All told, Mr. Trump's clemency orders have erased at least $119 million in unpaid restitution since January 2025, a CBS News investigation has found.

By contrast, clemency orders by former President Joe Biden erased $14,000 during his four years in office, Justice Department records show. The vast majority of Biden's orders were commutations that left financial penalties intact, rather than pardons.

President Donald Trump has said he does not "give a damn" about potential criticism of his remarks boasting that the United States is making a "fortune" from high oil prices, as American motorists continue to face elevated gasoline costs.

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration’s investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) is aimed at building a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe. The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father, some of the people familiar with the probe said. Nur Omar Mohamed brought his daughter and other family members to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya in 1995. Omar’s Washington, D.C., home was searched by federal agents early Monday, three weeks before the midterm election, in which she is seeking-re-election. The Justice Department said Homeland Security agents executed a court-authorized search, but it declined to elaborate. Items taken from Omar’s home included her cellphone, notebooks, personal computers and her passport, some of the people said. Only the congresswoman and her husband were home at the time of the search. Authorities have also issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of Omar’s relatives, seeking testimony before a Minnesota grand jury, a person familiar with those proceedings said. Among other things, the investigation is looking at her family’s immigration paperwork, the person said.

In a Wall Street Journal interview earlier this year, Omar said she never committed immigration fraud. “President Trump would love to eliminate one of the most effective progressive voices in Congress. There is no basis for this,” her office said in a statement Wednesday. Homeland Security Investigations agents walking outside a house during a search. Federal officials searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Monday. Andrew Leyden/Getty Images The Trump administration has made an unprecedented effort to denaturalize U.S. citizens by proving they lied in the process of obtaining citizenship, filing dozens of lawsuits. Omar’s case, if it proceeds, could become the highest-profile—and most controversial—part of that effort. The president has long called for Omar’s deportation, using her as a rallying point for the GOP’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim wings. On Monday evening, an Ohio audience Trump was speaking to chanted “deport” after he talked about Omar and other Somalis. “They cheat on everything,” he said. “We’re not going to stand for it.” Omar, 44 years old, has long been a top target for GOP-led investigations. A welfare-fraud scandal in Minnesota—heavily tied to defendants of Somali descent—has added fuel to the fire. At the center of the immigration investigation is whether Omar or her father changed her age on her citizenship application to show she was 17 years old rather than 18, according to people familiar with the probe. If Omar was 17 at the time her father applied for citizenship, she would have qualified automatically rather than needing to pursue her own immigration process. She became a citizen in 2000. Officials at Homeland Security Investigations looked into a similar tip under the Biden administration, according to people familiar with those efforts, but they decided not to move forward because they lacked evidence of fraud. The government can’t simply strip a person of their U.S. citizenship. The Justice Department must file a lawsuit in federal court and prove that the person lied in a material way to gain their citizenship. Most of the cases the Justice Department has filed this term haven’t yet been decided. Leon Fresco, a top immigration official in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, said the Trump administration’s case would hinge on finding material evidence that Omar lied about her own age, rather than her father lying on her behalf. “That would make the case significantly easier to prosecute,” he said. “But either way, they are not traveling a well-paved road here.” Administration officials have touted what they say is the most wide-ranging effort in Justice Department history to strip people of their citizenship. In all, the administration has filed more than 200 lawsuits against convicted criminals and others it is seeking to denaturalize. Before Trump took office this term, denaturalization cases were rare, with the government filing roughly a dozen or fewer a year, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that tracks federal immigration data. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, said her office was also investigating Omar’s financial disclosures. “There are several investigations going on,” Pirro said Tuesday on Fox News. “If there was a crime that was committed it will be prosecuted.”

Pirro said it “doesn’t matter” that a nonpartisan entity charged with reviewing misconduct allegations involving members of Congress earlier this year cleared Omar of wrongdoing in connection with documents she submitted to Congress that dramatically overstated her wealth.

Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1982 into an affluent family, Omar initially settled in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., before her family moved to Minnesota as she entered high school. She lost her mother when she was in preschool, according to her book, “This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey From Refugee to Congresswoman.” As a self-described spoiled youngest child, she was raised by her father and a collection of family members. Omar’s father died in June 2020 at age 67 from what she has said were complications from Covid-19. In the U.S., he worked as a cabdriver and postal worker. Allegations of immigration fraud have surrounded Omar since she first ran for public office in 2016, when she won a seat in the Minnesota House. Those questions have often been tied to her multiple marriages. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told a conservative podcaster last month that there was a continuing federal investigation into Omar, who he said “married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.” It is a claim Trump has repeatedly made. She has denied it for more than a decade.

In late March, at the height of the Iran war, Israel quietly approved more settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank than it ever had at one time.

Staff members at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem saw the move as potentially flouting one of President Trump’s explicit red lines for Israel — no annexation of the West Bank — and drafted an urgent report intended for policy makers in Washington.

That memo never reached Washington. It was quashed by David Milstein, a top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, according to three U.S. officials briefed on the process.

This was no isolated incident.

Since taking up his post in April 2025, Mr. Milstein, 36, has repeatedly suppressed or significantly revised embassy reporting on Israeli activities to present the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to a dozen people who work with or interact with Mr. Milstein in both Jerusalem and Washington:

As settler violence in the West Bank surged in the spring, for instance, he stymied embassy reporting suggesting that the Israeli government was failing to take action, according to the three officials. Instead the embassy sent a cable to Washington, viewed by The New York Times, praising Israel for “cracking down” on the attacks.

When members of Congress pushed for accountability over the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and security forces, he suppressed a detailed report that the embassy staff had written, effectively stonewalling lawmakers’ efforts to gain information, according to multiple officials briefed on the matter.

Soon after arriving in Jerusalem, Mr. Milstein began insisting on approving communications from the embassy section that handles Palestinian affairs, multiple officials with direct knowledge of the process said. The flow of cables plummeted from several a week to a few a month, as some staffers refrained from writing reports for fear that Mr. Milstein would block or rewrite them, these officials said.

Mr. Milstein’s interventions go far beyond those of any recent predecessor, several officials said. They and others said they were speaking out of concern that officials in Washington were getting a distorted view of Israeli actions through core diplomatic channels.

Mr. Milstein’s efforts have helped insulate Israel’s right-wing government against potential blowback from a Trump Administration that has been its closest ally.

Among the most contentious issues on which Mr. Milstein has intervened is the accelerating expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

It’s an inflammatory subject that has soured Israel’s relationship with some of its longtime allies. Last month, Britain, Canada and France announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in response to the Israeli policy on settlement expansion. Britain accused some settlers of “ethnic cleansing.”

It is unclear to what extent Mr. Huckabee is aware of his adviser’s actions. Both he and Mr. Milstein declined requests for an interview.

The ambassador, a longtime advocate for the Israeli settlement movement, has denounced specific attacks by settlers, calling them “Israeli terrorists,” but he has played down settler violence more broadly, saying it is being carried out by a small group. Image A man in a dark suit standing on a walkway with grass and shrubbery in the background. Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, at his residence in Jerusalem last year.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

Mr. Huckabee is required to sign off on most cables and significant decisions, but officials said Mr. Milstein sometimes acts on his own. The ambassador has also sometimes worked in concert with Mr. Milstein to suppress or recast information, these officials said. But in several cases when he believed Mr. Milstein had gone too far, they said, Mr. Huckabee has reined him in. Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

Earlier this month, after an article critical of Mr. Milstein for inviting wedding guests to give him money appeared in Politico, Mr. Huckabee posted on social media that he had “absolute confidence” in his aide, whom he said possesses “impeccable integrity.”

Mr. Milstein is a familiar figure in right-wing circles in the United States and Israel, and has organized meetings between Mr. Huckabee and some top Israeli officials. But he is not well known in either country, and his role as a gatekeeper of information sent to Washington has drawn little attention.

His effort to shape embassy reporting was first reported a year ago by the online magazine of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank that advocates de-escalation and U.S. military restraint.

But fresh reporting by The New York Times unearthed documentary evidence and previously unreported instances of Mr. Milstein’s effort to skew information to the benefit of the Netanyahu government, which has continued throughout this year.

The Times interviewed 15 U.S. officials for this article, including many in Washington, all of whom worked with Mr. Milstein in some manner. The Times also talked to nine former diplomats who provided context on the role and responsibilities of senior embassy officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. The Times also obtained or reviewed dozens of documents, cables, memos and other internal communications.

The people who spoke to The Times were career government officials and political appointees, including strong supporters of the United States-Israel relationship. Most said they were speaking out of concern that Mr. Milstein’s actions are undermining standard diplomatic work, expressing worry that, in some cases, they contradict the president’s stated policies.

The concern extended to senior administration officials in Washington, including in the White House, who have expressed frustration to colleagues over some of Mr. Milstein’s actions, according to four officials, who have either witnessed or been briefed on the dissatisfaction.

It is not clear whether Mr. Milstein’s interventions have affected White House policy. But since Mr. Trump declared a year ago that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, he has said little about the issue beyond briefly reaffirming in February that he opposed annexation, even as Israel was extending more control over the territory.

In response to questions sent to the embassy about Mr. Milstein’s actions, Mr. Huckabee did not address specific instances cited by The Times. He wrote in a statement: “The elements of the story The New York Times is trying to assemble are so lacking in fact that it ranks up with other Times farcical endeavors.” He added: “I personally and categorically refute the elements of your proposed ‘story.’ ”

Asked about The Times’s reporting on Mr. Milstein, the State Department provided the following statement: “The entire team at State remains focused on advancing President Trump’s America First agenda.”

The White House referred The Times to the State Department. A Chilling Effect

Mr. Milstein is the stepson of the right-wing radio host Mark Levin — a close ally of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu. That relationship is well known in Washington and the embassy, and has been a factor in how he is treated, officials in both Jerusalem and Washington said.

As an adviser to Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Milstein is one of the most senior officials in the embassy, acting as a chief of staff of sorts to Mr. Huckabee. The ambassador has empowered him to oversee much of the mission’s portfolio, particularly the West Bank and Gaza.

Previous ambassadors to Israel have had political appointees as senior advisers who, like Mr. Milstein, tried to influence the reporting back to Washington. And Mr. Milstein’s responsibilities include reviewing and amending information sent to Washington.

People who interact with Mr. Milstein professionally, however, say he goes to unusual lengths to frame Israel in a positive light. He has blocked reporting from being sent, rewritten cables to deliver a different — sometimes opposite — message from the original, and delayed approving drafts until the topic was no longer relevant, these officials said.

In the summer of 2025, for instance, dozens of Palestinians seeking food were killed near the distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by Israel and the United States. American diplomats in Israel drafted a cable, viewed by The Times, warning that the foundation’s distribution process was chaotic and deadly and risked more “mass casualty events.” Image Men stand on a vehicle transporting a victim near an aid distribution site as other men and women walk off to the side. Palestinians transport a victim near a distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the Gaza Strip last year.Credit...Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Milstein rewrote the cable to declare GHF’s operation a success while overlooking the mass casualties, according to people who saw the cable and were briefed on the editing process.

Troubled by glaring discrepancies between news coverage and the embassy’s official reports, White House and State Department officials seeking a clearer picture of events bypassed standard channels at least twice to communicate directly with embassy staff, according to two officials briefed on the outreach and an internal communication from late this summer seen by The Times.

Veteran American diplomats said that withholding or twisting the information sent to Washington should raise serious concerns.

“The embassy ought to tell Washington everything — the good, the bad and the ugly,” said Dan Kurtzer, who was the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush. “If they’re not doing so, they are damaging the policy-making process and possibly undermining the president’s policies.”

Mr. Milstein also questioned several colleagues on whether they were “pro-Israel” or “pro-Hamas,” according to four officials, who found the question inappropriate and said it made some people fearful of speaking freely.

A conservative and longtime Republican, Mr. Milstein served as an aide to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas from 2013 to 2018 before relocating to Israel to study at a Jerusalem yeshiva, a school for Jewish religious studies. In 2020, he landed a job as an assistant to David M. Friedman, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Israel between 2017 to 2021.

During the Biden Administration, Mr. Milstein worked for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, handling outreach to pro-Israel voters.

In April 2025, Mr. Milstein was back at the embassy in Jerusalem after Mr. Trump was elected to a second term. In February, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19, was trying to stop settlers from stealing livestock when one of them shot him dead in his West Bank village.

He was the ninth American citizen of Palestinian heritage killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers or soldiers in four years. Weeks later, seeking an update on the investigations into the killings, 30 members of Congress led by Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding answers from Israel. Image Men in dark clothing carry the body of a young man who was killed in the West Bank. The funeral of Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19, in Mukhmas, a village in the West Bank, a day after he was killed.Credit...John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In response, officers in the embassy compiled a report that was completed in March detailing the status of each investigation, according to multiple officials briefed on the process.

Its central findings suggested that, in most cases, investigations had made little progress, that some cases had been closed, and that no one had been charged in any of the killings, these officials said. Instead of forwarding the report, Mr. Milstein argued that the embassy should send a letter saying that Israel was properly handling the investigations, two officials briefed on the discussions said.

On May 4, Paul D. Guaglianone, a State Department official, sent a letter responding to Mr. Van Hollen, saying that the embassy, which had reduced staff because of the Iran war, was focused on security cooperation with Israel and protecting Americans against Iranian attacks. (The intense fighting had wound down nearly a month earlier, after a cease-fire was struck on April 8.)

The letter, provided to The Times by Mr. Van Hollen’s office, said the embassy was working with Israel to “ensure accountability for these deaths.”

The response did not reassure Mr. Van Hollen.

“If you don’t get accountability, you endanger more American citizens,” he said in a phone interview. Downplaying West Bank Expansion

In February, the Netanyahu government passed a measure that made it easier for Israelis to buy land in the West Bank, a move widely condemned internationally as speeding the way to annexation.

Any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, would carry immense consequences. But in embassy discussions, Mr. Milstein portrayed the government’s announcement on land purchases as a domestic matter with little significance to the outside world, according to two officials. Image On rocky ledges on the side of a hill, men in masks throw stones. Masked settlers hurled stones at Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Sinjil last year.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

An embassy report sent to Washington, reviewed by The Times, said the Israeli policy was meant “to address humanitarian needs” of Israeli settlers, without detailing those needs.

A similar intervention occurred in April, when top Israeli military commanders publicly warned that West Bank settler violence could set off a new Palestinian uprising. Embassy staffers tried to alert Washington to those warnings, but Mr. Milstein prevented the reports from being sent as drafted, according to three officials.

In a cable viewed by The Times on which he is listed as the first author, Mr. Milstein praised Mr. Netanyahu’s “unprecedented new initiatives to combat” rising violence in the West Bank. The report’s title read, “Government Cracks Down on Escalating West Bank Violence.”

A Philadelphia man created hundreds of thousands of degrading images of women, police say. At least five may have been dead when they were photographed or recorded.

Carrier drones deploy explosive unmanned vehicles behind enemy lines, recovering 48 square miles of occupied Ukraine

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 792 measles cases on Monday, 25 more than ​on Friday, as the state's outbreak grew ‌further, remaining at the center of the nation's worst measles resurgence in decades. Here are some more details:

The ​state health department confirmed 155 hospitalized measles ​patients, up from the 150 reported on ⁠September 18.
Lancaster County has remained the hardest-hit ​area in the state throughout the outbreak.
Earlier this ​month, Pennsylvania reported measles-related deaths among unvaccinated residents, a toll that sparked disagreement between Governor Josh Shapiro and U.S. Health ​Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over how ​many fatalities were directly caused by the virus.
The Centers ‌for ⁠Disease Control and Prevention has not yet added Pennsylvania's 2026 measles deaths to its national count. The agency has said it is reviewing how ​it classifies ​such deaths.
The ⁠US has recorded 3,471 measles cases this year as of September ​17, according to CDC data.

The human brain is not a single organ, but two separate systems that evolved independently before fusing together, according to groundbreaking new research. ... Armed with the knowledge of how hindbrain cells uniquely form, the team has successfully turned human stem cells into becoming functional hindbrain motor neurons in a lab for the first time.

Baylor signed Ukrainian center Kate Koval, the school announced Saturday, several weeks after she left LSU because Tigers coach Kim Mulkey brought in a Russian player.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally and explicitly warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major attack roughly 10 days before the October 7 massacre, but dismissed the threat and did not alert his security chiefs, according to a shocking new Haaretz report.

The revelations come from research for an upcoming book Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, written by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, who writes for Haaretz.

The U.S. Postal Service could "derail" the midterm election if it continues rushing out "untested" technology as part of President Trump's push to restrict mail-in voting, a newly released whistleblower report warns.

In his first interview with a British newspaper, Kaupo Rosin discusses Putin’s fractured inner circle and the looming threat against Nato