A 22-year-old woman died and five others were injured after gunfire broke out early Sunday at a rave in northern Switzerland, authorities said, prompting police to mount a major search for the people behind the attack.

The violence unfolded in the Schachen district of Aarau, the capital of Switzerland’s Aargau canton, where the “Aarau Rave VOL. 7” was taking place at a horse-racing venue, Swiss broadcaster SRF reported.

Aargau cantonal police said the young woman succumbed to her injuries at the scene. Four men and one other woman, ranging in age from 24 to 27, were transported to hospitals with wounds described as varying from minor to serious.

Investigators said all six people who were shot live in Switzerland.

Police spokesman Pascal Wenzel told SRF that authorities were alerted to the shooting shortly after 2:30 a.m. The event had been scheduled to end at 2 a.m., according to SRF, which cited information from the organizers’ website.

Authorities said the perpetrator or perpetrators remained unidentified and that possible motives and the circumstances surrounding the shooting were still unclear.

A large area surrounding the horse-racing track, swimming pool and nearby sports field was cordoned off as police searched the area. Authorities also increased their presence elsewhere in Aarau as a precaution and urged members of the public to stay away.

The response included police officers, firefighters and several emergency medical services, according to SRF. The broadcaster reported that a cantonal disaster-response unit, the Argus police special unit and a Swiss military Super Puma helicopter were also involved.

Police in neighboring Germany were also assisting with the search as part of routine cross-border cooperation, a spokesman in Freiburg told the German news agency dpa, according to SRF.

Police appealed to witnesses to provide investigators with videos or photographs from the event and established an information line for relatives and eyewitnesses.

Swiss DJ Tekibo, who performed at the rave, later wrote on Instagram that what happened was “absolutely heartbreaking” and said raves should be places of freedom and safety. He also said he had lost an “important friend,” though SRF reported that it was not clear whom he was referring to.

Police said their investigation and search operation remained ongoing.

Justin Rose took the fastest possible route to the cup Sunday at East Lake, delivering a highlight-reel moment in the final round of the Tour Championship.

The former U.S. Open champion authored one of the tournament’s signature shots on the 208-yard par-3 ninth, flushing a 6-iron straight at the pin and watching it vanish for a hole-in-one.

Rose’s tee shot came off the club at 141 mph and never required a putter. Once the ball dropped, the 45-year-old celebrated with fist pumps, a leap and hugs with his caddie as the East Lake crowd roared.

The ace lifted Rose from 6 under to 8 under for the tournament, injecting fresh energy into a final round that opened with Viktor Hovland holding a one-shot advantage over Ryan Gerard.

Rose had already positioned himself to make a move earlier in the week. He arrived at the Tour Championship as a 50/1 long-shot option highlighted and surged into contention Friday with a bogey-free 65.

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That round featured five birdies and left Rose at 7 under through 36 holes, three shots behind the lead at the time. He followed with a 69 Saturday before beginning Sunday at 8 under.

The ace added another memorable moment to a career that has included the 2013 U.S. Open, Olympic gold, a stint as world No. 1 and the 2018 FedEx Cup. The Post recently revisited Rose’s remarkable career and his breakout as a 17-year-old amateur at the 1998 Open Championship.

He may have entered Sunday needing plenty of help to capture another FedEx Cup.

For one hole, at least, Rose needed none at all.

After years largely out of the spotlight, Sandra Bullock’s sudden return to the public eye has been striking. The actress is now back on the promotional circuit alongside Nicole Kidman for Practical Magic 2, the long-awaited follow-up to their beloved 1998 romantic fantasy film.

Then again, perhaps a little unexpected reappearance is fitting for a story about witches. The sequel, Bullock’s first film in four years, brings her and Kidman back together as the spell-casting Owens sisters, Sally and Gilly, nearly three decades after the original movie. In that film, Bullock’s Sally turns away from magic after a family curse claims the life of her husband.

For Bullock, fiction later took on a painful echo in real life. Her longtime partner, Bryan Randall, died in August 2023 at the age of 57 after battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS, a degenerative disease. In the wake of his illness and death, the actress stepped back from Hollywood.

“When Bryan got sick, after Lost City [the 2022 adventure comedy], I was like, ‘I can’t.’ I thought I was going to have a little bit of a mental issue,” Bullock, 62, said this week during an appearance on the SmartLess podcast with hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes.

Bullock explained that her grief began long before Randall’s death. The professional photographer and former model, whom she has called “the love of my life,” had received his ALS diagnosis three years earlier, leaving her to mourn in stages as the disease progressed.

However, one detail of Bullock’s chat might surprise friends and family of Randall. She insisted she ‘wasn’t allowed to speak’ about his battle against ALS – also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease – because he had specifically asked that she keep it secret.

‘That was the request, and I honored it,’ she said. ‘He asked me not to share… and it isolated me in the process.’

However, according to insiders close to Randall, it was the actress and not her boyfriend who was responsible for the thick curtain that came down over their lives – and especially his – during their eight years together.

Although the established narrative has been that Bullock – once Hollywood’s highest-paid actress and Oscar-winning star of The Blind Side – gave up on stardom to concentrate on family and particularly her ailing lover, the Daily Mail has learned that some of that family – together with close friends of Randall – felt frozen out by a ‘controlling’ star who cut him off from the life he had before they met. And who, it’s also claimed, has cut off contact with his family since his death.

An insider said that Bullock hasn’t been in touch with Randall’s daughter, Skylar, since his death even though they raised her together, along with a younger daughter, Laila, who the actress adopted in 2015.

Of the star’s distancing from the Randall family, the source said: ‘His mom, Evie, has taken it really hard. She’s such a person of faith though that she just leans on her faith for that pain. His daughter, Skylar, she’s doing great. She’s obviously very sad about her dad, but she is doing really great.’

History suggests that the romantic union of a Hollywood star and a commoner or ‘civilian’- particularly someone who doesn’t work in the entertainment industry – is rarely easy.

There are inevitably complications that don’t crop up in conventional relationships between conventional people. Someone has to give ground, and it isn’t difficult to predict who that is expected to be.

From the five-year marriage in the 1990s of Elizabeth Taylor to construction worker Larry Fortensky to Ariana Grande’s two-year union with real estate broker Dalton Gomez that lasted from 2021 to 2023, there are plenty of failures. A common complaint from the non-famous partner is the erasure of their identity as they become simply Mr Taylor or Mr Grande, part of the entourage like the personal assistant and bodyguard.

Perhaps in part because he never gave interviews, there’s no evidence that Randall resented being Mr Bullock.

However, it’s now clear that his old friends and family did.

‘Once he started dating her, he had to drop speaking to basically everyone in his life except for his immediate family,’ a Randall insider told the Daily Mail. ‘It created so much chaos.’

The source said this transformation ‘started so subtly, and then all of a sudden, you start to realize that he’s never coming back home again, he’s never calling again.’

After meeting Bullock, he rarely visited his family and friends back in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, the Daily Mail was told. Friends who texted him rarely received any response.

One exception was the funeral of his father, Gary, who died in December 2016. He was joined by Bullock. ‘She was lovely and kind at the funeral,’ said an eyewitness. ‘Approachable, cordial. Did not make a scene over her being there.’

The circumstances that brought them together were worthy of one of Bullock’s romantic comedies. They began dating in 2015 after meeting at the birthday party of her adopted son Louis, which Randall had been hired to photograph.

Bullock and Randall went public about their romance in October 2015 when he was on the actress’s arm at the premiere of her movie, Our Brand is Crisis. Insiders said they were inseparable although given Bullock’s huge workload, that inevitably meant her lover having to follow in her trail.

Over the eight years they spent together, they repeatedly had to deny rumors they had got engaged or even married.

‘I don’t need a paper to be a devoted partner and devoted mother,’ Bullock, whose former boyfriends included Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Gosling, said in 2021.

Instead, in 2017, they exchanged ‘vows’ (but not marriage ones) on the beach at a luxury resort – Three Bees – on Harbor Island in the Bahamas that had become a ‘magical place’ to them.

As sources would later confirm, Bullock’s antipathy towards marriage was rooted in the messy failure of her previous trip down the aisle. In 2005, she wed motorbike builder and Monster Garage host Jesse James, and together they fought a custody battle over his daughter with his ex-porn star second wife.

But their union ended acrimoniously after just five years amid allegations from several women that they’d had an affair with James during his marriage to Bullock.

James insisted the ‘vast majority’ of the allegations were untrue but, admitted that ‘there is only one person to blame for this whole situation and that is me.’ He asked the star and their children to eventually ‘find it in their hearts to forgive me’ for their ‘pain and embarrassment.’

James probably caused further pain and embarrassment when he subsequently checked into rehab, reportedly to ‘deal with personal issues’ and save his marriage. A month later, Bullock filed for divorce.

For any female star – especially one that had been dubbed ‘America’s sweetheart’ for her wholesome, down-to-earth image – it must have been not only wounding but mortifyingly embarrassing.

So, if she really did, as now alleged, keep Randall on a short leash, it seems reasonable to assume that her humiliating experience with the wayward James might have been a factor in her cautiousness.

And the Daily Mail has learned that Randall – who never gave interviews – was perhaps someone who might cause problems for an image-conscious star. Friends say the pre-Bullock Randall was a gregarious and charismatic man who loved motorbikes and fishing.

But he was also a ‘big partier’ who ‘struggled a lot with alcohol and drugs.’ Randall’s troubled past, which emerged soon after his romance with Bullock was revealed, included his being attacked as a useless father and a drug addict.

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He was in rehabilitation for drug abuse when his then-fiancée Janine Staten was pregnant with their daughter, Skylar, in the early 1990s. Sources said he was not present during Skylar’s early life and had a difficult relationship with her as she got older.

Court documents showed that at one time, he was ordered to pay ten months in backdated child support totaling nearly $2,000.

However, relatives said he subsequently ‘manned up to his responsibilities as a father,’ after Staten, a heroin addict, died of a drugs overdose, leaving him as the guardian of his daughter, then 14.

After half a dozen stints in rehab, he eventually got sober. Taking up photography, said a source this week, did him enormous good ‘because editing takes a lot of time – he needed something that could keep his mind busy so he wouldn’t want to drink.’

Wayne Scot Lukas, a celebrity fashion stylist and former host of What Not To Wear who became a friend of Randall when the latter was starting out as a model in New York in the early 1980s, told the Daily Mail: ‘I knew Bryan when he was kind of in throes of addiction. I knew him when he was out of addiction. When I booked him the first time, I think he was half in and half out.’

He went on: ‘Brian had a heart of gold, so I understand why [Bullock] picked him, and I think he was a huge catch for her. I don’t know if he could handle the Hollywood life that she had, and I think that it was good that he was hidden away, but I don’t know if that was as good for his psyche because he had so much to offer.’

Lukas said he’d heard that Bullock was ‘very particular and semi-controlling when it comes to her image’ and protecting her privacy. But he added: ‘I don’t have anything bad to say about her other than [Randall] was hidden away, locked in at Rapunzel’s castle. And if that was his choice, then I respect that. But it probably kept him sober also.’

He added: ‘God bless her for taking care of him. I’m sure before he had the ALS, she had a great time with him. As long as he was sober, he was a light.’

A Randall insider believes Bullock was particularly wary of his relationships with other women.

‘She didn’t want her image tarnished,’ the source claimed. ‘She didn’t want a photo coming out of Bryan with another women, for example – because he had a lot of female friends – and then the media perceive it as he’s ‘cheating on her’.

‘It was like she took measures to avoid any little thing that could happen and become a problem. I’m sure he loved her that much that he was willing to do whatever she wanted. She’s someone who’s hard not to love.’

Mia St John, ex-professional boxer and founder of the Mia St John Foundation – once a close friend of Randall and mother of one of his ex-girlfriends, Paris – said she stayed in touch with him ‘for a little bit’ after he met Bullock, but they gradually lost contact ‘until finally I didn’t hear from him at all.’ Asked if she believed that the actress wanted to distance him from other women, she replied: ‘Yeah, for sure.’

If the onset of severe illness is often the moment that friends and family come together, that reportedly didn’t happen when, in 2020, Randall was diagnosed with the incurable neurodegenerative disorder, ALS.

‘Bryan didn’t want people to know what he was going through,’ said the insider. ‘Many of his friends and distant relatives had no idea [that he had the disease] and only found out when it came out in the news.’

The first public indication that all was not well came that year when he didn’t travel with Bullock to Vancouver where she was filming The Unforgivable. Until then he had traveled everywhere with her along with her trainer, the nannies, security and the children.

He was once again absent during filming for The Lost City which took place in the Dominican Republic, in the summer of 2021.

At the time, sources said that Bullock had introduced a strict Covid testing protocol at her home in Beverly Hills and it was still in place in Randall’s final months. He remained tucked away at the back of the huge mansion and few people were invited round. The only regular visitors were medical staff involved in Randall’s treatment and care.

According to friends, Bullock stopped throwing her annual Easter parties at the house, and the same went for her big bashes at Thanksgivings and Christmas in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Her circle of friends shrank and when she did see any of them, she usually went to their homes.

‘She wouldn’t let anyone come to her place anymore unless it was outside by the pool,’ said an insider at the time.

Although sources said Bullock remained devoted to Randall throughout his illness and didn’t stint on his medical care, his condition did put a strain on their relationship.

One source told the Daily Mail: ‘The relationship was absolutely strained by it, and it was really hard for the children.

‘He had been living in one of her Malibu properties for a while just because it was nicer for him to be there, by the ocean, and I think some people assumed they had split because it looked like they were living separately, but they weren’t.’

Although his mother and daughter separately visited him in the final months of his life and knew about his declining condition, others in his circle were completely taken by surprise by his death.

‘[I had] Zero idea. Zero,’ recalled Wayne Scot Lukas. ‘That’s how private it was. Nobody knew, just so you know… There were no funerals. There were no calls. He was alive and then he was dead… Almost like he disappeared.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Bullock’s representative for comment.

An insider confirmed that ‘the situation surrounding his death was very controlled.’ Bullock, they said, wanted to ‘control the narrative’ so close friends and relatives beyond his immediate family were ‘kept in the dark.’

There was no public funeral or memorial service.

‘He had such a vibrant life before Sandra… to just quietly whisper that he passed and nobody really knew anything. Nobody got to say goodbye. It was all just very controlled and quiet. And it was strange and sad. It was like he got boiled down to just being her boyfriend.’

There was a celebration, however, but inevitably it was a very quiet one. As revealed by her sister, on December 30, 2023, the day that would have been his birthday, Bullock scattered Randall’s ashes in the Snake River in Wyoming.

‘A quiet gesture, far from everything,’ Bullock’s sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado, wrote of the day. ‘Far from flashes, cameras and noise.’

And, sadly, far from the friends and family who would have liked to celebrate his life, too.

Tuskegee University President Dr. Mark Brown, a retired U.S. Air Force major general, is standing by the historically Black university’s renewed focus on student attire and campus conduct, arguing the standards are designed to help students enter professional spaces with confidence — not to restrict individual expression.

“If you raise the bar, students will reach it,” Brown told News Media in an interview.

“Why don’t we raise the bar? That’s what I think we ought to do. We’re unapologetic about that part.”

Brown’s comments followed a memo sent before students returned to campus that outlined expectations for professional dress. The guidance called for business suits and appropriate shoes at business-style meetings, professional attire in classrooms and a ban on non-religious head coverings. According to Brown, the early days of the academic year showed students were already meeting the challenge.

“I had a wonderful time riding around and walking around the campus on the first and the second day of class,” he said. “The bar was raised and it was being reached. “But the same is true as if you lower the bar, or if you go past the mistake and fail to address it: That becomes the standard. And so, you know, we are a university of standards. I believe all of higher education should be a university standards.”

The university’s policy has drawn criticism from freedom of expression advocates over restrictions that include bans on items such as durags and bonnets, with some critics framing the rules as “respectability politics.”

Brown, however, said the dress code should be viewed as one part of a much broader push toward student success that includes punctuality, attendance, internships, professional certifications, interview preparation and workplace readiness.

“The focus is how do I make you a professional in whatever space you want to go in?” he said.

“Any higher education institution in the country that’s not focused on student success, no matter what type of university that is, is not focused where they should be. That’s why we exist. That’s exactly why we exist.”

The policy itself is not new, Brown said, but Tuskegee is placing “greater emphasis” on it as part of an effort to ensure graduates leave campus prepared not only with a degree, but with the habits employers expect.

“It’s not the world we wish you were going into, it’s the world you’re going to go into,” Brown said. “It’s not the way that we wish an employer would perceive you. It’s the way the employer will perceive you.”

Brown said the debate over whether college is worth the cost has put greater pressure on universities to demonstrate that students are being prepared for what comes after graduation.

“What do you want when you send your son or daughter to college?” Brown said. “What do you expect us to do and what do you expect to happen four or five years from now when they graduate?”

Brown said Tuskegee wants students to leave with more than a grade-point average and a diploma.

“We want them job-ready,” he said.

He pointed to punctuality as one example of a habit that may appear minor in the classroom but can carry significant consequences in the workplace.

“Would it be sad for us to allow a student to come to class late, practice that for four to five years, and then find out that no matter how great they were with their 4.0 or 3.8 GPA, it won’t keep them that job?” he said.

Critics have also questioned whether professional dress requirements could place an added financial burden on students. Brown said Tuskegee is prepared to address that concern directly.

About 70% of students on campus are Pell Grant eligible, he said, and the university’s Golden Tigers Community Closet is available to students who need help obtaining professional clothing.

“If a student needs help with that, we’re going to help them,” Brown said. “That’s not going to be the barrier between compliance and getting ready. We’re going to remove that barrier.”

The university also plans to bring in a professional several times during the school year to teach students the details of business attire, including how to button a coat and properly wear a tie.

“I really want us to bear down and double click, to use a common term these days, on the fact that we have to care as much about what happens in school as what happens after school,” he said.

Brown pointed to the school’s recent employment numbers as evidence that its approach is producing results. He said roughly 70% of students who graduated in May already had jobs lined up.

“Seven out of every 10,” Brown said. “That is the challenge. That’s what we should be debating.”

Brown is facing criticism from those objecting to Tuskegee’s renewed emphasis on its dress code, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a student rights advocacy group, due to restrictions on durags and other clothing associated with Black culture.

“Tuskegee can’t promise students broad freedom of expression while enforcing a sweeping dress code that regulates ordinary, non-disruptive expression,” FIRE Senior Program Counsel Haley Gluhanich told News Media in a statement. “Preparing students for professional life is a legitimate goal, but it does not hinge on requirements about what adults wear to class or lunch.”

“As a private university, Tuskegee may choose to place other values ahead of expressive freedom, but if it does, it should be honest with current and prospective students about the limits of its commitment to free expression,” Gluhanich added.

In response to criticism, Brown pointed to Tuskegee’s history, including the Tuskegee Airmen, as an example of preparing students to demonstrate competence even in a society where prejudice exists.

“My race and my ethnicity would have absolutely nothing to do about it,” Brown said. “That’s not the subject. The subject is social and economic mobility and student success.”

“It’s not that there wasn’t prejudice in the world,” Brown said. “There’s prejudice in the world today. There’s going to be prejudice tomorrow.”

He is not dismissing broader debates over culture, expression or discrimination, but he argued that Tuskegee’s immediate responsibility is preparing its students to succeed amid those realities.

“I’m not discarding the debates,” he said. “The debates are great. I think America is great because we have debate. But that’s not the purpose of the university in this sense. The purpose of a university is, while the debates go on, to be prepared.”

Brown has heard the criticism but has not encountered significant pushback from Tuskegee students. He also said he has received significant positive feedback from leaders at other universities.

“This is not unique,” Brown said. “If you go to many universities, they have dress codes, they have these kinds of things. Perhaps we are, at this moment, [placing] a greater emphasis.”

For Brown, the larger question is whether universities view their responsibility to students as ending at graduation.

“If we think the degree ends the relationship, I do not,” Brown said. “I think the relationship and the value of the time here ends down the road, when that student is getting a return on investment.

“That matters the most for those students who are economically at a disadvantage, who are using education as a springboard to do better,” he concluded. “Again, every college president, chancellor – I’ve got to believe – wants that for their students.

“But do we expect them to practice that when they start work? Or isn’t the classroom an extension of that? Isn’t it a laboratory by which you practice these very important skills? I think it is.”

The Buccaneers are showing real confidence in undrafted rookie quarterback Jalon Daniels.

Tampa Bay has elevated Daniels to the backup role behind Baker Mayfield after choosing to move on from veteran Jake Browning.

Daniels, 23, earned the No. 2 spot with a strong training camp and preseason performance, according to NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport.

Browning, who joined the Buccaneers in the offseason on a deal that included $400,000 guaranteed, was released Sunday as the team completed its roster decisions.

The move stands out given the ongoing questions about Tampa Bay’s quarterback plans beyond the immediate future.

Mayfield, 31, is entering the final season of the three-year, $100 million contract he signed in 2024. He is scheduled to make $40 million in 2026 and notably said he “felt disrespected” following negotiations over a possible long-term deal during the off-season. 

“That’s really the disappointing part — to feel undervalued after thinking you’ve earned it,” said Mayfield, who added that his agent is “not going to be bothering him with” any possible extension talks unless his value is appropriately recognized.

Bucs general manager Jason Licht said this week that he’s “optimistic” about the sides coming to terms.

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“I’m very optimistic about it,” Licht said during the broadcast of the Bucs’ third preseason game at the Jacksonville Jaguars. “He wants to play. He wants to prove to us that he is the franchise quarterback that we said that he was. So, we’ll just have to see how it plays out. I’ll never close the door on anything in the short term, but right now, he’s focused on football.”

The contract expires after the season, making Mayfield eligible for unrestricted free agency in 2027.

This makes Tampa Bay’s confidence in Daniels especially interesting.

The undrafted rookie completed 27 of 44 passes for 239 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions during three preseason games.

He also rushed 14 times for 37 yards and another touchdown.

Daniels helped lead second-half comebacks against the Jets and Chiefs in the preseason months after going undrafted following a quality career at Kansas.

The 6-foot-1, 219-pound quarterback appeared in 49 college games and completed 61.5 percent of his passes for 9,282 yards, 67 touchdowns and 31 interceptions.

Daniels also accumulated 1,445 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns, tying the Kansas career record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback.

His best statistical season came in 2025, when he started all 12 games and recorded career highs of 2,531 passing yards and 22 touchdown passes, while adding 404 yards and four rushing touchdowns.

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago police are investigating a fatal mass shooting that erupted Saturday night on the city’s South Side.

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The gunfire broke out around 11:37 p.m. in the 5400-block of Cottage Grove Avenue in Washington Park, according to police.

Authorities said officers had been called to the area to break up a crowd when a person opened fire.

A total of 14 people were struck by bullets, police said. Among them was a 35-year-old man who was taken to a hospital, where he later died.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the man as Rontonio M. Guterz.

LIVE UPDATES | At least 37 shot, 3 fatally, in shootings across Chicago this weekend, police say

Pam Bondi departed a Justice Department already under intense strain, following an unsuccessful push to take a far tougher line against President Donald Trump’s political adversaries.

Her successor, Todd Blanche, now inherits that same combustible challenge.

Trump returned to Washington carrying old grievances and a roster of perceived enemies. Much of his fury has been directed at former intelligence and law enforcement officials he believes undermined him during his first administration, including former FBI Director James Comey, ex-national security adviser John Bolton and former CIA Director John Brennan.

During the four years between his first and second stints in the White House, Trump repeatedly nursed those resentments in public, using social media to promise payback and single out the figures he blamed by name.

Brennan, in particular, became a frequent target. Trump branded the former CIA chief a “loser” and a “lowlife,” floated the idea that he could be guilty of “treason,” and on multiple occasions shared a manipulated image showing Brennan in an orange prison jumpsuit on his personal social media account.

But after winning office a second time, his desire for vengeance have not borne the fruit he might have imagined. 

Criminal charges against Comey were dismissed by a federal judge, and Bolton, who did plead guilty to a classified documents charge, is expected to be able to avoid jail time altogether.

Sources familiar with the matter described those efforts as a mere ‘sideshow’ compared to efforts in the Southern District of Florida – where Blanche is driving a two-pronged investigation into Brennan.

One probe centers on whether Brennan lied to Congress about the infamous Steele dossier after he told lawmakers the CIA didn’t rely on the now-discredited document in drafting its 2017 Russia assessment. 

The second is Brennan’s alleged role in a ‘grand conspiracy’ – a sprawling investigation into the intelligence community’s 2016 probe into whether Trump’s campaign had any ties to Russia.

Blanche installed Trump ally Joseph DiGenova in April to head up the two probes after his predecessor warned that it wouldn’t result in an indictment.

But months later there is less headway than people in Trump’s orbit had expected after Bondi’s removal. 

Even DiGenova had set lofty goals for himself – he told former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani in April that, had she not allegedly nixed his appointment as special counsel in the probes, ‘we would have had indictments brought in the last two months.’

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear those prognostications were overly optimistic. 

The US attorney’s office in Florida did not respond to requests for comment on the status of the investigations, and the Justice Department declined to comment.

Still, the delay could prove uniquely vexing for Blanche, a former federal prosecutor himself, who has sought to define himself in Trump’s second term by his fierce loyalty to the commander-in-chief. 

‘You can’t secure a grand jury indictment by sheer willpower alone,’ a person with knowledge of the process told the Daily Mail. 

Tapping DiGenova to lead the effort is seen as a positive development by Trump allies in the Brennan case, and a welcome alternative following the departure of career prosecutor Maria Medetis Long.

Long, the Miami-based assistant US attorney who previously led the inquiry, stepped down after expressing doubts to her boss about the likelihood that the probe would result in criminal charges.

DiGenova, described in one conversation as ‘Blanche’s man in Miami,’ is seen as more aggressive than Long.

Still, it’s unclear how much he can deliver, and how quickly in probing the allegations against the former CIA director.

Brennan has vehemently denied all allegations of wrongdoing, and his lawyers blasted the probes as looking into ‘phantom criminal conduct’ at the behest of a mercurial commander-in-chief who has been condemning him for ‘years.’ 

He has also filed a countersuit against DOJ and other Trump officials in Washington, DC, seeking a court order to preserve records in the investigations against him. 

Should the criminal case proceed, his lawyers said, they plan to present to the court ‘overwhelming’ evidence that he is being ‘vindictively’ singled out by the government – further buffeting the case against him.  

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Trump, who had long voiced his desire to go after his political foes before winning election a second time, could be running out of patience. And prosecutors, for their part, could be running out of time. 

Statute of limitations laws limit the window that prosecutors have to secure indictments for certain charges, especially those stemming from conduct that allegedly happened years prior.

Several individuals with knowledge of the process emphasized these issues as possible pain points in the government’s case against Brennan. Others expressed fresh uncertainty about next steps or timing – breaking with the earlier, more optimistic tone espoused by those with knowledge of the key players.

Another issue could be public statements made by DiGenova himself. 

The longtime MAGA figure and Trump ally has accused Brennan of crimes on multiple occasions, saying in a 2018 interview that Brennan ‘colluded’ with other top government officials to ‘frame’ Trump. 

Brennan, he told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2018, should ‘get a lawyer.’ 

In April, after Blanche tapped to lead the so-called ‘grand conspiracy’ probe, DiGenova placed the blame squarely on Bondi for a lack of action, describing her as ‘singularly’ responsible for the delay in the investigations.

But prosecuting a federal criminal case, particularly cases involving public figures  and classified materials, is laborious. It can take years, not months, to get to a place where the case can be presented to a federal grand jury. 

The process often can involve multiple agencies, obtaining access to classified records, subpoenaing witnesses, and determining which materials can be presented in open court. 

Federal prosecutors spent more than three years building up their case against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, stemming from his 2018 purchase of a firearm. 

In fact, it was not until September 2023 that a grand jury returned an indictment charging him with three felony firearm offenses, which were tried in court the following year. Though convicted, the case was dismissed following a presidential pardon by his father.

The early headwinds Blanche is facing are therefore not unusual. 

But they could be damaging for Blanche as he looks to distinguish himself from Bondi on the heels of his razor-thin Senate confirmation earlier this month. 

Many of the alleged ‘crimes’ took place years ago, which can be an issue for prosecutors in certain cases, depending on the charges, which carry certain statute of limitations that limit the window by which prosecutors can secure an indictment. 

Several individuals with knowledge of the process emphasized those things as as particular pain points in the government’s case against Brennan. 

DiGenova, who himself publicly accused Brennan of wrongdoing, and claimed in 2018 that he ‘colluded’ with other top government officials to ‘frame’ Trump, has failed to make progress at the rate that some in Trump’s orbit were expecting.

There was no single reason for the firing of Blanche’s predecessor Bondi by Trump in April.  

Multiple sources told the Daily Mail that her departure was a slow burn rather than a one-off, underpinned by simmering frustrations over the botched release of the Epstein files and her failure to more aggressively prosecute Trump’s political foes. 

Those individuals described a respectful torch passing as Blanche took the reins of DOJ from Bondi, who was not surprised by the decision. Trump is said to remain on relatively good terms with Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and his longtime friend. 

Bondi was credited by Trump allies for eliminating many of the redundancies at DOJ and clearing out the ‘underbrush’ at Main Justice, or the department’s headquarters in DC, where US prosecutors have long bemoaned the slow, methodological process by which certain aspects of their cases were reviewed and signed off on by DOJ’s many federal bureaucrats. 

Bondi’s efforts allowed Blanche to move more quickly on executing certain priorities when he took over as acting attorney general, some observers noted.

These individuals did not mention the obvious corollary; that the primary method of clearing out underbrush is simply to set it on fire.