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    ‘We will not be bullied’: House Democrats involved in video to troops confirm FBI is seeking to question them – live

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    Four Democratic members of the US House, who appeared in a video telling service members to “refuse illegal orders”, confirmed that the FBI has requested interviews with them. All of the lawmakers in the video are former members of the military or intelligence community.Today, the representatives issued statements, saying that Donald Trump is using the FBI “as a tool to intimidate and harass” them.“We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship,” representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio wrote.In a lengthy social media post, Donald Trump wrote on Thuesday that his attempt to hold on to the House through gerrymandering ahead of the 2026 midterms is not yet done.“It looks like the Indiana Senate Republicans will be coming back in two weeks to take up Redistricting,” Trump reported.He went on to threaten any state lawmakers who fail not support the effort to tilt the electoral map in Indiana more in favor of Republicans with primary challenges.“I am glad to hear the Indiana House is stepping up to do the right thing, and I hope the Senate finds the Votes. If they do, I will make sure that all of those people supporting me win their Primaries, and go on to Greatness but, if they don’t, I will partner with the incredibly powerful MAGA Grassroots Republicans to elect STRONG Republicans,” the president wrote on his social media platform.Interior secretary Doug Burgum announced today the new cost of an annual national parks pass for international tourists.For US residents, the cost of a yearly pass (which grants access to 63 of America’s national parks) will stay at $80. But for those visiting, they’ll have to fork out $250.When visiting any of the 11 most visited parks, non-residents will also pay a new $100 per person fee (in addition to the usual entry fee). There will also be five extra “fee free days” for US residents.Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, said today she would not seek re-election. Instead, she will finish out the remainder of her third term and leave office in January 2027.Bowser, once a vocal critic of Donald Trump, found herself complying when he returned to the White House in January, launched a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, and deployed national guard troops to the district earlier this year. While critics blamed Bowser for acquiescing to the administration, supporters felt she exercised tactical soft-power given the legal limitations of leading the nation’s capital.In a video posted to social media, Bowser noted that her administration “brought our city back from the ravages of a global pandemic, and summoned our collective strength to stand tall against police who threaten our very autonomy while preserving home rule that is our North Star.”Bowser added that she’s “cherished the opportunity” to serve her hometown for 10 years, and has “happily given all my passion and energy to the job that I love”. Notably, she did not say which candidate she would endorse to succeed her.In September, I reported on how Bowser had to navigate her political summer stand-off with Trump.Donald Trump may have inadvertently pardoned any citizen who committed voter fraud in 2020 when he granted a pardon to Rudy Giuliani and other allies for their efforts to overturn the election, legal experts say.The pardons of Giuliani and others who participated in the fake elector scheme earlier this month were largely symbolic since the federal government dismissed its criminal cases once Trump was elected. Many of those pardoned have faced criminal charges at the state level.But, the federal pardon could wind up having a big effect on people like Matthew Alan Laiss, who is accused of voting in both Pennsylvania and Florida in the 2020 election. According to a federal indictment handed down in September, Laiss moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in August of 2020 and voted first with a mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania and then in person in Florida on election day. Both votes were for Trump, Laiss’ lawyers wrote in court documents. He has pleaded not guilty.The case is still in its early stages. Last week, Laiss’ lawyers, public defenders Katrina Young and Elizabeth Toplin, argued that the charges should be thrown out because Trump had pardoned him.They argued that Trump’s 7 November pardon was sweeping. It applies to any US citizen for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities, participation in, or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors, whether or not recognized by any state or state official, in connection with the 2020 presidential election.” And while it lists a number of people the pardon specifically applies to, it also says the pardon is not limited to those named.That language is so broad, lawyers for Laiss wrote, it also applies to their client.Elissa Slotkin, one of the two Democratic senators in the video to troops, said today she was aware that the FBI’s counterterrorism division “appeared to open an inquiry” into her.She wrote:
    The President directing the FBI to target us is exactly why we made this video in the first place. He believes in weaponizing the federal government against his perceived enemies and does not believe laws apply to him or his Cabinet. He uses legal harassment as an intimidation tactic to scare people out of speaking up.
    A reminder that after the video was published online, Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of “seditious behavior, punishable by death” in a post on Truth Social. He also re-shared several comments from other users calling for the arrest, trial and execution of the Democratic members of Congress.For her part, Slotkin remained resolute today. “This isn’t just about a video,” she said in her statement. “This is not the America I know, and I’m not going to let this next step from the FBI stop me from speaking up for my country and our Constitution.”Four Democratic members of the US House, who appeared in a video telling service members to “refuse illegal orders”, confirmed that the FBI has requested interviews with them. All of the lawmakers in the video are former members of the military or intelligence community.Today, the representatives issued statements, saying that Donald Trump is using the FBI “as a tool to intimidate and harass” them.“We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship,” representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio wrote.Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and former majority leader, has critiqued a possible US co-authored peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, which might require land concessions.“The most basic reality on the ground is that the price of peace matters. A deal that rewards aggression wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on,” he lawmaker wrote in a post on X. “America isn’t a neutral arbiter, and we shouldn’t act like one.”Last week, McConnell said that Vladimir Putin has “spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool”. He added that the president “ought to find new advisors” if administration officials are “more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace”. In response, vice-president JD Vance said that every criticism of the peace deal “either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground”.It’s almost 1:30pm in Washington, and here’s were things stand today.

    As he prepared to pardon two lucky turkeys, Waddle and Gobble, the president said he thought a peace deal on Russia’s war in Ukraine was getting very close but gave no other details. “We’re going to get there,” Donald Trump said. Earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “tremendous progress” had been made towards a deal. In a post on X, she added that “a few delicate, but not insurmountable” details remain and “will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States”.

    The FBI has requested interviews with the six Democratic members of Congress who took part in a video where they told members of the military to “refuse illegal orders”, according to Reuters. Citing an unnamed justice department official, Reuters reports that the FBI is asking for interviews with senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, as well as House representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio. The FBI declined to comment when the Guardian reached out about the latest report.

    For his part, senator Kelly called the Pentagon’s announcement that it is investigating the him for possible breaches of military law for taking part in the video as an act of “intimidation”. In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MS NOW, Kelly added: “I don’t think there’s anything more patriotic than standing up for the constitution. And right here, right now, this week, the president clearly is not doing that.”
    In his remarks before the pardoning just then, Trump also said he thought a deal on Russia’s war in Ukraine was getting “very close” but gave no other details. “We’re going to get there,” he said.“I think we’re getting very close to a deal, we’ll find out … I think we’re making progress,” he added.My colleagues over on the Europe blog report that a short while ago Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to move forward with a US-backed peace deal, and that he was prepared to discuss its sensitive points with Trump in talks he said should include European allies.In a speech to the ‘coalition of the willing’, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, the Ukrainian president urged European leaders to hash out a framework for deploying a “reassurance force” to Ukraine and to continue supporting Kyiv for as long as Moscow shows no willingness to end its war.Gobble is officially pardoned. Along with Waddle, he’ll live out the rest of his days in North Carolina. More

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      Gobble-degook: Trump talks turkey and trashes another presidential tradition

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      Don’t give up the day job. On Tuesday, Donald Trump came to the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardoning ceremony at the White House ready to serve up some political satire. It went about as well as you would expect.Like a startled turkey flapping in zigzags, the US president’s speech ricocheted bafflingly from topic to topic. He told jokes in the worst possible taste and watched them arc through the Rose Garden sky before landing with a thud. And on a day intended for charity and good cheer, he described a state governor as “a big, fat slob”.Trump has never met a presidential tradition he did not want to trash. For nearly eight decades, the turkey presentation has been a silly but reassuring ritual in which presidents offer a few bad puns and uplifting words about the state of the nation. They are not meant to make news.But this year, of course, things were different. Normally, two turkeys are in attendance following a public vote on which should be pardoned. On Tuesday, however, Gobble was present but Waddle was “missing in action”, as Trump put it – evidently a bird of the same feather as Marjorie Taylor Greene.The Rose Garden was transformed, its grass paved over with Mar-a-Lago-style slabs, while nearby was the presidential walk of fame, featuring tacky gold and framed portraits of Trump’s predecessors save for Joe Biden, replaced by an auto pen. Behind the president was a framed mirror in which a yellow crane could be seen at the site of the former East Wing.“I hope you like our new beautiful patio with matching stones at the White House,” said Trump after emerging from the Oval Office with the first lady, Melania, in light rain. “If it were grass today, you’d be sinking into the mud like they’ve done for many years, and you would be very unhappy.”It’s hard for Trump’s critics to accept that the man can be funny. At election campaign rallies, he can cut through the pretentiousness of politicians with a down-to-earth comment that strikes a chord with his audience. On this occasion, however, he lacked spontaneity, his wit was less rapier than baseball bat. The gags felt sour a day after a judge tossed out his justice department’s prosecution of political opponents.Trump rambled about a thorough investigation by Bondi and a host of departments “into a terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden. He used an auto pen last year for the turkey’s pardon.”If the president was expecting riotous laughter from an audience that included JD Vance and his wife, Usha, as well as attorney general Pam Bondi and “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth, he was disappointed. There was barely a chuckle.Nevertheless, he persisted. “I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined, that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid,” he said.Finally, some polite chuckles from the gathering. What a relief! But then Trump went and spoiled it by riffing on the pardon for Biden’s son Hunter and taking another dark turn.“The turkeys known as Peach and Blossom last year have been located, and they were on their way to be processed – in other words, to be killed. But I’ve stopped that journey, and I am officially pardoning them, and they will not be served for Thanksgiving dinner. We saved them in the nick of time,” he said.In his dark coat, suit and red tie, Trump was bombing. Would Melania or someone wield a hook to yank him off stage? The privilege of the presidency is that no one dares.Trump was doing “the weave”, drifting from nuclear power plants to border security, from car factories to AI, from tax cuts to the price of eggs. It was the biggest tonal misjudgment since he tried to tell military generals how to be tough guys.Finally, he got back to the turkeys. “When I first saw their pictures, I thought we should send them – well, I shouldn’t say this – I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy,” he said – a reference to Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi that earned gentle mirth from the sycophants’ corner.“But then I realised I wouldn’t be pardoning them, I would never pardon those two people. I wouldn’t pardon them. I wouldn’t care what Melania told me: ‘Darling, I think it would be a nice thing to do.’ I won’t do it, darling.”Will next year’s pardoned turkeys be called Maxwell and Mountbatten?Trump boasted that, at more than 50lbs, his turkeys were bigger than those of his predecessors. He claimed that Robert Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, had certified them as the first-ever “Maha” [Make America Healthy Again] turkeys. He worried that Gobble might attack him and then, randomly, talked about immigration again.That led to the sickest witticism of the day: “Instead of pardoning, some of my more enthusiastic staffers were already drafting the paperwork to ship Gobble and Waddle straight to the terrorist confinement centre in El Salvador. And even those birds don’t want to be there. You know what I mean.”It was unfunny because it’s all too believable that Stephen Miller would try to send turkeys to the El Salvador mega-prison, along with kittens, puppies and cute rabbits. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt must have regretted bringing her infant son Nicholas to work.Indeed, Trump moved on to his draconian crackdown on crime in Chicago and Washington DC. “They burned this beautiful woman riding in a train,” was another phrase jarringly at odds with this once jovial occasion. Anger rising in his voice, he ditched a prewritten line about Illinois governor JB Pritzker’s weight and called him a “big, fat slob” before admitting that he could afford to lose a few pounds too.Then Trump walked over to Gobble, made his characteristically theatrical hand gestures and declared: “Gobble, I just want to tell you this – very important – you are hereby unconditionally pardoned!” He even appeared to do a turkey impression for a moment, then reached over to run his hand over the feathers, asking: “Who would want to harm this beautiful bird?”The future lame-duck president had delivered a box-office turkey. Had the nation of Mark Twain come to this? But no one in this audience of enablers was going to object. First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they pretend to laugh at your authoritarian jokes. More

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      Democrats accuse Trump of ‘intimidation’ campaign as FBI seeks interviews

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      A group of Democrats accused by Donald Trump of “seditious behavior” have said that the US president is using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) against them as a “tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress”.The four politicians, along with two others, had made a video encouraging US military service members to resist unlawful orders – a message that angered Trump, who posted on social media that the group were “traitors” and thus could be jailed or even face the death penalty.The statement, released by congressional lawmakers Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, confirmed that the FBI had contacted the House and Senate sergeants at arms requesting interviews with them.“No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our constitution,” they said, adding that they had each sworn an oath “to support and defend” the US constitution.“That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship,” they added.The statement deepens a dispute between the Trump administration and Democrats, including Arizona senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly and Michigan congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, over the video message, which urged the military and intelligence services members to “refuse illegal orders”.Slotkin said the FBI’s counter-terrorism division had notified the group that “they are opening what appears to be an inquiry against the six of us” and described the move as a “scare tactic” by Trump.“To be honest, the president’s reaction and the use of the FBI against us is exactly why we made the video,” she said.“He believes in using the federal government against his perceived adversaries, and he’s not afraid to use the arms of the government against people he disagrees with. He does not believe the law applies to him … which is exactly why we made the video, to give people some assurance that they weren’t alone as they watch this stuff unfold.”The Pentagon has also said it is conducting a review of misconduct allegations against Kelly that could, it said, result in him being recalled to active duty to face court-martial proceedings. More

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      ‘Living an American nightmare’: LA hearing details lasting trauma of ICE raids

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      The Trump administration’s ICE raids across southern California have had disastrous effects on the region’s immigrants and swept up US citizens in the process, community leaders and residents said at a congressional hearing in Los Angeles on Monday.Andrea Velez, an American arrested by US immigration officials over the summer, described how she was accosted by masked agents while on her way to work. She said she was charged with assaulting an officer and held for two days in a federal detention center, where detainees had to pay for a cup in order to have water. The charges against her were ultimately dismissed due to what her attorney described as a lack of evidence.Democrats organized the hours-long congressional oversight hearing in Los Angeles in order to hear testimony about the impacts of Donald Trump’s sweeping deportation agenda, and look at alleged civil rights abuses by federal agents and the “unlawful” detention of US citizens.“Every person in our country has a right to due process, regardless of immigration status. It’s critical that the Oversight Committee document and hold accountable those that are defying the constitution, violating civil rights, and terrorizing families and communities,” Robert Garcia, a Democratic California congressman, said in a statement.The White House said earlier this month that the federal government had arrested more than 150,000 undocumented immigrants and deported nearly 140,000 people since Trump took office.His administration has made southern California a focal point for its aggressive mass deportation campaign. Federal agents have descended on car washes and Home Depot stores, and near schools and workplaces, leaving southern California communities in fear and parks and churches empty. The federal government has been accused of “blatant racial profiling” and civil rights violations.“Right now we are living an American nightmare,” said Jasmine Crockett, a Democratic representative from Texas.The situation has left lasting effects on southern California communities and residents affected by the raids.Velez said in her testimony: “I still live with the trauma everyday.”Karen Bass, LA’s mayor, described the raids as “an attack from our own federal government” and an affront to cities and people across the US.“We will hold every federal agency accountable, and we will relentlessly defend the rights of every resident in Los Angeles – and across this nation,” Bass said. “Reports that Angelenos, including US citizens, were forcibly held, physically attacked, and deprived of their freedom without cause are not only outrageous – they are intolerable.”Garcia on Monday announced the creation of a new oversight dashboard documenting “verified incidents of possible misconduct and abuse” during federal immigration enforcement operations”.The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. More

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      Mark Kelly: call for troops to disobey illegal orders is ‘non-controversial’

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      Senator Mark Kelly said it was “non-controversial” for him and other congressional Democrats to implore military personnel to disobey “illegal orders” from the Trump administration – hitting back at accusations of “serious allegations of misconduct” leveled against him by the Pentagon.“I said something that was pretty simple and non-controversial – and that was that members of the military should follow the law,” the Arizona Democrat senator, a former US navy officer and astronaut who flew on four separate space shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011, told MS Now on Monday night.Kelly then alluded to how the president went on social media to say Kelly and the others had engaged in “seditious behavior, punishable by death” – while also republishing another user’s post containing the phrase “hang them”.“And in response to that, Donald Trump said I should be executed, I should be hanged, I should be prosecuted,” Kelly said to political talkshow host Rachel Maddow.He added: “If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the constitution.”Kelly’s remarks came after the Pentagon announced it was launching an investigation into the senator after Trump protested that Kelly and the other five Democratic lawmakers “should be in jail right now” for releasing a video advising service members that “threats to our constitution” are coming “from right here at home”. The video also said military members can “refuse illegal orders”.On Tuesday, Fox News reported that the FBI had contacted US Capitol police in Washington DC to schedule interviews with the six Democrats in question.The Pentagon warned that it could recall Kelly to active duty to be court-martialed and cited a federal law that bans military retirees against interfering “with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces”.In a statement of his own, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, argued that the video at the center of the controversy was “despicable, reckless, and false”.“Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline,’” Hegseth said.Trump weighed in with his own point of view, calling the senators’ statement “seditious behaviour at the highest level” and for an example to be set. “Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! punishable by DEATH!”Active military members in the US – whose oath is to the constitution rather than the president – can face execution for the crime of sedition. Civilians, meanwhile, can be fined and imprisoned for up to 20 years if found to have engaged in seditious conspiracy.Meanwhile, the US Manual for Courts-Martial states that military requirements to obey orders do not apply “to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime” – while also prohibiting “contemptuous speech”.The dispute between the Trump administration and Kelly – whose wife, Gabrielle Giffords, narrowly survived an attempted assassination in 2011 while she was meeting her congressional constituents – comes amid claims from Democrats that the Pentagon has issued illegal orders. Democrats allege that the purported illegal orders include sending military personnel to the seal the US-Mexico border and in carrying out deadly strikes on so-called fast boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean that the administration claims were carrying illegal narcotics.Elizabeth Beaumont of Middle Tennessee State University’s Free Speech Center told the Associated Press that US military regulations “have been used to restrict political expression as well as other activities”.The dispute also hits a nerve on the use of “sedition” after Trump supporters were accused of precisely that by carrying out a deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 – when the first of his two non-consecutive presidential terms in ended in defeat to Joe Biden.Some of the mob members even called for the hanging of Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president at the time, who oversaw a congressional session certifying Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.Trump then granted presidential clemency to more than 1,500 Capitol attackers shortly after his second term began in January.In his remarks on Monday to MS Now about Trump and the video, Kelly said “sending a mob to round me and the other folks up … says a lot more about him than it says about me. He doesn’t want accountability.”Retired air force officer and Nebraska Republican congressman Don Bacon offered some measure of calm to the political mud-slinging, calling the Democrats’ video “unnecessary and foolish” but also drawing attention to the Pentagon’s response with an insult over its formal Department of Defense name.“Amateur hour once again at the Department of Dense,” Bacon wrote on X.Bacon added that Kelly and his fellow Democrats in the video “said don’t follow illegal orders – that is the law by the way”.“Good luck prosecuting someone who is quoting the law,” Bacon continued. “The administration should have just pointed out how dumb it was. The threats looked dumber.” More

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      The Comey and James dismissals are a reminder of Trump’s lawlessness | Austin Sarat

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      Monday brought good news for two of Donald Trump’s most hated enemies: the former FBI director James Comey, and the New York state attorney general, Letitia James. A federal judge dismissed the sham indictments the administration had obtained against them.Judge Cameron McGowan Currie reminded the president and his attorney general of the great lessons of a society governed by the rule of law: how things are done matters as much as what is done. Without fair procedures, no one can be safe from the arbitrary exercise of government power.This is never more apparent than when leaders target their political opponents and seek revenge against those who do not fall in line. The US is learning this lesson in real time as the Trump administration politicizes prosecution.Recall the president’s infamous 20 September direction to Pam Bondi, the US attorney general.“Pam,” Trump posted to Truth Social, “I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as the last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’“Then,” he continued, “we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past … I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot.”The president ended by making it clear what he wanted and why he wanted it. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”Two days later, Bondi installed Halligan as interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia with an apparent mandate to go after Comey, James and others. Several days after that, Comey was indicted in federal court, accused of lying to Congress; the next month, James was indicted in a mortgage case. Both denied wrongdoing and said the cases were intended to punish them for past clashes with him.On Monday, Currie delivered a decisive rebuke to Trump and Bondi when she threw out the Comey and James indictments. She found that Halligan’s appointment violated the clear language of the statute governing such appointments and of the constitution itself.As a result, all of the actions flowing from her appointment, including the indictments of Comey and James, were “unlawful exercises of executive power”. While Currie left the door open for the administration to refile indictments against Comey and James, in Comey’s case, the time allowed under the applicable statute of limitations has run out.As the Washington Post notes, Currie’s decision is just the latest in a series of judicial rulings “disqualifying Trump’s interim U.S. attorney picks in New Jersey, Nevada, and Los Angeles”. Like her colleagues, Currie made clear that Trump’s Department of Justice had again distinguished itself by its dangerous combination of lawlessness and incompetence.Her opinion is good news for defenders of the rule of law. It should also strengthen the hand of other judges who want to push back against the administration’s vindictive prosecutions.Judges, like Currie, are never eager to dismiss an indictment issued by a grand jury. They are inclined to trust the grand jury process and are reluctant to cast aside the investment of time and resources that a good prosecutor makes in securing an indictment.In 1988, the supreme court held that, in most cases, dismissal of an indictment is appropriate only if errors in the handling of the grand jury process prejudiced a defendant by “substantially” influencing the decision to indict or raising “grave doubt” about whether the decision was free from such influence.As the attorney James M Burnham has written, this high bar “plays a central role in the ever-expanding, vague nature of federal criminal law because it largely eliminates the possibility of purely legal judicial opinions construing criminal statutes”. Burnham wants judges to be more active in policing indictments and making sure they are legally justified.Currie did just that. She found that Halligan lacked the authority to seek indictments of Comey or James because the justice department had not followed the applicable law governing the appointment of interim US attorneys. That law is, in her words, “unambiguous”.It allows the attorney general to appoint an interim US attorney, who can serve for a period of 120 days. It falls to a federal district court, not the administration, to choose a successor or extend the term of the current interim appointee – as happened with Halligan’s predecessor.The purpose of the law, Currie noted, was to prevent the president from circumventing the constitutional requirement that US attorneys go through a Senate confirmation process by making a series of interim appointments back-to-back.But Senate confirmation takes time. Alas, how inconvenient when the president demands that his enemies must be brought to justice now.Bondi may have known what the law required when she appointed Halligan to do the president’s bidding. But she seems to interpret her role as serving Trump and pushing the outer boundaries of the law until a judge has the temerity to tell her she can’t.Like federal judges in other cases, that is what Currie did. Along the way, the judge noted that Halligan was a “White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience”, who appeared alone before the grand jury after career prosecutors in her office concluded that neither had committed any crime.In the end, the judge, having pointed out the lawlessness and incompetence that accompanied Halligan’s appointment and the Comey and James indictments, reminded Bondi and the president that the legal requirements governing appointments, as the supreme court once said, are “more than a matter of etiquette or protocol”. No matter how much the president insists or how many all-caps messages he posts to Truth Social, those requirements cannot be discarded, she concluded, to suit the president, since they are “among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme”.

      Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty More

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      What can we learn from RFK’s ‘erotic poetry’? That Americans need to get better at enjoying a scandal | Marina Hyde

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      Literally nothing on this earth takes itself as seriously as American journalism. There are rogue-state dictators it’s more permissible to laugh at than the endlessly hilarious pretensions of newsmen and newswomen in the United States. The crucial difference between the British press and US press is that at least we in the British press know we’re in the gutter. The Americans have always imagined – and so loudly – that they are involved in some kind of higher calling. Guys, I love you and stuff, but get over it, because you’re missing one of the great jokes of the century. Yourselves.I don’t deny that everything’s bigger in America. Our former health secretary had a knee-trembler up against his office door in the pandemic; their current one apparently wrote felching … poetry, is it … felching poetry? … to a superstar journalist who was worrying about his brainworm, yet the story is being written up like it’s Dante, instead of X-rated Italian brainrot.We are, by the way, talking about the tale of Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza and Robert F Kennedy. If you’ve missed this one, you have a great treat in store. Olivia and Ryan were hotshot political journalists (and a couple) covering presidential campaigns and writing a joint book about the 2020 one, when Ryan discovered last year that Olivia had had what is primly described as a “digital affair” with wingnut presidential candidate RFK. It all blew up, there was some legal hokey-cokey, they lost their jobs, she fled to LA, RFK became health secretary. He’s got bigger brainworms to fry; the other two are now “breaking their silence”.And everything – everything – about it is darkly hysterical. It should obviously be being written as comedy. Instead, the story is being chronicled with maximum portentousness by its own protagonists. First, in Nuzzi’s forthcoming memoir/state-of-the-nation something-or-other, which is actually entitled American Canto. And second in Lizza’s Substack, which is genuinely called Telos. I can’t.No, hang on – I can. Like so many of the self-regarding big-hitters of the US fourth estate, this sundered pair very much need you to know that serious prose is occurring. Both of them adore a sledgehammer metaphor. With Lizza, it’s bamboo. The bamboo in the couple’s apartment courtyard “had become a metaphor for our decade-long entanglement”. Righto. “If not tamed, [it] would march through the entire courtyard and kill everything.” Thanks for flagging, mate. “I spent hours hacking at the sprouts to keep the bamboo at bay, just as I had with all the secrets that Olivia and I shared.” Is there much more of this? Yes, would seem to be the answer. “I should have known that it was futile and that, at some point, the bamboo would take over the garden, and that’s all anyone would see.” Come on Ryan, batter me round the head with the bamboo analogy one more time – I’m so close to getting the point.With Nuzzi, it’s wildfires. She flees to LA after the RFK story breaks, staking down seemingly dozens of signposts to where we are going as the burning takes hold. “10:30 a.m., 10 acres burning. 10:50 a.m., 20 acres burning … 2 p.m., 700 acres burning. 3 p.m., 1,300 acres burning … 12:30 a.m., 3,000 acres burning. 9 a.m., 5,000 acres burning. 11:45 a.m., 12,000 acres burning. 1:30 p.m., 16,000 acres burning … 9 p.m., 20,000 acres burning. 8 a.m., 22,000 acres burning. 4 p.m., 24,000 acres burning.” OK GOT IT. Luckily, because we’re literary dumbos, Nuzzi has already explained: “You cannot outrun your life on fire.” Makes u think. Could we have some crossover metaphor event where the bamboo catches fire? Maybe for Black Friday.With heavy heart, apparently, the wider US media must cover the tale, yet not even America’s dainty journalese can rob the story of its full-spectrum trash merriment. In fact, in some cases it adds to it. Nuzzi’s lawyer told the New York Times his client would “not dignify efforts to impugn her character with any future response”. Dialling in from an Edith Wharton novel, there. I believe the felching poetry dropped a couple of days later.It’s so sad that, across American newsrooms, hankies must be overtly pressed to noses about all this, while refresh keys can only be covertly pressed to see if any more has dropped. Pretty much the only splashy thing Vanity Fair has done under its new editorship was hire Nuzzi as West Coast editor and run her book extract, so it should be absolutely zero surprise to learn that, as a result of something they read in Telos – again, “Telos”!!! – the magazine is reviewing the appointment. “We were taken by surprise,” intoned a Vanity Fair spokeswoman, “and we are looking at all the facts.” For heaven’s sake, buck up and stop being so absolutely wet. This sort of thing is why you hired her. Just own it and allow yourself a bit of fun.Alas, they seem bent on playing it like they’re in the midst of some boring ethics crisis, when you can’t help feeling that ship has sailed. May we humble outsiders offer a word of advice? Guys, you just need to stop being so American and serious about it all. And, indeed, about America. God knows we lesser countries have put some ghastly people in charge ourselves, but you do have to allow your international underlings the occasional cackle at the fact that in your great nation, Donald Trump has now become president, twice. When you lot shit the bed, the whole world has to lie in it – so do at least have the delicacy to realise that once dignity has gone, a good laugh is how the rest of us get by. Come along and join us: you’ll like it if you try it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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      Is the Democratic party embracing Bernie Sanders-style politics? | Dustin Guastella

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      Since the Democrats’ sweeping victories on 4 November, a strange thing has happened among the party factions: a semblance of unity has emerged.At first, “affordability” became the slogan of rapprochement. Moderates, populists and socialists agreed Democrats must campaign around the cost-of-living crisis and hang the broken economy around Donald Trump’s neck.At the same time party grandees – left, right and center – quietly agreed to ditch wokeness and embrace common-sense appeals to American solidarity and equality. Ideologically, we see the same convergence. Last week, writing in the Atlantic, Rogé Karma argued that the left has pulled the moderates toward populism, while the centrists have won debates on a number of cultural issues.And this week, James Carville – the bête noire of every leftwing Democrat and Bernie Sanders voter, the architect of Clintonian centrism – writes in the New York Times that he is become a populist.Here is Carville (James Carville!) describing what Democrats should do:“I am now an 81-year-old man and I know that in the minds of many, I carry the torch from a so-called centrist political era. Yet it is abundantly clear even to me that the Democratic party must now run on the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression.”Carville advocates a program that includes raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour (blowing past the old progressive demand of $15 an hour), universal childcare, free university education, and major investments in utilities. But more important than the suite of policies itself, the editorial signals to Democratic bigwigs that populism has won. A decade after he announced his first campaign for president, it seems that Sanders has won his crusade for the soul of the Democratic party.Winning consensus on the need for a “seismic” economic program is no small feat and it will go a long way to helping Democrats win back their working-class base. Still, there is a lot of work to be done and many pitfalls along the way.First, progressives must resist the temptation, so attractive to scorned factions, to reject centrist overtures. There is a danger that if moderates fulsomely embrace a social populist program, figures on the left will attempt to differentiate themselves by reanimating the dead-end politics of fringe woke causes.But being lefter-than-thou serves no one and would only succeed in helping the right paint the left as a collection of sky-pilots, eggheads, and weirdos. This is, in part, the lesson of the old Socialist party of Norman Thomas. Franklin Delano Roosevelt adopted the political narrative, and much of the practical program, of the socialists of his day. However, instead of embracing FDR’s social-democratic turn, Thomas & co tried more and more to distinguish themselves and discredit Roosevelt claiming that he only “carried out the socialist program on a stretcher”.Some on the left attacked Roosevelt’s enormously popular New Deal and lambasted Democrats as cynics and opportunists. The result was to hasten the political irrelevance of the very figures most responsible for inspiring a great populist revival in the 1930s. If today’s left wants to avoid a similar fate, they should embrace the new populists of the center and work with them to craft visionary social policy. And they should have the humility to revise their own opinions when the centrists have a point.Second, the turn toward populism will remain incomplete until party leaders are willing to stridently declare war on the economic elite – the same elite who fill the campaign coffers of powerful Democrats. Not only is it essential for candidates to draw lines between themselves and the very rich to demonstrate their populist convictions, but without naming the “millionaires and billionaires” as the cause of so much economic misery, Democrats will be unable to mount a serious challenge to rule by the rich.Many moderates who have lately flirted with populism have as yet been unwilling to point the finger at Wall Street and Silicon Valley as the villains of the contemporary order. Yet, it is precisely because the ultra-wealthy have hijacked American society that so many working-class Americans struggle to pay their bills. The fact is we cannot win a society that is more equal and more prosperous without directly challenging the plutocrats at the top.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFinally, policy matters. Becoming the party of “economic rage” is a good way to win elections but to fix the crisis (crises?), the new social populism must go beyond the standard welfare state toolbox. Carville and other newfound populists have made a huge political leap in embracing a suite of big, new public services and for that they should be commended. Yet it isn’t enough.No doubt, we urgently need bold redistributive programs to rebalance income and wealth and to address the persistent cost crunch. But these alone will not fix our broken economy. Nor are such programs popular enough to propel a populist takeover in Washington. To get a sense of just what is wrong, consider that since Bill Clinton was president, we have shed some 7m middle-income jobs in manufacturing, and in an exaggerated inverse-proportion we have gained some 700 billionaires.If a renewed leftwing populism is to succeed it needs to address this. We need to de-globalize the economy, to disentangle the home market from the increasingly dysfunctional world market. We need to bring manufacturing home and reindustrialize the rustbelt.We need to reign in and repatriate the hyper-global banking sector. We need to rebuild American infrastructure from coast to coast. And we need to strengthen the power of labor on the shop floor by leveling the legal playing field between workers and employers. All of this would amount to a democratic reorganization of the political economy away from the global rich and toward the domestic working class.This would be a populism worthy of the name and if moderate Democrats are embracing such a call, they ought to be welcomed with open arms. And if the hour isn’t too late, this kind of appeal might be the only chance Democrats have of winning back the working class and retaking Washington.

      Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623 More

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      Majority of Latino voters disapprove of Trump, Pew study finds

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      A majority of Latinos disapprove of Donald Trump and his economic and immigration policies, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.After receiving support from nearly half of Latino voters in the 2024 election, Trump had lost the backing of a majority surveyed in October. Pew found that 70% of Latinos “disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president”, while 65% disapprove of his administration’s approach to immigration and 61% believe his economic policies have worsened economic conditions.Trump won 48% of the Latino vote in 2024, up from 28% in 2016. Latinos, one of the fastest-growing demographics in the United States, account for one in five Americans.After the 2024 election, Latinos, particularly Latino men, credited Trump’s economic proposals and immigration policies – suggesting he was not serious about threats of mass deportations – for winning their vote.At the time, two-thirds of Latinos said they “do not feel like he is talking about me” when Trump discussed his immigration policies, and more than 40% approved of his proposal to build a border wall, according to an October 2024 Siena poll for the New York Times.But since Trump implemented sweeping tariffs and social safety net spending cuts, alongside aggressive immigration raids, that support has dwindled. In June, a co-founder of Latinas for Trump criticized widespread immigration arrests as “unacceptable and inhumane”.The results of the November elections showed that Democrats won back Latino voters in New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races.The shifts within the Latino electorate are still markedly divided by political party. According to the Pew report, while nearly all Latinos who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election disapprove of Trump, 81% of those who voted for Trump approve of the president’s job (down from 93% at the start of his term).A majority of Latinos worry that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported under the president’s heightened immigration enforcement – where 42% expressed such fear in March, 52% do now. Nearly 60% said they had witnessed or heard of immigration raids or arrests in their community in the past six months.For the first time in nearly two decades, Pew reported that “most Hispanics say their situation has worsened”. While 10% of Hispanics told Pew that Trump’s policies helped them, 78% said the president’s policies harmed their community. More