Trump claims secret ‘discombobulator’ weapon was used to help capture Maduro

PUBLISHED Jan 25, 2026, 8:00 AM ET / CNN

By Kaanita Iyer, Jim Sciutto

12 hr ago

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President Donald Trump during a news conference at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026.

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump said the US used a weapon he referred to as a “discombobulator” to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro this month, but a senior US official said he’s likely conflating tools used by the US military.

“The discombobulator, I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview that published Saturday but added that it “made [enemy] equipment not work” during the capture.

The president may be conflating several capabilities into a single weapon that doesn’t exist, a senior US official told CNN. US forces did use cyber tools to disable early warning and other Venezuelan defense systems during the operation, it also utilized existing acoustic systems to disorient personnel on the ground.

The US military also for years has had a heat ray weapon, called the Active Denial System, which uses directed, pulsed energy. It’s not clear whether that was used as well.

CNN has previously reported that the ADS, according to the US military, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away. It penetrates human skin and creates a heating sensation that causes people to move away from the beam.

A few days after Maduro’s capture, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted comments purportedly from a Venezuelan security guard who claimed the US “launched something” during the operation that “was like a very intense sound wave.”

“Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside,” the security guard added. “We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”

That account hasn’t been verified by CNN.

According to CNN’s analysis of the January 3 operation, the US mission began with a series of strikes at targets across the country, which knocked out radar, communications and air defense infrastructure and cleared a path for US helicopters.

More than 150 aircraft – including bombers, fighters, intelligence and surveillance platforms – were launched from 20 bases on land and sea, according to Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

According to one expert, the US also likely used one-way attack drones for the strikes in the coastal city of Higuerote, which is the home to Venezuelan air defense systems.

Videos from when US forces landed inside the military complex of Fort Tiuna show sustained gunfire eruptions, the sound of which military experts say is consistent with Direct Action Penetrator MH-60 Black Hawks, a type of American attack helicopter, firing 30-millimeter autocannons.

The exact location within Fort Tiuna where Maduro was captured, and the details of what happened when US forces landed inside it, have not been fully revealed.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

Sen. Angus King says he won’t vote for package with ICE funding, but “we don’t have to have a shutdown”

January 25, 2026 / 4:30 PM EST / CBS News

Washington — Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine said Sunday that he won’t vote for a package to fund the government if it includes funding for ICE, as lawmakers scramble to pass a slate of funding bills to stave off a partial government shutdown by Friday — but he argued that “we don’t have to have a shutdown.”

“I hate shutdowns,” King said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

“But I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances — what they’re doing in my state, what we saw yesterday in Minneapolis,” the senator continued, referring to an immigration enforcement operation launched in Maine last week.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Saturday, after the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old Minneapolis man by federal agents, that Democrats will not put up the necessary votes to advance a funding package to prevent a partial government shutdown if it includes funds for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.

So far, six of the 12 appropriations bills have been passed by Congress and signed into law. The Senate has until Friday, Jan. 30 to approve the final six bills, which have been packaged together, after they passed the House in recent weeks. That package includes a bill that would fund DHS until the end of the fiscal year. If those final six bills aren’t passed by the Senate and signed by President Trump by Friday, the agencies that they cover will begin to shut down.

Schumer in a statement Sunday said, “Senate Democrats will not allow the current DHS funding bill to move forward.”

“Senate Republicans have seen the same horrific footage that all Americans have watched of the blatant abuses of Americans by ICE in Minnesota,” Schumer said. “The appalling murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis must lead Republicans to join Democrats in overhauling ICE and CBP to protect the public. People should be safe from abuse by their own government.”

Schumer urged Republicans to “work with Democrats to advance the other five funding bills while we work to rewrite the DHS bill.”

King, who caucuses with Democrats, was among a trio of senators who negotiated a deal with Republicans to reopen the government during the longest shutdown in history last year. He argued that “there’s an easy way out” of the funding fight, saying Senate Majority Leader John Thune should separate the DHS bill from the other five funding measures.

“If those bills pass, 96% of the federal government is funded,” King said. “Take up DHS by itself, let’s have an honest negotiation, put some guardrails on what’s going on, some accountability, and that would solve this problem.”

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US military says 2 killed in eastern Pacific boat strike, with 1 survivor

2026-01-23 / CNN

By Clay Voytek, Aleena Fayaz
Updated 9 hr ago
Updated Jan 23, 2026, 9:12 PM ET
PUBLISHED Jan 23, 2026, 5:36 PM ET

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This screengrab taken from a video shows an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, before it was struck on Friday, January 23, 2026. US Southern Command said that the strike killed two people and left one survivor.

US Southern Command

The US military conducted a strike against another alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Friday, killing two people with one survivor, according to US Southern Command.

“On Jan. 23, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” SOUTHCOM wrote on X.

The Coast Guard told CNN in a statement it was notified by SOUTHCOM and is coordinating search and rescue operations for the survivor.

At least 117 people have now been killed in strikes on suspected drug boats as part of a campaign, dubbed Operation Southern Spear, that the Trump administration has said is aimed at curtailing narcotics trafficking.

The pace of US strikes has slowed so far this year. The military most recently struck two boats on December 31, killing 5.

Friday’s attack marks the first known strike against alleged drug-trafficking boats since the US military operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from Caracas and brought him to New York to face criminal charges. Maduro pleaded not guilty to the charges earlier this month.

Publicly, US officials have said the goal of the boat strikes and a military buildup in the Caribbean is to stop the flow of drugs into the US, but Trump administration officials previously acknowledged in private that the US pressure campaign had been aimed at ousting Maduro.

Previous strikes left survivors

US military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats have previously left survivors, including a strike on December 30 in which an unspecified number of people abandoned their vessel.

The Coast Guard suspended its search for those people three days later.

Last October, the US picked up two survivors from an attack on a submarine in the Caribbean and soon after released them to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia. Two other crew members were killed in that strike.

The US military’s controversial first strike in the operation on September 2 also left survivors. When an initial hit on the alleged drug-trafficking boat did not sink it, the military then carried out a second strike that killed two survivors who were holding onto the capsized vessel.

Democratic lawmakers have pressured the Trump administration for answers about the “double-tap” strike, including calling for the video to be released to the public, with some suggesting the US military may have committed a war crime by killing the survivors.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Correction:This story has been updated to accurately reflect the details of the December 31 strike.

FBI agent who initially investigated fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis has resigned

2026-01-24T00:16:07.630Z / CNN Politics

By

[Evan Perez]

,

[Holmes Lybrand]

Updated 11 hr ago

Updated Jan 23, 2026, 7:36 PM ET

PUBLISHED Jan 23, 2026, 7:16 PM ET

Federal agencies Gun violence Donald Trump

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A bullet hole is seen in the windshield of Renee Good’s car, after she was shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on January 7.

Tom Baker/AP

The FBI agent who initially began working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good has resigned from the bureau, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Soon after the agent opened the civil rights investigation, she was ordered to reclassify it as an investigation into an assault on the officer. The FBI blocked the BCA from participating in the investigation.

The New York Times [first reported] the resignation.

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The agent’s resignation comes as the agency has undergone another purge of seasoned FBI agents across several states, multiple sources familiar with the departures told CNN. Some of the people who are being pushed out were confronted after the bureau conducted a review of the FBI’s internal messaging system and discovered instances when they made negative comments about President Donald Trump, according to the people familiar.

Some of those comments go as far back as a decade, the sources said.

The removals are part of an ongoing effort led by Director Kash Patel to oust individuals involved in past investigations, including those related to Trump, and include top FBI officials in New Orleans, Miami and beyond.

The new slate of expulsions comes months after Patel was sued by three former senior FBI officials — including the former acting FBI director who served at the beginning of Trump’s second administration — who allege Patel was instructed to fire agents who worked on past Trump investigation or else be fired himself.

During his confirmation hearing last January, Patel told members of Congress that no one in the FBI “will be terminated for case assignments” and said he “will not … go backwards.”

“There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken,” Patel said.

This summer, the FBI Agents Association, a non-profit that provides various resources to current and former agents, warned lawmakers in a letter that Patel was “making personnel decisions without providing the due process protections promised to the recently terminated law enforcement officers under federal law.”

“None of the affected Agents were previously accused of misconduct or given notice and an opportunity to defend themselves,” the letter stated, “even though well-established FBI policy … required that these Agents be provided with both.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Epstein’s inner circle Les Wexner, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn subpoenaed to testify before House Oversight Committee

Updated on: January 23, 2026 / 10:01 PM EST / CBS News

[Jeffrey Epstein]’s inner circle, Les Wexner, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, were formally issued subpoenas Friday to testify before the House Oversight Committee, as key associates of the convicted sex offender.

“Oversight Democrats fought hard to get these subpoenas and forced the vote on Republicans. Now, the Committee will hear directly from the individuals most closely involved in Epstein’s inner circle. We will not stop until we get answers,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

Indyke, Epstein’s lawyer; Khan, his accountant, and Wexner, his billionaire financial client and longtime benefactor, were identified as critical to the investigation by Epstein survivors. Documents released in earlier lawsuits and among the recent U.S. Department of Justice [trove show a complex and tangled] relationship between Epstein and the three men.

Daniel H. Weiner, an attorney for Indyke and Kahn, said in a statement to CBS News that the two accepted the subpoenas and intend to cooperate with the committee, but added that the allegations in the subpoena are “false.”

“It is worth emphasizing that not a single woman has ever accused either Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse,” Weiner said in the statement. “Indyke and Kahn did not socialize with Mr. Epstein, and they have always rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein’s actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr. Epstein.”

Indyke first began working with Epstein in 1986 at a small boutique law firm in New York City that handled Epstein’s real estate deals. He later claimed Epstein as a mentor and was exclusively employed by Epstein by the 1990s. Indyke helped establish Epstein’s corporate and personal base of operations in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was involved in almost every aspect of Epstein’s business and personal affairs and was paid millions of dollars for his services, according to court documents.

Kahn also worked closely with Epstein, managing his finances and investments. He managed other minutiae for Epstein, such as renovations on his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Indyke and Kahn recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated Epstein’s trafficking network. Court documents show they were accused of facilitating sham marriages between women Epstein was abusing for immigration purposes.

Epstein worked with Wexner, a billionaire who founded The Limited clothing company, from the mid-1980s as his financial manager and had broad control over Wexner’s fortune. They parted ways after Epstein’s 2006 arrest but stayed in touch, documents show.

Attorney Brad Edwards, who has represented many of Epstein’s victims, told CBS News: “Epstein is dead. If anyone has questions they would ask of Epstein on any topic, those questions should either be directed to Darren, Rich or Leslie [Wexner].”

Epstein appointed Indyke and Kahn as executors of his will. They now control the estate.

CBS News has reached out to Wexner for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed several figures in the convicted sex offender’s network since last August, when former U.S. Attorney General William Barr [testified about his pledge] to personally lead the investigation into Epstein’s death in a Manhattan detention center.

In the months since then, various people have testified — while the panel has accepted written statements from others — with scant new information on Epstein released. On Wednesday, the [committee recommended holding] former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt after the pair [refused to appear]in person before the Republican-led panel. The Clintons submitted sworn declarations to the committee last week.

[Ghislane Maxwell], Epstein’s former girlfriend who is serving 20 years in federal prison for a sex trafficking conviction, is scheduled to appear before the committee on Feb. 9. Her lawyers told members that she plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Wexner is set to testify Feb. 18, Kahn on Feb. 25, and Indyke is scheduled for March 5, 2026.