{"id":159266,"date":"2025-08-03T02:50:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T02:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-news-at-a-glance-inquiry-launched-into-trump-prosecutor-as-backlash-grows-over-firing-of-statistics-chief-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T02:50:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T02:50:19","slug":"trump-news-at-a-glance-inquiry-launched-into-trump-prosecutor-as-backlash-grows-over-firing-of-statistics-chief-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-news-at-a-glance-inquiry-launched-into-trump-prosecutor-as-backlash-grows-over-firing-of-statistics-chief-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump news at a glance: inquiry launched into Trump prosecutor as backlash grows over firing of statistics chief – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Smith is reportedly being investigated for possible violations of the Hatch Act; Republican\u2019s condemn the president for sacking Erika McEntarfer. Key US politics stories from Saturday 2 August
The US office of special counsel, an independent federal agency, confirmed to NBC News that it is investigating former Department of Justice prosecutor Jack Smith for possible violations of the Hatch Act.
Smith led investigations into Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s part in the 6 January US Capitol riot and alleged mishandling of classified documents.
It comes as senior Republican lawmakers condemn the decision of their party leader, Trump, to fire<\/a> the leading US labor market statistician after a report that showed the national economy added just 73,000 jobs \u2013 far fewer than expected \u2013 in July.
Trump claimed, without evidence, that the numbers were \u201cRIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad\u201d and the US economy was, in fact, \u201cBOOMING\u201d on his watch.
Here are the key US politics<\/a> stories of the day:
The confirmation of an investigation into Jack Smith comes after Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a Republican, requested last week that Smith be investigated for \u201cunprecedented interference in the 2024 election\u201d.
The Hatch Act, \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200ba federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees. Trump, along with other prominent Republican lawmakers, have argued that Smith\u2019s investigations into Trump amounted to illegal political activity.
Smith ultimately brought two criminal indictments against Trump in 2023 but resigned in January this year before either came to trial.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
The firing of Erika McEntarfer, who had been confirmed to her role in January 2024 during Joe Biden\u2019s presidency, has alarmed members of Trump\u2019s own party.
\u201cIf the president is firing the statistician because he doesn\u2019t like the numbers but they are accurate, then that\u2019s a problem,\u201d said Wyoming Republican senator Cynthia Lummis. \u201cIt\u2019s not the statistician\u2019s fault if the numbers are accurate and that they\u2019re not what the president had hoped for.\u201d
Kentucky senator Rand Paul, another Republican, questioned whether McEntarfer\u2019s firing was an effective way of improving the numbers.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Donald Trump<\/a> says he considers Sean \u2018\u201cDiddy\u201d Combs \u201csort of half-innocent\u201d despite his criminal conviction in federal court in July<\/a> \u2013 but the president called pardoning the music mogul \u201cmore difficult\u201d because of past criticism.
\u201cWhen I ran for office, he was very hostile,\u201d Trump said of the Bad Boy Records founder. \u201cIt\u2019s hard, you know? We\u2019re human beings. And we don\u2019t like to have things cloud our judgment, right? But when you knew someone and you were fine, and then you run for office, and he made some terrible statements.\u201d
Combs was found guilty on 2 July of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, with each leaving him facing up to 10 years in prison \u2013 but he was acquitted of more serious sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Tulsi Gabbard<\/a>, the director of US national intelligence, hoped to uncover evidence that Barack Obama and his national security team conspired to undermine Donald Trump in a slow-motion coup.
But a previously classified annexe to a report by another special counsel, John Durham \u2013 appointed towards the end of Trump\u2019s first presidency \u2013 has further undermined Gabbard\u2019s case.
It confirms that Russian spies were behind the emails that were originally released as the result of a Russian cyber-hack of internal Democratic information channels and which Trump supporters believed showed the campaign of Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent, conspiring to accuse him of colluding with Moscow.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
The Trump administration terminated 1,902 National Institutes of Health grants<\/a> totalling more than $4.4bn<\/strong> between January and the end of July, according to Grant Witness data. NIH followed guidance from the so-called \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d (Doge) and Trump\u2019s executive orders to cut costs.
According to Donald Trump\u2019s White House, the US economy is booming, inflation is dead and jobs are surging<\/strong>. A blizzard of economic reports has cast a pall on such claims in recent days<\/a>.
Catching up? Here\u2019s what happened 1 August 2025<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Smith is reportedly being investigated for possible violations of the Hatch Act; Republican\u2019s condemn the president for sacking Erika McEntarfer. Key US politics stories from Saturday 2 AugustThe US office of special counsel, an independent federal agency, confirmed to NBC News that it is investigating former Department of Justice prosecutor Jack Smith for possible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}