Electoral legitimacy and the midterm contest

The attorney general was removed after appearing before the House Oversight Committee on the Epstein files; the homeland security secretary departed following a fatal shooting by an officer in Minneapolis; the director of national intelligence resigned. The FBI dismissed agents who had worked on earlier investigations touching the president. Several posts were filled on a temporary basis pending Senate confirmation.

Kevin Warsh was nominated to succeed Jerome Powell as chair and cleared the Senate committee stage. An attempt to remove governor Lisa Cook was blocked in court, and a Justice Department referral against Powell was later dropped. Powell served out his term, publicly warning that the institution was undergoing a stress test and that lost credibility would be difficult to restore.

Congress approved a large multi-year funding increase for the agency. Deaths in custody rose and a measles outbreak was recorded at a Texas facility; judges ordered individual releases, including of a five-year-old and an 86-year-old French national. Agents were deployed to airports during a partial government shutdown, and their planned presence at stadiums during the World Cup drew majority public opposition in polling. State and city governments clashed with federal authorities over cooperation, and a county charged an officer over a non-fatal shooting.

The Justice Department released successive batches of files and video. Bill and Hillary Clinton testified and later faced contempt resolutions; Ghislaine Maxwell invoked the Fifth Amendment before the House Oversight Committee; the attorney general was subpoenaed and subsequently removed. Consequences reached well beyond the United States: a British former ambassador left the Labour Party and the prime minister's chief of staff resigned, a Goldman Sachs lawyer stepped down, French prosecutors searched premises linked to a former minister, and Norway and Poland opened inquiries.

Shots were fired at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, from which the president was evacuated; a suspect was charged and pleaded not guilty, and officials later said the president was the likely target. A separate armed man was killed entering the Mar-a-Lago perimeter, gunfire was exchanged near the White House and near the vice-president's motorcade, and the FBI reported foiling a drone-and-sniper plot against an event. A member of Congress was attacked at a town hall in Minneapolis, and a Supreme Court justice described heightened security and threats to the judiciary.

The FCC opened licence reviews at stations carrying a network programme after a presenter's joke about the first lady, and the network's lawyers accused the regulator of acting for political reasons. A federal judge blocked an order ending funding for NPR and PBS on First Amendment grounds. The Pentagon moved to restrict press access again after losing in court, a $10 billion defamation suit was refiled against a newspaper, and the Committee to Protect Journalists and foreign outlets recorded visa revocations affecting a Costa Rican newspaper's executives.