A key China ally with presidential ambitions in Peru traveled late last month to California to participate in a sending-off ceremony for a batch of trains donated by the Biden administration, according to reporting by Peruvian news outlets.

Peruvian outlet Justo Medio reported at the time that Lima Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who is rumored to be considering a run for president of Peru in 2026, was in California late last month to discuss the transport of a batch of CalTrain locomotives, which were donated to Lima by the U.S. government under the Biden administration.  

Nate Picarsic and Emily de La Bruyère, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), recently published a study on Lopez Aliaga’s ‘deep’ financial ties to China through his company PeruRail, which has seen its revenue rise to over $65 million per year due to increased shipments from Minera Las Bambas, a Chinese-owned joint venture counting state-owned mining giant China Minmetals as its majority backer.

The report alleged that China has been ‘cultivating’ Lopez Aliaga for higher office in Peru in hopes of growing its mineral and battery supplies harvesting in South America. The report goes so far as to dub Lopez Aliaga ‘China’s man in Peru.’

‘China’s mining presence in Peru is a direct boon for López Aliaga,’ the report said, giving Beijing ‘a powerful beachhead in Peru.’

The report said, ‘This leaves an influential Peruvian political leader aligned with and linked to China, its resource project, and the broader Belt and Road Initiative of which it is part.’

In the last several years, Chinese investment in South America, and Peru especially, has significantly increased. 

According to NBC News, China invested $1.3 billion in a massive deepwater port in Chancay, Peru, just north of Lima. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping participated in the port’s opening ceremony in 2024, during which he called the port the start of China’s 21st-century maritime Silk Road, according to the outlet.

According to Picarsic, China has also been investing heavily in Lima’s infrastructure, most notably dominating its electricity industry, all of which Lopez Aliaga has been a ‘linchpin’ piece in moving Chinese dominance forward.

Now, with Lopez Aliaga possibly entering Peru’s presidential race, Picarsic explained that this all ‘looks like a telltale sign of China’s handiwork.’

He also called the U.S.’s donation of trains to Peru ‘too little, too late’ to combat China’s growing influence in the region.

‘We’re coming with a donation of some number of decommissioned rail cars. But this guy, who is in cahoots with China, who’s coming to take them and he’s taking them back to run on Chinese rail feeding into a Chinese port, helping to move goods from a Chinese mine.’

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken participated in a train-donation ceremony last November in Lima, Peru, where he praised the project as an opportunity to ‘strengthen the ties between Peru and the United States’ and said the trains ‘are not just a symbol, but the practical manifestation of possibilities – the possibilities that come when we connect to each other.’

‘This agreement is a testament to the strength and durability of the U.S. and Peru’s longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship,’ he added. ‘I am so proud to have Caltrain be a member of that mutually beneficial relationship.’

President Trump once famously quipped that he could shoot a man on 5th Avenue and his strongest supporters would stay with him. For nearly a decade this has seemed true, but today, the president may have stumbled on the exception, in the sickening form of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

It turns out that Epstein is a major test for Trump in the eyes of his MAGA warriors. They want real answers from this administration, not fumbled document dumps and dismissive comments from the president himself, as we saw this week.

Now, we have FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino who is apparently threatening to resign over the debacle, if Attorney General Pam Bondi doesn’t go first and a bewildered MAGA base that feels it is being insulted and lied to by its government, again. 

To be sure, Epstein was an awful human being who preyed on poor underage girls for decades, according to testimony from the Ghislane Maxwell trial (which I covered in the courthouse), as well as a wealth of other evidence. But for most Americans, his crimes and suspicious death are a mere curiosity at this point.

It is much, much more for hard-core MAGA. For them, it is nothing less than a test to determine whether or not the Swamp that has lied to our faces for decades is still in control.

This week, Steve Bannon said the only way the Epstein story goes away is if ‘the 5 to 10 to 15 percent of the Trump movement, the Pepes and hardcores,’ finally just say, ‘I’ve had enough of it.’ He added that the basic question is, ‘who is running the country?’

Likewise, at the TPUSA convention in Florida this weekend, which is led by Trump ally Charlie Kirk and is as pure a distillation of the core MAGA movement as exists, my sources tell me that Epstein is very much the top topic of concern.

But why did this curious case of this infamous creep and his private island become a synecdoche for all government lies in the mind of MAGA? In other words, how did Epstein become the symbol of deep government corruption?

For one thing, the notion Epstein was allowed to kill himself inside a federal prison has always strained credulity. From missing video to conflicting medical exams, there have been legitimate questions about how a man rumored to have damaging information on powerful people and ties to the intelligence community could turn up dead in federal custody. While officials assured the nation there was nothing to see, MAGA seethed. ‘Epstein didn’t kill himself’ became not just a meme and a mantra, but a declaration that we’ve been gaslit by our government.

There is also the matter of Bondi seeming to indicate that there was an Epstein client list in a Fox News Channel interview, only to now say it doesn’t exist. She says she was talking about the file writ large, but it didn’t sound that way at the time.

Bongino, in recent weeks, along with FBI Director Kash Patel, told us that a video from the prison is proof positive that this was suicide, but it turns out there was a missing minute of footage, and the video may have been doctored.

This was after Bondi all but hijacked a group of influencers in the spring at the White House, handing out binders purporting to share new bombshell information that turned out to be as exciting as a list of grandma’s baking recipes. 

On top of all of this, we have President Trump himself, visibly annoyed in the White House, this week when asked about Epstein, ‘Are you still talking about this guy…this creep?’ Trump asked. Well, yes, Mr. President, they are.

All in all, the administration’s handling of the Epstein case has been about as transparent as a brick wall, one that appears to be crumbling.

Trump has expressed concern in the past about innocent people being listed in Epstein documents, as happened to attorney Alan Dershowitz and others, and according to Elon Musk, both Trump and Bannon appear in this evidence, though Musk offers no proof of this.

This may be a reasonable concern, but after decades of blatant lies and stalled prosecutions of Epstein, Trump’s hardcore supporters want more than assurances. They want to see the documents. They want to see everything.

And this is a central part of Trump’s appeal, his promise to open up the hood and expose the broken-down, deep-state engine of government. But promises are not enough. Where are the results? When are we going to Fort Knox as promised, for example?

A breathtaking hallmark of the second Trump term has been extreme transparency. The president takes questions almost daily, and answers with candor. Except, it seems, when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein.

For a quarter-century now, the Epstein case has been a combustible cocktail of power, greed, private islands and sexual abuse. It has ushered in both careful examination and wild conspiracy theories, and the only way to separate the two is with complete sunlight onto the evidence.

For President Trump, this may be the first time he is risking the loyalty of his longest, strongest supporters, and for a populist political movement that is pure poison. 

The time to release everything is now, the future of MAGA may depend on it.

FBI Director Kash Patel on Saturday squashed rumors of a rift inside the Trump administration’s law-and-order team, just hours before the president himself defended Attorney General Pam Bondi amid Jeffrey Epstein probe backlash.

The criticism came after the FBI and Department of Justice on Sunday released a memo shutting down theories about an alleged Epstein client list, finding a tell-all document exposing his associates did not exist. Fueling the fire was a one-minute gap in a surveillance video from Epstein’s cell, which was part of the evidence the DOJ released. The review found the disgraced financier died by suicide in jail in 2019.

Fox News reported Friday that Patel’s No. 2, Deputy Director Dan Bongino, was considering resigning if Bondi stayed on as head of the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI. There were unconfirmed reports that Patel might step down as well, but he shot that down with a social media post Saturday, saying ‘conspiracy theories’ about a potential resignation over Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files ‘just aren’t true.’

‘The conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been,’ Patel wrote. ‘It’s an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I’ll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me.’

Hours after Patel’s post, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to express unhappiness with his follower’s reaction.

Trump supporters posted videos to social media Saturday afternoon charring MAGA hats in protest.

‘What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB,’ Trump wrote. ‘We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening.’ 

He went on to describe Epstein as a ‘guy who never dies’ and shifted blame to former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA director John Brennan, and the Biden administration.

‘They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands,’ Trump wrote. ‘Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it?’

The president claimed that one year ago, the country was ‘DEAD,’ but is now ‘the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. 

‘Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,’ Trump wrote.

Rumors about a change in leadership were triggered by Patel’s apparent X biography change, where his title as FBI Director was removed to only read, ‘Fmr Chief of Staff @DeptofDefense.’

Multiple sources told Fox News Digital Bongino and Bondi butted heads at a White House meeting Wednesday, with Bongino accusing Bondi of a ‘lack of transparency from the start’ in the Epstein files probe. 

The former Secret Service agent-turned FBI official allegedly raised his voice at Trump’s White House chief of staff before storming out, and has since been weighing resignation over the episode, insiders said. 

Bondi and Patel, however, have presented a united front. Sources close to Bondi claim she has ‘no intention of stepping down’ and the pair are in constant communication.

‘Any attempt to sow division within this team is baseless and distracts from the real progress being made,’ White House Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital, emphasizing that Trump’s law-and-order lineup is working ‘seamlessly and with unity.’

‘President Trump has assembled a highly qualified and experienced law and order team dedicated to protecting Americans, holding criminals accountable, and delivering justice to victims,’ Fields added. ‘This work is being carried out seamlessly and with unity. Any attempt to sow division within this team is baseless and distracts from the real progress being made in restoring public safety and pursuing justice for all.’

The FBI did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ David Spunt, Amanda Macias, Jake Gibson, Ashley Oliver and Brie Stimson contributed to this report.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Saturday that charges against a doctor accused of destroying COVID-19 vaccines and giving children fake shots at their parents’ request have been dropped. 

‘At my direction @TheJusticeDept has dismissed charges against Dr. Kirk Moore,’ Bondi wrote on X. ‘Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so. He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today.’ 

Moore, whose trial got underway Monday, was facing decades in prison for allegedly destroying more than $28,000 in COVID-19 vaccines and fraudulently completing and distributing hundreds of vaccination record cards. 

The Utah-based plastic surgeon was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2023. 

Prosecutors say Moore and his three co-defendants ran a scheme out of Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah Inc. to ‘defraud the United States and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).’ 

On Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she was writing a letter to the Justice Department to urge it to drop charges against Moore. 

‘This man is a hero, not a criminal,’ she contended on X. ‘The charges were filed under Biden’s DOJ, not Trump.’

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also praised Moore on X in April, writing, ‘Dr. Moore deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing!’

Greene thanked Bondi on Saturday. 

‘Thank you AG Pam Bondi for dropping the WRONGFUL charges against Dr. Kirk Moore!’ she wrote on X. ‘We can never again allow our government to turn tyrannical under our watch. Thankfully, as soon as I told Pam Bondi about Dr. Moore’s case she swiftly moved to drop the charges against him. This is a big win!’

Bondi wrote that getting the charges against Moore dropped would not have been possible without Greene, ‘who brought this case to my attention. She has been a warrior for Dr. Moore and for ending the weaponization of government.’

Bondi’s actions come as some supporters of President Trump are calling for her resignation after the Justice Department and FBI on Sunday released a joint review that ended theories about an alleged Jeffrey Epstein client list, concluding there was no such list detailing the names of the world’s elite who allegedly took part in Epstein’s history as a sexual predator.

The DOJ also concluded the disgraced financier committed suicide in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting further sex trafficking charges. 

Public outrage ensued after the release of a prison surveillance video that the administration used to prove that no one entered Epstein’s cell in the hours leading up to his death.

The 10-hour video, though, has one minute missing, which has fueled conspiracy theories that the administration is participating in a cover-up involving Epstein’s death.

‘President Trump is proud of Attorney General Bondi’s efforts to execute his Make America Safe Again agenda, restore the integrity of the Department of Justice, and bring justice to victims of crime. The continued fixation on sowing division in President Trump’s Cabinet is baseless and unfounded in reality,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt siad.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is also considering resigning over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files after a heated argument with Bondi this week, a source told Fox News Digital this week.

Bongino has not been seen in his office since Wednesday, a source said, adding he has yet to make a final decision about his future. 

Fox News’ Amanda Macias, David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump on Saturday defended Attorney General Pam Bondi as doing a ‘fantastic job’ after she came under fire from some Trump supporters over the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. 

‘What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a fantastic job,’ Trump wrote in a lengthy post on Truth Social on Saturday. ‘We’re on one team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening.’ 

He continued to question why people were ‘giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden administration.’  

‘LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.’

While the 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, has resulted in a host of changes to bolster the Secret Service’s security practices, the agency has its work cut out for it in an era of unprecedented threats against the president, according to former Secret Service agents. 

Trump faces a plethora of threats, ranging from violent extremists backed by proxy groups, to domestic actors inspired to incite violence amid heightened political rhetoric, according to experts.

‘No U.S. president has been under so much threat of violence,’ Bill Gage, who served as a Secret Service special agent during Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations, told Fox News Digital Wednesday. ‘The threat on President Trump is the greatest that any president has ever faced.’

Twenty-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump from a rooftop during the rally — with one of the eight bullets shot grazing Trump’s ear. In addition to injuring two people, the gunman also shot and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, father and husband attending the rally. 

Months later, another man was apprehended and charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Both incidents are under investigation. 

Political rhetoric from the left that paints Trump as a threat to democracy is dangerous and could provide fodder for political radicals to believe assassinating the president is the way to save the country — potentially leading to a similar assassination attempt seen in Pennsylvania, Gage said.

Other factors contributing to the heightened threat levels include policies related to immigration or funding cuts from the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that are unpopular with the left, as well as hostile proxy groups who are backed by actors like Iran who oppose Trump, Gage said. 

‘That increases the threat level on Trump,’ Gage said. ‘There’s probably dozens and dozens of threats every day, just sort of insider threats, or threats within our own borders that the Secret Service has to run down.’ 

Specifically, Gage pointed to comments from leaders like Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who delivered an address to the nation in June where he claimed ‘democracy is under assault,’ following the Trump administration’s decision to dispatch thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to respond to the immigration riots in the Golden State and place them under federal command, rather than state command. 

‘Right now there is someone out there reading Newsom’s quotes, someone who wishes President Trump harm,’ Gage said in an email in June to Fox News Digital. ‘It is up to the USSS to stop them. Hopefully those wishing the President harm will not slip through the cracks.’

A spokesperson for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Trump isn’t the only subject that’s a potential target for politically motivated violence. 

Attacks against federal immigration officials are on the rise and a gunman opened fire against Border Patrol agents Monday at an annex in McAllen, Texas. Authorities have yet to identify a motive. 

However, lawmakers have not minced their words on Trump’s immigration agenda. In June, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., accused ICE of acting ‘like a terrorist force’ — comments she has since defended. 

Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., who oversees the House Homeland Security committee’s subcommittee on border security and enforcement, said in a Wednesday statement to Fox News Digital that ‘radical anti-law enforcement rhetoric’ has prompted the surge in violence against federal immigration officials.  

Meanwhile, threats continue to change, creating additional challenges for security forces like the Secret Service as they adapt. 

Although the Secret Service is taking action to enhance its security measures, the agency still faces ‘considerable vulnerabilities given the rising complexity and sophistication of the threats it faces,’ Tim Miller, who served as a Secret Service agent during Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s administrations, said in an email Wednesday to Fox News Digital.

‘The FBI has consistently warned about homegrown violent extremists, which remains a major concern,’ Miller said. 

While Miller characterized Butler as a ‘wake-up’ call for the Secret Service and said the incident is sharpening the agency’s ability to handle threats, there is still a lot of work that must be done, he said. 

‘The Secret Service is also still playing catch-up when it comes to adopting critical technology — especially in the areas of secure communications, drone surveillance, and real-time intelligence tools,’ Miller said. ‘These are not luxuries; they are vital to modern protective operations.’

A bipartisan House task force that investigated the attack found that the attempted assassination was ‘preventable,’ and determined various mistakes were not an isolated incident. 

At the top of the list of mistakes, the report identified that the Secret Service did not secure a ‘high-risk area’ next to the rally, the American Glass Research (AGR) grounds and building complex. Failure to secure this area ‘eventually allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement, climb on and traverse the roof of the AGR complex, and open fire.’ 

Other faults the task force found included handing over advance planning roles to inexperienced Secret Service personnel, along with various technology and communication breakdowns. 

‘Moreover, relevant threat information known by members of the intelligence community was not escalated to key personnel working the rally,’ the House task force said in its report. 

As a result, the agency has spearheaded a series of reforms. 

According to former Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe, immediate changes to the agency following Butler, Pennsylvania, included expanding the use of drones for surveillance purposes, and also incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones. 

The agency also overhauled its radio communications networks and interoperability of those networks with Secret Service personnel, and state and local law enforcement officers, Rowe told lawmakers on a bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt in December 2024.  Updates to these radio communications are a significant change, according to Gage, who noted that he could carry up to five radios at a time because an integrated system didn’t exist.

Rowe also told lawmakers that the Secret Service was aiming to up its staffing in the next year, and had placed more special agents in Trump’s security detail. Some of the additional $231 million in funding that Congress approved for the Secret Service in a stopgap spending bill in September 2024 to hire 1,000 new agents and officers in 2025 would go toward these increased hiring plans, Rowe said. 

A few other changes are in the pipeline, including possibly building a precise replica of the White House. Historically, agents have trained using Tyler Perry’s White House replica at his Atlanta film studio. 

Secret Service director Sean Curran said in an interview on Fox News’ ‘My View with Lara Trump’ in April that the agency is working with the White House to install such a building at the James J. Rowley Training Center, a 500-acre center in Laurel, Maryland. 

‘In order for our officers and agents to train up properly, they have to see what it’s like to be at the White House,’ Curran said. ‘It’s an important complex to know. There’s a lot of ins and outs, and something as simple as the local fire department showing up to help with a fire, and they need to know where they are going.’ 

Altogether, Congressional oversight bodies issued nearly 50 recommendations to the Secret Service following the assassination attempt, including ones related to better radio communications and planning for events. The agency reported Thursday that it has executed 21 of those recommendations, and is in the process of implementing 16 others. 

‘The reforms made over this last year are just the beginning, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, review recommendations and make additional changes as needed,’ the Secret Service said in a news release Thursday.