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      Judge to Consider Restricting Musk Team’s Access to Education Dept. Data

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      A federal judge in Washington will consider a legal challenge on Tuesday against the Education Department, which is seeking to bar Elon Musk and his team from gaining access to its data systems.The lawsuit, brought by two legal groups representing the University of California Student Association, sought to restrict Mr. Musk’s associates from combing through the Education Department’s data because of privacy concerns, given the personal identifying information that students routinely disclose when applying for federal aid.Mr. Musk’s team, part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has been operating in the Education Department for more than a week. They were added to the agency’s staff directory and have been working from the top floor of its main building in Washington.President Trump’s appointees have also briefed staff members at the Education Department that Mr. Musk’s team will scrutinize the agency’s budget and operations. They warned various offices in the Education Department to expect some upheaval in connection to the review, according to recordings obtained by The Times.Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting team, which has taken the lead in shuttering other agencies such as U.S.A.I.D. and slashing government programs, said on Monday that the Education Department had “terminated” 89 contracts and 29 grants associated with diversity and equity training.A spokesman for the Education Department did not elaborate on what programs or grants it ostensibly gave the order to suspend, referring reporters to a social media post from the account associated with Mr. Musk’s efforts.The cuts announced on Monday appeared to mostly affect the Education Department’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences. The division produces and curates research on best practices in education and relies heavily on contractors to carry out its work. More

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      Trump Argues That Courts Cannot Block Musk’s Team From Treasury Systems

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      Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp.The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and “special government employees” access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful.Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.A U.S. district judge in Manhattan, Paul A. Engelmayer, on Saturday ordered any such officials who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”Judge Engelmayer said in an emergency order that the officials’ access heightened the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking. He set a hearing in the case for Friday.Federal lawyers defending Mr. Trump — as well as the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the Treasury Department — called the order “markedly overboard” and said the court should dismiss the injunction, or at least modify his order.They argued that the order violated the Constitution by ignoring the separation of powers and severing the executive branch’s right to appoint its own employees. The restriction, they wrote, “draws an impermissible and anti-constitutional distinction” between civil servants and political appointees working in the Treasury Department.The filing followed warning shots over the weekend. Vice President JD Vance declared that the courts and judges aren’t allowed “to control the executive’s legitimate power,” although American courts have long engaged in the practice of judicial review.On Saturday, Mr. Trump called the ruling by Judge Engelmayer a “disgrace” and said that “No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      Musk Team’s Treasury Access Raises Security Fears, Despite Judge’s Ordered Halt

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      A federal judge’s order that Elon Musk’s team temporarily cease boring into the Treasury Department’s payment systems raises a far larger question: whether what Elon Musk has labeled the Department of Government Efficiency is creating a major cyber and national security vulnerability.The activities of Mr. Musk’s government cost-cutting effort, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in his order on Saturday, risk “the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and render the Treasury’s systems “more vulnerable than before to hacking.”It is a risk that cybersecurity experts have been sounding alarms over in the past 10 days, as Mr. Musk’s band of young coders demanded access to the Treasury’s innermost systems. That access was ultimately granted by Scott Bessent, the newly confirmed Treasury secretary.But other than vague assurances that the new arrivals at the Treasury’s door had proper clearances, there was no description of how their work would be secured — and plenty of reason to believe that it would make it easier for Chinese and Russian intelligence services to target the Treasury’s systems.That was the central argument made by 19 attorneys general as they sought a temporary restraining order to get Mr. Musk’s workers out of the Treasury systems. And Judge Engelmayer endorsed it on Saturday, limiting access to existing Treasury officials until a hearing next week in front of a different federal judge.The government has maintained that Mr. Musk’s team has been limited to reviewing “read-only” data in the Treasury Department’s systems, though the administration is now placing appointees in positions where they could do much more.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Delaware Law Has Entered the Culture War

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      Elon Musk has helped bring an esoteric debate around the Delaware Chancery Court to a national stage. Now Dropbox and Meta are contemplating moving their incorporation away from the state.The clubby insular world of corporate law has entered the culture war.First, Elon Musk started railing against Delaware, which for more than a century has been known as the home of corporate law, after the Delaware Chancery Court chancellor, Kathaleen McCormick, rejected his lofty pay package last year.Eventually he switched where Tesla is incorporated to Texas.Now, Dropbox has announced shareholder approval to move where it is incorporated to outside Delaware, and Meta is considering following suit. Others are also evaluating whether to make the move, DealBook hears.Musk’s ire against the state where nearly 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated brought what would usually be an esoteric issue to the national stage and framed it, alongside hot button issues like diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as one further example of overreach.“You can blame McCormick or you can blame Musk — or you can say it’s a combination of the two of them — but it has turned it into a highly ideologically charged political issue, which it never, ever was before,” said Robert Anderson, a professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law.The drama over court rulings could have huge consequences for the economy and politics of Delaware, which counts on corporate franchise revenue for about 30 percent of its budget — and more, if you count secondary impacts like tax payments generated by the legal industry.At issue is a longstanding question in corporate America: How much say should minority shareholders have, especially in a controlled company? One side argues that founders like Mark Zuckerberg are given controlling shares, which give them outsize influence in a company, with the belief that they know what is best for a company. And minority shareholders buy into a company knowing their limitations. The other side argues these controlling shareholders are not perfect.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Menendez Brothers Are a Test for Society and the Courts

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      Recently, a Los Angeles judge delayed a hearing for Erik and Lyle Menendez in their bid to be resentenced for the murder of their parents 35 years ago. Renewed interest in the brothers’ case, fueled by Netflix’s recent docudrama series and documentary on the brothers, has drawn celebrity advocates to call for their release, alongside an army of TikTok accounts. Unfortunately for the brothers, social advocacy rarely corresponds to judicial change.The Menendez brothers shot and killed their parents in August of 1989, when Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21. For months, the murders went unsolved, and the police believed that perhaps the parents had been victims of a mafia hit. During that time, the brothers went on a spending spree, buying cars, private tennis lessons, even a restaurant. When the truth finally emerged, the world was shocked. How could two young men born into privilege squander not only their futures but also quite possibly their lives?There was a televised trial, the men sobbing on the stand, detailing years of abuse at the hands of their father. Sexual abuse, emotional abuse, coercion, violence. And their mother — where was she in all of this? Drinking away the woes of her family, failing in her sacred duty to protect her children.The trial ended in hung juries, and Judge Stanley Weisberg declared a mistrial. So the men were tried again in 1995, and this time it was not televised. Judge Weisberg seemed to say enough with the shenanigans and less of this messy talk of abuse. He barred much of the evidence of the sexual perversions of Lyle and Erik’s father, Jose Menendez. The trial ended in convictions for each brother, and sentences of life without parole.I was in college and then graduate school as the fate of the Menendez brothers played out. Their lurid travails were a sort of background static for the orderly world in which I lived, attending classes, struggling with rent and groceries. What did rich kids have to be so upset over?Like so many people, I now understand more of how abuse and trauma play out in a person’s life. I understand that a male victim of abuse feels the pain no less than a woman, a child even more so. What I question is whether judges have absorbed this new understanding of abuse, and whether a court today would reach a different verdict.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Biden Changed His Mind on Pardoning Hunter: ‘Time to End All of This’

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      The threat of a retribution-focused Trump administration and his son’s looming sentencings prompted the president to abandon a promise not to get involved in Hunter Biden’s legal problems.A dark sky had fallen over Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday evening when President Biden left church alongside his family after his final Thanksgiving as president.Inside a borrowed vacation compound earlier in the week, with its views of the Nantucket Harbor, Mr. Biden had met with his wife, Jill Biden, and his son Hunter Biden to discuss a decision that had tormented him for months. The issue: a pardon that would clear Hunter of years of legal trouble, something the president had repeatedly insisted he would not do.Support for pardoning Hunter Biden had been building for months within the family, but external forces had more recently weighed on Mr. Biden, who watched warily as President-elect Donald J. Trump picked loyalists for his administration who promised to bring political and legal retribution to Mr. Trump’s enemies.Mr. Biden had even invited Mr. Trump to the White House, listening without responding as the president-elect aired familiar grievances about the Justice Department — then surprised his host by sympathizing with the Biden family’s own troubles with the department, according to three people briefed on the conversation.But it was Hunter Biden’s looming sentencings on federal gun and tax charges, scheduled for later this month, that gave Mr. Biden the final push. A pardon was one thing he could do for a troubled son, a recovering addict who he felt had been subjected to years of public pain.When the president returned to Washington late Saturday evening, he convened a call with several senior aides to tell them about his decision.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mexico Passes Bill Barring Legal Challenges to Constitutional Changes

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      The bill has drawn criticism from legal scholars who say it would bulldoze any judicial oversight of constitutional matters. Mexico’s lower house of Congress approved sweeping new measures on Wednesday that would prevent legal challenges to constitutional amendments, allowing lawmakers to reshape the country’s charter without any judicial review — even from the Supreme Court.The bill, which was already passed by the Senate last week, has drawn criticism from legal scholars and human rights experts, who say it would bulldoze any judicial oversight of constitutional matters and hand the ruling Morena party seemingly unchecked power to pass profound changes to the laws governing the nation.Most state legislatures are expected to approve the measure in the coming days, paving the way for the president to sign it into law.The move comes at a tense moment for Mexico, in which the major branches of government barreling toward open conflict over the fundamental makeup of the judicial system and the role it should play in the country’s democracy.“This reform, if it passes, does place us in a context of an exercise of unlimited power,” said Guadalupe Salmorán Villar, a researcher on global rule of law and constitutional democracy based in Mexico City. “It’s an overt attempt by the federal government, with the support of the large congressional majority of Morena and its allies, to politically subjugate the judiciary.”Olga Sánchez Cordero, a Morena lawmaker, said that while the initiative would bar courts from weighing in on the content of constitutional amendments, it would not prohibit challenges on procedural grounds. Until now, she said, the Constitution has not been clear on how changes to the charter could be revised, but now there would be “a clear, explicit, unequivocal mechanism” for evaluating them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      8 Supreme Court Justices in Mexico to Resign Ahead of Contentious Election

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      All but three of the country’s Supreme Court justices announced they would quit rather than partake in the controversial elections mandated by a judicial overhaul.In a series of terse resignation letters released Wednesday, eight of Mexico’s 11 Supreme Court justices said they would step down from their posts instead of participating in a contentious election of thousands of judges next year. The justices will all serve the remainder of their terms, most of which conclude in August.The announcements were the latest volley in an ongoing battle over a judicial overhaul, passed by the ruling party and its allies in September, that promises to upend the system by which Mexico’s judges are chosen and how they operate.The resignations follow a spate of attacks on the courts by President Claudia Sheinbaum and prominent members of her Morena party, who have said the response to the overhaul by the country’s justices is motivated by their desire to protect their own privileges. “This is a political message being sent not just by the Supreme Court, but the entire judiciary,” said Fernanda Caso, a political analyst in Mexico City. “These resignations and decisions not to participate, as a matter of dignity, are a response to the attacks and the way they have been treated.”Among other changes, the redesign of the judiciary requires that all of the nation’s judges be elected and will subject them to review by a disciplinary tribunal made up of elected officials, who will have the power to investigate and impeach judges.Supporters say the measure will help curb corruption within the judicial system. Critics say it will undermine judicial independence and give the Morena party control over a key check on its power. It has been met with more than 500 legal challenges by federal judges and other critics, some of whom say it violates the Constitution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More