By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

(CNN) — The morning after President Donald Trump declared a “war on fraud” during his State of the Union address, senior Justice Department prosecutor Colin McDonald sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and said he would steadfastly follow the department’s tradition to focus only on the evidence.

“I am a career federal prosecutor,” McDonald said. “I follow the facts; I apply the law — those are the two considerations that come into play for me.”

His comment paraphrased a promise that’s core to the Justice Department, cited constantly by attorneys general under both Democratic and Republican administrations. But it didn’t directly address what he was asked: Whether McDonald, who is tapped to run a new DOJ division tasked with rooting out fraud, would follow an order from Trump to prosecute one of his own perceived enemies.

“You are now placed in a highly politicized division,” one of the Democratic senators on the committee, Mazie Hirono, warned. “We already know that the president considers the Department of Justice to be his law firm, Pam Bondi to be his lawyer. You are down the chain and I don’t see how you sit there and tell us that you are going to be independent, as much as you might want to be.”

The Trump administration has made allegations of widespread fraud a main focus of their prosecution efforts, as well as a political tool to criticize Democratic officials. Most notably, the administration has focused on a wide-ranging fraud scandal in Minnesota that prosecutors estimate could total more than $9 billion in stolen funds. The president has specifically laid blame at the feet of Democratic officials for allowing the state to become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”

McDonald’s career was relatively low profile until he moved with his wife and five children to Washington, DC, one year ago, leaving his decadelong post at the federal prosecutor’s office in California’s Southern District to work in Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s office. There, his work focused on everything from law enforcement issues to co-chairing the so-called Weaponization Working Group.

In January, Trump announced on Truth Social his nomination of McDonald as the “first ever Assistant Attorney General for National FRAUD Enforcement, a new Division at the Department of Justice, which I created to catch and stop FRAUDSTERS that have been STEALING from the American People.”

The new division was under scrutiny before McDonald was even nominated. The Justice Department already has multiple offices that investigate criminal and civil fraud cases, leading some lawmakers and legal experts to question whether creating the new division is necessary.

And Vice President JD Vance told reporters in early January that the role will be like that of a special counsel, but “run out of the White House under the supervision of me and the president United States,” which experts said would run afoul to longstanding department efforts to stay separate from political interference.

Vance, who Trump said in his speech would lead the “war on fraud,” said Wednesday that the effort would be a “whole government approach” that included other federal departments, including the Treasury Department

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Dana Karni, Oren Liebermann, CNN

La embajada de Estados Unidos en Israel anunció su primer evento brindando servicios diplomáticos en un asentamiento judío en la Ribera Occidental ocupada por Israel.

El anuncio de este martes indicó que las oficinas consulares proporcionarían “servicios rutinarios de pasaporte” a ciudadanos estadounidenses en el asentamiento de Efrat, al sur de Jerusalén, en un evento de un día que se realizará el viernes. La embajada señaló que este esfuerzo de alcance forma parte de la iniciativa “Libertad 250” para llegar a todos los ciudadanos estadounidenses.

Este movimiento parece señalar una mayor legitimación por parte de EE.UU. de los asentamientos israelíes en la Ribera Occidental, los cuales son considerados por gran parte de la comunidad internacional como tierras destinadas a un futuro Estado palestino.

Rompe con décadas de política exterior estadounidense, que ha sostenido que los asentamientos israelíes en la Ribera Occidental son un obstáculo para la paz. Pero el presidente Donald Trump no es ajeno a tales cambios drásticos en la política estadounidense. Durante su primer mandato, EE.UU. revirtió su posición histórica sobre los asentamientos cuando el entonces secretario de Estado Mike Pompeo dijo que no eran inconsistentes con el derecho internacional.

También se celebrarán eventos consulares en la ciudad palestina de Ramala y en el asentamiento de Beitar Illit en la Ribera Occidental, así como en las ciudades de Jerusalén, Haifa, Netanya y Beit Shemesh, aunque aún no se han anunciado fechas.

El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Israel celebró el anuncio como una “decisión histórica” para “extender los servicios consulares a ciudadanos estadounidenses en Judea y Samaria”, utilizando el término bíblico para la Ribera Occidental.

Xavier Abu Eid, exvocero del departamento de negociaciones de la Organización para la Liberación de Palestina, dijo en redes sociales: “Cinco meses después de que el presidente Trump dijo que está en contra de la anexión, sus representantes en el terreno están brindando servicios dentro de los asentamientos israelíes, tratando en efecto toda la tierra como parte de Israel. Normalizando la anexión paso a paso”.

Hace apenas unos días, el embajador de EE.UU. en Israel, Mike Huckabee, dijo al comentarista conservador Tucker Carlson que estaría “bien” si Israel tomara el control de gran parte de Medio Oriente. Al preguntársele si Israel debería poder tomar tierras que se extienden hasta el río Éufrates en Iraq, Huckabee respondió: “Estaría bien si lo tomaran todo”, antes de agregar, “pero no creo que estemos hablando de eso hoy”.

Un grupo de países árabes y musulmanes denunciaron los comentarios expansionistas de Huckabee calificándolos de “peligrosos e incendiarios” y llamándolos una “flagrante violación del derecho internacional”.

El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores palestino dijo el sábado que las declaraciones de Huckabee “contradicen los hechos religiosos e históricos, el derecho internacional y la posición expresada por el presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, de rechazar la anexión de la Ribera Occidental”.

Trump ha dicho que no permitirá que Israel anexe la Ribera Occidental, pero el Gobierno de Israel ha impulsado una oleada de expansión de asentamientos y ha afianzado su control sobre el territorio.

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