Ghislaine Maxwell Refuses to Answer Questions, and Texas Republicans Increase Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

I'm Debra Kamen. I'm an investigative reporter at The New York Times. What I do is I look at the people running the real estate industry, who for so many years have been relatively invisible. And the more that I look into it, the more that I find there are people in the real estate industry operating unethically. And their unethical behavior affects every single American. At The New York Times, we're always looking a little bit deeper to help readers better understand the world. You can subscribe to The New York Times at nytimes.com slash subscribe. From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, February 10th. Here's what we're covering. You can see the bullet holes on the driver's side door and the passenger seat. The agent who opened fire was from... Over the past year, there have been 16 shootings by federal immigration agents as they've been patrolling U.S. cities and towns. Police say Brown attempted to flee. In many of those, the government has immediately stated that the people who were shot at were to blame. Homeland Security says he struck two border protection officers with his car. Homeland Security accused Martinez of assault, labeling her as a domestic terrorist. The feds accused Pettius of using his car as a weapon as he allegedly tried to escape arrest. In the high profile cases of Renee Good and Alex Preddy, a barrage of bystander video undercut the government's narrative. And now a Times review shows how in some of the other cases, the government's claims have been falling apart in court. For example, in October in D.C., an agent shot at a man in his car. A DHS spokeswoman said he'd tried to run officers down and the man was charged with a felony. A judge, however, found the government failed to present any evidence of that and said the agent had fired, quote, for reasons that are completely unclear to me. And in Chicago, the government charged a woman with assault for hitting an SUV driven by immigration agents. After the crash, an agent shot the woman multiple times. This fall, prosecutors abandoned the case against her after more evidence came to light, including that the officer bragged about the shooting in a group text to other agents, writing, I fired five rounds and she had seven holes. Put that in your book, boys. Across the country, four cases like this, where prosecutors brought charges against the people agents fired at have fizzled out when evidence didn support the administration initial claims In response to questions a DHS spokeswoman stood by past statements she and the agency have made blaming people shot by agents, and said, quote, federal law enforcement officials are facing a highly coordinated campaign of violence against them. Now, two other quick updates from Washington. All right, we'll go on On Capitol Hill. Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime companion who's serving a federal sentence for sex trafficking, appeared by video link from prison for a deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee. The committee had spent months trying to depose Maxwell as part of its Epstein investigation. Are you aware of Donald Trump ever engaging in sexual activity with an individual introduced to him by you or Jeffrey Epstein? I invoke my Fifth Amendment right to silence. But yesterday, Maxwell refused to answer any questions, a stance her lawyer suggested would only change under one condition. If this committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path. Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump. How the Trump administration has treated Maxwell has come under increasing scrutiny. She was moved to a minimum security prison last year, days after she met with Trump's deputy attorney general. And Democratic lawmakers say that more than a dozen people have come forward with whistleblower complaints, saying Maxwell is getting preferential treatment there, like unsupervised access to a laptop and being given bottled water. And according to documents reviewed by The Times, the White House plans to slash $600 million in public health funds to four states led by Democrats starting this week. California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota will all have programs affected, like an effort in Chicago to increase HIV prevention therapy among Black women and a project in San Francisco to reduce social isolation among LGBTQ seniors. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the grants are being terminated because they don't reflect the agency's priorities. Federal health officials recently revised their publicly stated priorities saying they moving away from focusing on diseases that predominantly affect minority populations saying that effort has often quote undermined core American values In Texas. Crooked Ken Paxton is soft on radical Islam. The Times has been covering how Republican officials and candidates are dramatically ramping up anti-Muslim rhetoric in the state's heated primary election season. Radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology. In recent years, politicians had whipped up voters by talking about the border, warning about things like migrant caravans. But that's become less of a resonant issue as border crossings have plummeted. And now they're increasingly focused on Islam. And stop Sharia law in Texas. Maze Middleton for Texas Attorney General. So the question that I had was, you know, what's driving this in Texas? And a major shift that has happened in the state is that the state has become a real hub for Muslims moving to the United States. David Goodman is the Times' Texas bureau chief. There's a really booming population, particularly outside of Dallas and Fort Worth. And in the suburbs, in that area of North Texas, they've just seen a massive increase in the number of Muslim residents, people coming from all over the world, but particularly South Asia. So Pakistan, India. I was talking to some associations up there and they said they used to have maybe a couple dozen mosques in the area, and now they're up over 100. So at least for some number of voters, particularly Christian conservative Republican voters, they're looking at this changing population and seeing it as a threat to their way of life. And so they are telling candidates and telling pollsters that this is one of their top concerns in this election. You know, there's a real simple reason why Texas has become a place where lots of Muslims now live. And it's because it's a place where they felt like you could have a community, a religious community, that was more or less left alone to practice its faith, much like, you know, many Christians do in Texas and have taken advantage of for, you know, for generations. And they really just felt like the kind of, the general Texas promise of greater freedom was what brought many of them here. And now there's a lot of fear and a lot of frustration. You know, Muslims in Texas are really concerned that a lot of this rhetoric is coming from the very top of the government. It's the governor, it's the attorney general, it's state leaders, you know, who are really fanning the flames of a lot of the sentiment rather than trying to tamp it down. And that's made them very worried about the future in the state. In Israel the government has taken unilateral steps to get more control over the West Bank a move that widely considered to be a violation of international law The changes revolve in part around making it easier for Jewish settlers to buy more land there. In announcing the new measures, a top Israeli official said, quote, we are deepening our roots in all parts of the land of Israel and burying the idea of a Palestinian state. It's the latest step in Israel's escalating effort to seize more of the West Bank. Recent military operations have led to the massive displacement of Palestinians there, more than at any time since the 1960s. And there's been record-high violence, as Jewish settlers have carried out hundreds of attacks on Palestinians and their property. Experts say Israel's latest steps are a clear violation of agreements the country signed decades ago. And yesterday, a group of eight countries in the region released a statement accusing Israel of illegal annexation. An official from the Palestinian Authority has urged the U.S. to step in, as President Trump has explicitly told Israel not to annex the West Bank. Trump is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow in Washington. And finally. And there's the ribbon. At the Olympics. And here's the little piece that is supposed to go in the ribbon to hold it in the medal. American Alpine skier Breezy Johnson had a little PSA for other winners. Don't jump in them. I was jumping in excitement and it broke. Be careful with your medals because they are coming apart. A little broken. Johnson's gold medal came off its ribbon. U.S. figure skater Alyssa Liuz did too. And footage of the German biathlon team celebrating shows the same thing. If you jump for joy, your medal can snap right off and fall to the floor. Olympic organizers are scrambling to figure out the problem, saying, obviously this is something we want to be perfect. But don't feel too bad, Italy. More than 100 athletes asked for their medals from the 2024 Paris Games to be replaced after those started crumbling and flaking, with one swimmer comparing the look of his to, quote, crocodile skin. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.