing “a farce.” The
Republicans attacking Mr. Smith, he added, “choose Trump over truth, corruption
and crimes over the Constitution, and I’ve had enough of it.”
For his
part, Mr. Smith maintained a measured, even meek, tone as lawmakers on the
panel alternated between describing him as a pinnacle of his profession and a
poster boy for improper conduct.
“If asked
whether to prosecute a former president today, based on the same facts, I would
do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat,” he
said, adding: “I will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution from
the president or others.”
In early
2022, the Justice Department opened two investigations involving Mr. Trump. One
was into his campaign’s plan to create false slates of electors as a pretext to
block Mr. Biden’s certification, and the other was into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of
classified documents while out of office, and his obstruction of efforts to
retrieve them.
In
November 2022, after Mr. Trump announced he would run for president again, Mr.
Smith, a former prosecutor of federal corruption and international war crimes,
was tapped to take over the inquiries as a special counsel. The next year, Mr.
Smith brought two indictments against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Smith
insisted that he brought charges because Mr. Trump “engaged in criminal
activity,” and not because of any political agenda to stop Mr. Trump’s
resurgence, as the president’s Republican allies have asserted. Mr. Trump
triumphed over the two federal cases by winning re-election in 2024, leading to
Mr. Smith’s resignation.
Since
leaving government, Mr. Smith has said that the Justice Department has been
“corrupted” by Trump loyalists who have wrecked its credibility and sought to
undermine the rule of law.
Attorney
General Todd Blanche, in testimony to Congress in July, suggested the
department would investigate Mr. Smith to determine if he had lied to Congress.
Much of
Tuesday’s hearing covered familiar ground — including whether investigators’
effort to collect lawmakers’ call records violated the Constitution’s “speech
or debate” clause, as Republican lawmakers insisted.
That
issue is contested. Everyone agrees members of Congress cannot be prosecuted or
forced to testify about their legislative acts. But appeals courts have
disagreed about whether it also creates a confidentiality shield, and no court
has interpreted it as barring subpoenas to phone companies for call logs.
The
Justice Department’s public integrity section signed off on the subpoenas, Mr.
Smith said. But while he defended the investigation’s work as carefully
following the law, Justice Department rules, and best practices for
prosecutors, he did offer one regret for how he had done the job.
Mr. Smith
noted that he had come from a generation of prosecutors who spoke almost
exclusively in courtrooms, and not in public, even to defend the integrity of
the work or the prosecution team.
Following
that tradition proved costly in the cases against Mr. Trump, he said.
“I do
agree that prosecutors in the future need to learn to be able to communicate to
the outside world,” Mr. Smith said.
Glenn
Thrush contributed reporting.
Corrected
on Sept. 29, 2026: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this
article misstated the election that Donald Trump sought to overturn. It was the
election in 2020, not 2024.
We
acknowledge mistakes in our reporting with corrections. If you spot an error,
please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn more.
Devlin
Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
Charlie
Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.
Tankers Are Loading Oil Again From a Vital Saudi Pipeline
Tankers
Are Loading Oil Again From a Vital Saudi Pipeline
Saudi
authorities had taken the pipeline offline this month after it was damaged in a
drone attack by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia.
Lisa
Friedman
By Lisa
Friedman
Reporting
from London
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/business/oil-saudi-east-west-pipeline.html
Sept. 29,
2026
Tankers
in the Red Sea have begun loading oil from a critical Saudi Arabian pipeline
that was shut down this month after it was damaged in an attack.
A total
of nine tankers on the Red Sea coast have loaded about 12.5 million barrels of
crude since Sunday, according to satellite imagery analyzed by Kpler, a
maritime data firm. Three of those tankers were loaded in just the previous 24
hours, the strongest indication yet that the East-West pipeline, a 750-mile
network that transports crude across Saudi Arabia, was at least partly working
again. The Saudi authorities said on Sept. 11 that they had taken the pipeline
offline, blaming a drone attack by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia.
“The
pipeline has resumed,” said Amena Bakr, head of Middle East & OPEC+
Insights at Kpler. Neither Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry nor Saudi Aramco, the
state oil giant, has made any public statement on the pipeline since it was
attacked, and each declined to comment on the resumption of operations.
An
extended closure of the East-West pipeline threatened to drastically reduce how
much oil Saudi Arabia, the region’s largest oil exporter, could get out of the
region.
The
pipeline became the Saudis’ main workaround when the war in Iran effectively
shut the Strait of Hormuz seven months ago. To get oil from Red Sea ports to
global markets, tankers must transport it through the Bab al-Mandab Strait on
the southern end of the Red Sea or the Suez Canal and a pipeline across Egypt
at the northern end of the sea. The Bab al-Mandab Strait, largely controlled by
the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, can be perilous to navigate.
Yasir O.
Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of Aramco, said in June that engineers had expanded
the pipeline’s maximum capacity to carry up to seven million barrels per day,
calling it a “lifeline” for the country. In the weeks before it was struck, it
was delivering four million to five million barrels of oil daily, analysts
said.
Saudi
Arabia has restored flows to about 3.5 million barrels per day, according to
two people with knowledge of the pipeline repairs who were not authorized to
speak publicly.
While
getting back to full capacity could still take weeks, analysts said the repairs
had proceeded quickly. In 2019, Saudi Aramco suffered a major Houthi attack on
its facilities and was able to restart pumping operations within a few days.
And this past April, when a pumping station was attacked shortly after the war
in Iran began, full capacity was restored within seven days.
“The
ability to keep the flows going is integral to the Saudi economy,” said Colby
Connelly, head of Middle East content at Energy Intelligence, a research firm.
“Their ability to show their buyers that they can continue to be a reliable
supplier, even in the face of these very extreme circumstances, is extremely
important to them.”
The
workaround aside, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent weeks
have been steering vessels through the Strait of Hormuz with the help of the
U.S. Navy. Though more oil is getting out, prices remain elevated as demand
continues to outstrip supply. The global price dipped slightly on Tuesday but
was still about 40 percent higher than it had been before the war.
Lisa
Friedman is a business correspondent covering energy for The New York Times.
