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A side battle over former President Trump’s indictment is emerging in Congress, where House Republicans fiercely condemning the probe have launched an investigation into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) and his office.

The new investigation, added on top of a pile of aggressive House GOP probes into the Biden administration and beyond, has prompted pushback from Bragg and congressional Democrats. They warn not only that it could interfere in an ongoing legal matter, but also question whether congressional committees have jurisdiction to look into a state-level case.

Those criticisms have prompted direct pushback from House Republicans, particularly in wake of Trump’s arrest and arraignment on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to a hush money scheme. The president pleaded not guilty. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calf.), who promised a congressional probe into the D.A.’s office soon after Trump took to social media last month to announce he would soon be arrested in connection with the case, defended the House GOP actions in a tweet following Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday.

“Alvin Bragg is attempting to interfere in our democratic process by invoking federal law to bring politicized charges against President Trump, admittedly using federal funds, while at the same time arguing that the peoples’ representatives in Congress lack jurisdiction to investigate this farce,” McCarthy tweeted. “Not so. Bragg’s weaponization of the federal justice process will be held accountable by Congress.”

The issue is likely to drag on through the rest of this year, as Trump’s next in-person court appearance is set for Dec. 4. 

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said on Fox News on Wednesday that he, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and McCarthy would hold a call later this week to talk about next steps in their investigation. 

When asked about the possibility of subpoenaing Bragg, Jordan said in a separate Fox News interview Wednesday that “everything is on the table.”

Bragg “may contest” their request to speak to the House investigators, Jordan said. “It may have to go to court. We’ll see.”

An initial sweeping request from Jordan, Comer, and House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) asked Bragg to turn over all internal communications about the case while demanding he sit for testimony before the panels.

Bragg’s office warned that their request “treads into territory very clearly reserved to the states,” and argued that Congress’s investigative jurisdiction “is derived from and limited by its power to legislate concerning federal matters.”

Congressional Democrats took a similar stance, with House Oversight ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) charging at the time that the House GOP move “represents an astonishing and unprecedented abuse of power as they attempt to use congressional resources to interfere in an ongoing criminal investigation at another level of government.”

House Judiciary ranking member Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement after Trump’s arraignment yesterday that Republicans are trying to “obstruct the process,” chalking the requests for information up to “political stunts.”

But the three chairman vigorously defended their authority in a response to Bragg, saying the Trump indictment “implicates substantial federal interests” and could inform creation of federal legislation to “insulate current and former presidents from such improper state and local prosecutions.”

Like McCarthy, the three GOP committee chairs in recent days have been defending their jurisdictional basis, arguing the matter touches on how federal funds are used, coordination between state and federal authorities, and oversight of federal elections and matters related to campaign finance law.

In a second response to the House chairmen, Bragg’s office said that around $5,000 in federal funds was spent on investigations of Trump or the Trump Organization by Bragg’s predecessor, between October 2019 and August 2021, mostly on Supreme Court litigation paved the way for the conviction of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg. The office also listed hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants that it uses for other matters.

That admission energized Republicans.

“We do know that he has conceded that he used federal funds,” Jordan said on Fox News on Wednesday. “We knew that this investigation grew out of the special counsel Mueller investigation. That, [of] course, is a federal statute. And we know that this is all about, in our judgment, election interference.”

Steil said on Fox News over the weekend that they want to know more about any coordination between Bragg and the Department of Justice, which declined to pursue campaign finance charges against Trump over the hush money probe.

“Is he usurping federal power over campaign finance law?” Steil said.

Jeff Robbins, an attorney now in private practice who has served as both a federal prosecutor and investigative counsel for Senate Democrats, said GOP lawmakers have little authority to stand on in launching an investigation into Bragg.

He called the $5,000 spent by the office previously on other Trump organization cases “sub de minimis,” but said the bigger issue is that Congress is exceeding its authority.

In fact, it was a case launched by Trump that aided in limiting lawmakers’ subpoena power as he sought to block House Democrats from accessing his tax records from the firm Mazars, a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

“The power of Congress to subpoena is not unlimited. It is limited, and it has gotten actually somewhat more limited over the course of the last several years,” Robbins said.

“Any congressional subpoena is limited by the requirement … to have a legitimate legislative purpose or an oversight purpose. They don’t have oversight over the Manhattan DA’s office, and there is no legitimate legislative purpose for targeting the D.A.’s office because they don’t like the fact that the D.A.’s office has indicted Donald Trump. And they won’t be able to demonstrate any such legislative purpose,” he added.

Republicans, of course, disagree, and have suggested legislation they could pursue in order to back up their requests.

“When we look at federal government taxpayer dollars going to district attorneys across the United States, in particular progressive DAs that are not enforcing the rule of law on their streets, do we need to rewrite how these grants are being written?” Steil said on Fox News.

If the committees subpoena Bragg, he could ignore the subpoena, forcing the House to hold a contempt of Congress vote, or Bragg could challenge the subpoena’s validity in court.

“Whichever way that goes, the congressional committee will lose,” Robbins said.

House Republicans’ broad request represents another legal problem for Bragg, who has an obligation to protect the right to a fair trial.

“These confidentiality provisions exist to protect the interests of the various participants in the criminal process,” Bragg wrote in his first letter to the GOP leaders, including “the defendant.” Snow on the beach: Florida deputies say $100,000 in cocaine washed ashore White House addressing antisemitism at the start of Passover; opportunity for all faiths to combat hate

Some of the information the GOP committees are seeking will be turned over to Trump’s attorneys in short order through a process known as discovery.

But prosecutors during Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday noted concerns about how such information might be used by the former president, noting they are working on an agreement with Trump’s attorney’s that would block Trump from releasing any of it publicly.

“The people believe, especially in light of the defendant’s public comments, that a protective order is vital to insure the sanctity of the proceedings as well as the sanctity of the discovery materials,” Catherine McCaw, a prosecutor on the case said, adding that the agreement would only allow Trump to review materials in his attorney’s office and would bar him from sharing any evidence with reporters or on social media.

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

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“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

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Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

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Hamas gives ‘positive’ response to ceasefire proposal but asks for amendments

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Hamas gives 'positive' response to ceasefire proposal but asks for amendments

Hamas has said it has “submitted its positive response” to the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza to mediators.

The proposal for a 60-day ceasefire was presented by US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing hard for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to visit the White House next week to discuss a deal.

Mr Trump said Israel had agreed to his proposed ceasefire terms, and he urged Hamas to accept the deal as well.

Hamas’ “positive” response to the proposal had slightly different wording on three issues around humanitarian aid, the status of the Israeli Defence Forces inside Gaza and the language around guarantees beyond the 60-day ceasefire, a source with knowledge of the negotiations revealed.

But the source told Sky News: “Things are looking good.”

The mother of Anas Al-Basyouni mourns his loss shortly after he was killed while on his way to an aid distribution center, during his funeral at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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A woman cries after her son was killed while on his way to an aid distribution centre. Pic: AP/Jehad Alshrafi

Hamas said it is “fully prepared to immediately enter into a round of negotiations regarding the mechanism for implementing this framework” without elaborating on what needed to be worked out in the proposal’s implementation.

The US said during the ceasefire it would “work with all parties to end the war”.

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A Hamas official said on condition of anonymity that the truce could start as early as next week.

An Israeli army tank advances in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. Pic: AP/Leo Correa
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An Israeli army tank advances in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. Pic: AP/Leo Correa

But he added that talks were needed first to establish how many Palestinian prisoners would be released in return for each freed Israeli hostage and to specify the amount of humanitarian aid that will be allowed to enter Gaza during the ceasefire.

He said negotiations on a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in return for the release of the remaining hostages would start on the first day of the truce.

Hamas has been seeking guarantees that the 60-day ceasefire would lead to a total end to the nearly 21-month-old war, which caused previous rounds of negotiations to fail as Mr Netanyahu has insisted that Israel would continue fighting in Gaza to ensure the destruction of Hamas.

The Hamas official said that Mr Trump has guaranteed that the ceasefire will extend beyond 60 days if necessary to reach a peace deal, but there is no confirmation from the US of such a guarantee.

Speaking to journalists on Air Force One, Mr Trump welcomed Hamas’s “positive spirit” to the proposal, adding that there could be a ceasefire deal by next week.

Palestinians dispersing away from tear gas fired at an aid distribution site in Gaza. Pic: AP
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Palestinians dispersing away from tear gas fired at an aid distribution site in Gaza. Pic: AP

Lian Al-Za'anin, center, is comforted by relatives as she mourns the loss of her father, Rami Al-Za'anin, who was killed while heading to an aid distribution hub, at the morgue of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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A girl mourns the loss of her father, who was killed while heading to an aid distribution hub. Pic: AP/Jehad Alshrafi

Hamas also said it wants more aid to flow through the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, which comes as the UN human rights officer said it recorded 613 Palestinians killed in Gaza within a month while trying to obtain aid.

Most of them were said to have been killed while trying to reach food distribution points by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, Ravina Shamdasani, said the agency was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings, but added that “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by GHF.

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Palestinians carry aid packages near the GHF distribution centre in Khan Younis. Pic: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
Image:
Palestinians carry aid packages near the GHF distribution centre in Khan Younis. Pic: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana

Ms Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related”, meaning at or near its distribution sites.

The GHF accused the UN of taking its casualty figures “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry” and of trying “to falsely smear our effort”, which echoed statements to Sky News by the executive director of GHF, Johnnie Moore.

Mr Moore called the UN figures a “disinformation campaign” that is “meant to shut down our efforts” in the Gaza Strip.

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Gaza: The man in the room acting as backchannel for Hamas in negotiations with US

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Gaza: The man in the room acting as backchannel for Hamas in negotiations with US

Behind the efforts to secure the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release is the remarkable story of one man’s unlikely involvement.  

His name is Bishara Bahbah, he’s a Harvard-educated economics professor from Phoenix, Arizona.

In April, his phone rang. It was Hamas.

Since that phone call, Dr Bahbah has been living temporarily in Qatar where he is in direct contact with officials from Hamas. He has emerged as an important back-channel American negotiator. But how?

An inauguration party

I first met Dr Bahbah in January. It was the eve of President Trump’s inauguration and a group of Arab-Americans had thrown a party at a swanky restaurant in Washington DC’s Wharf district.

There was a sense of excitement. Arab-Americans were crediting themselves for having helped Trump over the line in the key swing state of Michigan.

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Bishara Bahbah,
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Dr Bahbah negotiating with Hamas for the release of Edan Alexander

Despite traditionally being aligned with the Democrats, Arab-Americans had abandoned Joe Biden in large numbers because of his handling of the Gaza war.

I’d reported from Michigan weeks earlier and been struck by the overwhelming support for Trump. The vibe essentially was ‘it can’t get any worse – we may as well give Trump a shot’.

Mingling among diplomats from Middle Eastern countries, wealthy business owners and even the president of FIFA, I was introduced to an unassuming man in his late 60s.

We got talking and shared stories of his birthplace and my adopted home for a few years – Jerusalem.

Bishara Bahbah
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Dr Bahbah and Trump

He told me that he still has the deed to his family’s 68 dunum (16 acre) Palestinian orchard.

With nostalgia, he explained how he still had his family’s UN food card which shows their allocated monthly rations from their time living in a refugee camp and in the Jerusalem’s old city.

Dr Bahnah left Jerusalem in 1976. He is now a US citizen but told me Jerusalem would always be home.

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Will Trump achieve a Gaza ceasefire?

He echoed the views I had heard in Michigan, where he had spent many months campaigning as the president of Arab-Americans for Trump.

He dismissed my scepticism that Trump would be any better than Biden for the Palestinians.

We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later.

A connection with Trump

Dr Bahbah invited two Arab-American friends to our lunch. Over burgers and coke, a block from the White House, we discussed their hopes for Gaza under Trump.

The three men repeated what I had heard on the campaign trail – that things couldn’t get any worse for the Palestinians than they were under Biden.

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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open

Trump, they said, would use his pragmatism and transactional nature to create opportunities.

Dr Bahbah displayed to me his own initiative too. He revealed that he got a message to the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to suggest he ought to write a personal letter of congratulations to President Trump.

A letter from Ramallah was on the Oval Office desk on 6 November, a day after the election. It’s the sort of gesture Trump notices.

It was clear to me that the campaigning efforts and continued support of these three wealthy men had been recognised by the Trump administration.

They had become close to key figures in Trump’s team – connections that would, in time, pay off.

There were tensions along the way. When Trump announced he would “own Gaza”, Dr Bahbah was disillusioned.

And then came the AI video of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunning themselves in a Gazan wonderland.

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President shares ‘Trump Gaza’ AI video

“It is provocative and unacceptable,” he told me just after the president posted the video in February.

Trump must have thought it was funny, so he posted it. He loves anything with his name on it.”

Then came the Trump plan to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza. To this, he released a public statement titled Urgent Press Release.

“Arab-Americans for Trump firmly rejects President Donald J Trump’s suggestion to remove – voluntarily or forcibly – Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan,” he said.

Letter from Abbas to Trump
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Letter from Abbas to Trump. Pic: Bishara Bahbah

He then changed the name of his alliance, dropping Trump. It became Arab-Americans for Peace.

I wondered if the wheels were coming off this unlikely alliance.

Was he realising Trump couldn’t or wouldn’t solve the Palestinian issue? But Dr Bahbah maintained faith in the new president.

“I am worried, but at the same time, Trump might be testing the waters to determine what is acceptable…,” he told me in late February as the war dragged on.

“There is no alternative to the two-state solution.”

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He told me that he expected the president and his team to work on the rebuilding of Gaza and work to launch a process that would culminate in the establishment of a Palestinian state, side by side in peace with Israel.

It was, and remains, an expectation at odds with the Trump administration’s official policy.

The phone call

In late April, Dr Bahbah’s phone rang. The man at the other end of the line was Dr Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas.

Dr Bahbah and Dr Hamad had never met – they did not know each other.

But Hamas had identified Dr Bahbah as the Palestinian-American with the most influence in Trump’s administration.

Dr Hamad suggested that they could work together – to secure the release of all the hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire.

Hamas was already using the Qatari government as a conduit to the Americans but Dr Bahbah represented a second channel through which they hoped they could convince President Trump to increase pressure on Israel.

There is a thread of history which runs through this story. It was the widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who passed Dr Bahbah’s number to Dr Hamad.

In the 1990s, Dr Bahbah was part of a Palestinian delegation to the multilateral peace talks.

He became close to Arafat but he had no experience of a negotiation as delicate and intractable as this.

The first step was to build trust. Dr Bahbah contacted Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Witkoff and Bahbah had something in common – one a real-estate mogul, the other an academic, neither had any experience in diplomacy. It represented the perfect manifestation of Trump’s ‘outside the box’ methods.

Read more from Sky News:
Hamas gives ‘positive’ response to ceasefire proposal but asks for amendments

Why Netanyahu only wants a 60-day ceasefire
Iran: Still a chance for peace talks with US

But Witkoff was sceptical of Dr Bahbah’s proposal at first. Could he really have any success at securing agreement between Israel and Hamas? A gesture to build trust was necessary.

Bahbah claims he told his new Hamas contact that they needed to prove to the Trump administration that they were serious about negotiating.

Within weeks a remarkable moment more than convinced Dr Bahbah and Witkoff that this new Hamas back-channel could be vitally important.

On 12 May, after 584 days in Hamas captivity, Israeli-American Edan Alexander was released.

We were told at the time that his release was a result of a direct deal between Hamas and the US.

Israel was not involved and the deal was described by Hamas as a “good faith” gesture. Dr Bahbah sees it as his deal.

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Doctors on the frontline

Direct talks took place between Dr Bahbah and five Hamas officials in Doha who would then convey messages back to at least 17 other Hamas leadership figures in both Gaza and Cairo.

Dr Bahbah in turn conveyed Hamas messages back to Witkoff who was not directly involved in the Hamas talks.

A Qatari source told me that Dr Bahbah was “very involved” in the negotiations.

But publicly, the White House has sought to downplay his role, with an official telling Axios in May that “he was involved but tangentially”.

The Israeli government was unaware of his involvement until their own spies discovered the backchannel discussion about the release of Alexander.

Since that April phone call, Dr Bahbah has remained in the Qatari capital, with trips to Cairo, trying to help secure a final agreement.

He is taking no payment from anyone for his work.

As he told me when we first met back in January: “If I can do something to help to end this war and secure a future for the Palestinian people, I will.”

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