FBI

Subterms

    Latest story

    188 Shares111 Views

    FBI to reinvestigate 2023 White House cocaine find and leak of supreme court Dobbs draft

    by

    The FBI will launch new investigations into the 2023 discovery of a bag of cocaine at the White House during Joe Biden’s term, as well as into pipe bombs discovered at Democratic and Republican party headquarters before the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump, and the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion before the historic overturning of national abortion rights with the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster turned deputy director of the FBI, made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on any progress in looking into the old cases. The incidents have been popular talking points on America’s political right wing and among conspiracy theorists.Bongino said that he and the FBI director, Kash Patel, had been evaluating “a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest” and had made a decision “to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases”.The FBI deputy director made an appeal for “investigative tips on these matters”.The discovery of a small, zippered bag of cocaine in a cubby near the entrance to the West Wing two years ago drew excited commentary from Republicans, including then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has said it was implausible the drugs could belong to anyone beyond Joe Biden or son Hunter Biden – even though the Biden family was away from Washington at the time.Bongino has previously alleged, without presenting any evidence, that he was in touch with whistleblowers who told him they were “suspicious” that evidence from the White House cocaine bag “could match a member of the inner Biden circle”.A formal laboratory test confirmed that the powder found was indeed cocaine and the Secret Service said the substance was found in a “highly trafficked” area of the White House and it was reviewing visitor logs to determine how it had gotten there.Then White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that public tours of the West Wing had taken place over the weekend when the discovery was made, prompting an evacuation of the executive mansion.“We have confidence that they will get to the bottom of this,” Jean-Pierre later said, referring to the Secret Service. A White House spokesperson said that the allegations that Hunter Biden was involved was “incredibly irresponsible”.But in his first interview as a president in February this year, Trump returned to the subject, arguing that forensic analysis should have revealed fingerprints but the evidence appeared to have been deliberately wiped clean. He described the cocaine discovery as a “terrible thing”.The pre-emptive publication of the supreme court’s opinion ending the constitutional right to abortion in Politico on 2 May 2022 provoked condemnation from Trump, who called the source of the leak “slime” and demanded that the journalists involved be imprisoned until they revealed who it was.Eight months later, the supreme court released a 23-page report into the leak saying the investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence”.Investigations into both cases ended without identifying who was responsible for the cocaine or the leak.Bongino also announced more resources for the FBI’s investigation into the placement of pipe bombs at the Democratic national committee and the Republican national committee in Washington.The bombs, which were later defused, had been planted the night before Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.Reuters contributed reporting More

    More stories

    • 150 Shares152 Views

      in US Politics

      James Comey investigated over seashell photo claimed to be ‘threat’ against Trump

      by

      A photo of seashells posted on Instagram by the former FBI director James Comey is now being investigated by the US Secret Service, after the US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said it constituted a “threat” against Donald Trump.On Thursday, Comey posted a photo of seashells forming the message “8647”, with a caption that read: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”Trump’s supporters have interpreted the message as an endorsement of violence against Trump – the 47th president. There is more debate around the use of 86, a slang term often used in restaurants to mean getting rid of or throwing something out, and which, according to Merriam-Webster, has been used more recently, albeit sparingly, to mean “to kill”.Comey later took down his post, saying in a statement that he was unaware of the seashells’ potential meaning and saying that he does not condone violence of any kind.“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” Comey said in a statement. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”A spokesperson for the Secret Service confirmed the agency was “aware of the incident” and said it would “vigorously investigate” any potential threat, but did not offer further details.The post ignited a firestorm on the right, with Trump loyalists accusing the former FBI director of calling for the president’s assassination. Trump survived an attempt on his life at a campaign event in Pennsylvania last year.“Disgraced former FBI director James Comey just called for the assassination of POTUS Trump,” Noem wrote on X. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”Comey and Trump have a deeply antagonistic relationship that stretches back to the early days of the first Trump administration when, according to Comey, Trump sought to secure a pledge of loyalty from the then FBI director, who refused.In a move that shocked Washington, Trump dismissed Comey, who was leading the criminal investigation into Russian meddling in the US election. Comey later wrote a memoir that recounted the episode, prompting Trump to declare him an “untruthful slime ball”.Comey has remained a Maga world bête noire, drawing rightwing ire whenever he steps into the political fray.Allies of the president were swift to condemn Comey on Thursday. “We are aware of the recent social media post by former FBI director James Comey, directed at President Trump,” Kash Patel, the FBI director, wrote on X, adding: “We, the FBI, will provide all necessary support.”Taylor Budowich, the White House deputy chief of staff, also responded by calling the photo “deeply concerning” and accused Comey of putting out “what can clearly be interpreted as ‘a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States”.Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett, a staunch Trump supporter, called for Comey to be jailed. “Arrest Comey,” he wrote on X. More

    • 125 Shares162 Views

      in US Politics

      Federal grand jury indicts Wisconsin judge over alleged Ice obstruction

      by

      A federal grand jury has indicted a Wisconsin judge who was arrested by the FBI last month on allegations that she helped an undocumented immigrant avoid federal authorities.Hannah Dugan, a county circuit court judge in Milwaukee, was charged on Tuesday with concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.Dugan was apprehended in the courthouse where she works in April, sparking public protests and rebukes from lawmakers. Her arrest has escalated a clash between Donald Trump’s administration and local authorities over the Republicans’ sweeping immigration crackdown. Democrats have accused the Trump administration of trying to make a national example of Dugan to chill judicial opposition to the crackdown.“Let’s be clear. Trump’s arrest of Judge Dugan in Milwaukee has nothing to do with immigration,” said US senator Bernie Sanders at the time. “It has everything to do with [Trump] moving this country towards authoritarianism.”Prosecutors charged Dugan in April with concealing an individual to prevent arrest and obstruction. In the federal criminal justice system, prosecutors can initiate charges against a defendant directly by filing a complaint or present evidence to a grand jury and let that body decide whether to issue charges.A grand jury still reviews charges brought by complaint to determine whether enough probable cause exists to continue the case as a check on prosecutors’ power. If the grand jury determines there’s probable cause, it issues a written statement of the charges known as an indictment. That’s what happened in Dugan’s case.Dugan faces up to six years in prison if she’s convicted on both counts. Her team of defense attorneys responded to the indictment with a one-sentence statement saying that she maintains her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court.Prosecutors say Dugan escorted Eduardo Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer out of her courtroom through a back jury door on 18 April after learning that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents were in the courthouse seeking his arrest.According to court documents, Flores-Ruiz illegally re-entered the US after being deported in 2013. Online state court records show he was charged with three counts of misdemeanor domestic abuse in Milwaukee county in March. He was in Dugan’s courtroom the morning of 18 April for a hearing.Court documents suggest Dugan was alerted to the agents’ presence by her clerk, who was informed by an attorney that the agents appeared to be in the hallway. An affidavit says Dugan was visibly angry over the agents’ arrival and called the situation “absurd” before leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers. She and another judge later approached members of the arrest team in the courthouse with what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor”.After a back-and-forth with the agents over the warrant for Flores-Ruiz, Dugan demanded they speak with the chief judge and led them away from the courtroom, according to the affidavit.She then returned to the courtroom and was heard saying words to the effect of “wait, come with me” and ushered Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out through a back jury door typically used only by deputies, jurors, court staff and in-custody defendants, according to the affidavit. Flores-Ruiz was free on a signature bond in the abuse case at the time, according to online state court records.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFederal agents ultimately captured him outside the courthouse after a foot chase.The state supreme court suspended Dugan from the bench in late April, saying the move was necessary to preserve public confidence in the judiciary. A reserve judge is filling in for her.Dugan’s case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out of a courthouse back door to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent. That case was eventually dismissed.She was scheduled to enter a plea on Thursday.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The FBI’s arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan is a bid to silence dissent | Moira Donegan

      by

      On Friday, the Trump administration dramatically escalated its assault on the courts when the FBI arrested Hannah Dugan, a county circuit court judge handling misdemeanors in Milwaukee – allegedly for helping an undocumented man avoid abduction by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents outside her courtroom. The arrest, a highly publicized and dramatic move from the Trump administration, seemed designed to elicit fear among judges, government bureaucrats and ordinary Americans that any effort to slow, impede or merely not facilitate the administration’s mass kidnapping and deportation efforts will lead to swift, forceful and disproportionate punishment by Donald Trump allies. Her arrest may be the opening salvo of a broader Trump assault on judges.Even if you believe the FBI’s allegations, their account of Dugan’s alleged misconduct is trivial and flimsy, wholly undeserving of the administration’s sadistically disproportionate response. The FBI claims that earlier this month, on 17 April, when an undocumented man was in Dugan’s Milwaukee courtroom charged with misdemeanor battery, she learned that Ice agents were waiting in a public hallway to arrest him. Later, in her courtroom, when she saw the defendant moving toward a main exit, she told the man, “Wait, come with me,” and directed him towards a side door instead. (He was captured by Ice shortly thereafter.) The FBI arrested her in her courtroom and has indicted her on two federal felony charges: obstruction and “concealing an individual”.The presence of Ice agents looking to abduct, detain and deport various undocumented people has long been a problem in local courthouses, keeping municipalities from interacting officially with their residents and slowing the pace of court business as undocumented people have become reluctant to show up at courthouse buildings, be it to face criminal charges, as the man in Dugan’s case was doing; to tend to civil matters; or to report crimes or pursue restraining orders against abusers. As a result, many local judges and administrators have criticized Ice’s operation policies, alleging that the agency’s aggressive tactics to enforce federal immigration law have obstructed their own ability to enforce local law. This is a distinct issue from the legality of Trump administration’s immigration crackdown tactics, which have also been challenged by a number of judges at the state and local level. The justice department has reportedly encouraged federal prosecutors to press charges against state and local officials who oppose the administration’s immigration policies.At the Milwaukee courthouse where Dugan works, Ice agents had already made two high-profile arrests of undocumented persons there to conduct official business, actions that sent a chilling effect through the local community. (The defendant in question in Dugan’s court that day was there on a domestic violence charge; because Ice decided to appear there to arrest him on civil immigration charges instead, the proceedings had to be abruptly halted. The victims, who were present in the courtroom, did not get their chance to see justice served.) When she learned of the presence of Ice agents outside her courtroom door, the FBI alleges, Judge Dugan asked the Ice agents to leave, and pointed out that they did not have the correct warrants. She also allegedly called the situation “absurd”.The absurdity was only beginning. After capturing Dugan’s defendant, the Trump administration evidently sought to make an example of Dugan, and concocted the trumped-up felony charges in order to criminalize her objection to their presence in her courthouse. After orchestrating her arrest, the FBI’s embattled chief, Kash Patel, tweeted gloatingly about Dugan’s capture; then, he quickly deleted the post, only to put it up again later. The FBI seems to have procedurally expedited the charges against her, having her indictment issued by a magistrate judge rather than a grand jury, and arresting Dugan rather than giving her the opportunity to turn herself in. They seem to have been going for maximum drama. For her part, Dugan – a well-known progressive in Milwaukee legal circles who spent much of her career working as a public-interest legal aid attorney – said nothing at her arraignment on Friday. Her attorney told the press, “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly rejects and protests her arrest,” adding: “It was not made in the interest of public safety.”Indeed it was not. Instead, Dugan’s arrest was made in the interest of shoring up the Trump administration’s depictions of itself as lawless, fearsome and impervious to constitutional checks on its own power. It was made in the interest of intimidating the administration’s critics and opponents. And it was made in the interest of silencing dissent.The Trump administration has been rapidly accumulating political prisoners. It began with immigrants who voiced opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza: Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the graduate students who had their legal status revoked in retaliation for their pro-Palestinian opinions and who were kidnapped by the Ice secret police and shipped off to faraway prisons without process, are political prisoners. Dugan’s, too, is a political prosecution: what is at stake is not so much the law that that meager little comment – “Wait, come with me” – supposedly broke. Instead, it is that Dugan opposes the Trump mass deportation project, and she voiced that opposition in public. Her arrest is an expansion of the Trump regime’s determination into who can be made a political prisoner: with Dugan, that designation extends, in public fashion, to citizens, and even to judges. You should expect that it can expand to you.Dugan’s example is meant to frighten Americans into submission. But I think it might be more likely that she inspires us to subversion. Legality and morality are different things, and what Dugan allegedly did, whether or not it was technically legal, was supremely moral, and not a little bit brave: she refused to cooperate with a secret police force that was there to violate her courtroom, disappear her defendant, and interfere with her own distribution of justice. Doing the morally right thing – opposing Ice and mass deportations with our actions, in practical terms – will require courage from more and more of us, and a greater and greater willingness to face consequences for it.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats decry Wisconsin judge’s arrest as Republicans call to remove her

      by

      The FBI’s arrest of Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan has triggered strong reactions from Republican and Democratic politicians, as the Trump administration veered closer to direct confrontation with the judiciary over its crackdown on immigration.Following the Milwaukee county circuit judge’s arrest on Friday, over allegations that she helped a man evade US immigration officers at her courthouse, Republicans have called for her removal while Democrats regard her arrest as a reflection of the administration’s increasing disregard of judicial independence amid its push to deport immigrants on an enormous scale.In a clear signal that the administration welcomed a political fight over the judge’s arrest, the FBI director, Kash Patel, posted a photograph of Dugan in handcuffs on Twitter/X on Friday night, captioned: “No one is above the law.”According to the criminal complaint against the judge filed in federal court, a six-person arrest team, which included an immigration officer and two FBI agents, arrived at the courthouse to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant facing three misdemeanor battery counts they intended to deport.Flores-Ruiz was in Dugan’s courtroom on 18 April for a scheduling hearing. The complaint alleges that when the arrest team identified themselves to courthouse security, and waited in the public hallway outside Dugan’s courtroom, she confronted them and ordered them to report to the chief judge’s office. Then, according to a court officer cited in the complaint, Dugan directed the defendant and his lawyer to a side exit from the courtroom, which led to a private hallway.In response to Dugan’s arrest, Representative Glenn Grothman, a Wisonsin Republican, accused Dugan of being a “liberal judge [who] would go so far as to obstruct federal law enforcement in order to protect a violent illegal immigrant from arrest”.Tony Wied, another Republican representative of Wisconsin in Congress, demanded Dugan’s resignation. “Absolutely unacceptable,” Wied wrote, adding: “Not only are activist judges trying to thwart the president’s agenda, now they are actively breaking the law to protect illegal aliens. Judge Dugan should resign immediately.”Democrats, including Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, condemned the FBI’s arrest of Dugan as an overreach of executive power by Donald Trump.Evers said: “In this country, people who are suspected of criminal wrongdoing are innocent until their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt.” He went to add: “Unfortunately, we have seen in recent months the president and the Trump administration repeatedly use dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine the judiciary at every level, including flat-out disobeying the highest court in the land and threatening to impeach and remove judges who do not rule in their favor.”Referencing the US president and the White House’s own messaging of likening Trump to a king, the state’s Democratic senator, Tammy Baldwin, said: “Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country … By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, the state’s former Republican governor Scott Walker called on, the Wisconsin state legislature “to remove disgraced Milwaukee county circuit court judge Hannah Dugan from office”.Republicans from outside of Wisconsin echoed those calls, with Tennessee’s representative Tim Burchett saying: “If she broke the law, she needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent. No double standards.”But Wisconsin’s Democratic representative Gwen Moore countered that what she called the administration’s “willingness to weaponize federal law enforcement is shocking and this arrest has all the hallmarks of overreach. Federal law enforcement coming into a community and arresting a judge is a serious matter and would require a high legal bar.”Milwaukee’s city council members also released a statement, saying: “Perhaps the most chilling part of judge Dugan’s arrest is the continued aggression by which the current administration in Washington DC has weaponized federal law enforcement, such as ICE, against immigrant communities.”Similarly, Milwaukee county board supervisor, Miguel Martinez, said: “The people will not stand for an administration that continues to weaponize our justice system as a means to intimidate immigrant communities, made clear by the cumulative actions over recent weeks.”Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who sits on the House judiciary committee, told Axios that there should “absolutely” be a probe into Dugan’s arrest. “On the face of it, this is dangerous and outrageous and it is designed to intimidate our judiciary,” she said.Her fellow House judiciary committee member, Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, said: “This is a drastic escalation and dangerous new front in Trump’s authoritarian campaign of trying to bully, intimidate and impeach judges who won’t follow his dictates.”“We must do whatever we can to defend the independent judiciary in America … This is an unmistakable descent further into authoritarian chaos,” he added. More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      FBI arrests Wisconsin judge and accuses her of obstructing immigration officials

      by

      The FBI on Friday arrested a judge whom the agency accused of obstruction after it said she helped a man evade US immigration authorities as they were seeking to arrest him at her courthouse.The county circuit judge, Hannah Dugan, was apprehended in the courthouse where she works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at 8.30am local time on Friday on charges of obstruction, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service confirmed to the Guardian.Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, wrote mid-morning on X: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject – an illegal alien – to evade arrest.”He said that agents were still able to arrest the target after he was “chased down” and that he was in custody. Patel added that “the judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public”. The FBI director deleted the post minutes later for unknown reasons, but the US marshals confirmed to multiple outlets that the arrest had occurred.Dugan appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later on Friday morning before being released from custody. Her next court appearance is 15 May.“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the hearing. He declined to comment to an Associated Press reporter, following her court appearance.A crowd formed outside the courthouse, chanting: “Free the judge now.”In a statement shared with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, an attorney for Dugan said: “Hannah C Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge.”It continued: “Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated.”Trump weighed in on his Truth Social platform by sharing an image of the judge taken from her campaign’s Facebook page in which she was seen on the bench wearing a KN95 face mask and displaying the Ukrainian national symbol of a trident. The image was first posted on X by the rightwing blogger Libs of TikTok.The Milwaukee city council released a statement following the arrest: “This morning’s news that Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested by federal authorities is shocking and upsetting. Judge Dugan should be afforded the same respect and due process that she has diligently provided others throughout her career.“Perhaps the most chilling part of Judge Dugan’s arrest is the continued aggression by which the current administration in Washington, DC has weaponized federal law enforcement, such as ICE, against immigrant communities,” the statement reads. “As local elected officials, we are working daily to support our constituents who grow increasingly concerned and worried with each passing incident.”Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat representing Wisconsin, called the arrest of a sitting judge a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the separation of power between the executive and judicial branches.“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in an emailed statement after Dugan’s arrest.The leftwing senator Bernie Sanders said the move was about “unchecked power”.“Let’s be clear. Trump’s arrest of Judge Dugan in Milwaukee has nothing to do with immigration. It has everything to do with [Trump] moving this country towards authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren said in a social media post: “This administration is threatening our country’s judicial system. This rings serious alarm bells.”The judge’s arrest dramatically escalates tensions between federal authorities and state and local officials amid Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown. It also comes amid a growing battle between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary over the president’s executive actions over deportations and other matters.In a statement Wisconsin’s governor, Democrat Tony Evers, accused the Trump administration of repeatedly using “dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level”.“I have deep respect for the rule of law, our nation’s judiciary, the importance of judges making decisions impartially without fear or favor, and the efforts of law enforcement to hold people accountable if they commit a crime,” Evers said. “I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law.”It was reported on Tuesday that the FBI was investigating whether Dugan “tried to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest when that person was scheduled to appear in her courtroom last week”, per an email obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.Dugan told the Journal Sentinel: “Nearly every fact regarding the ‘tips’ in your email is inaccurate.”The arrest of Dugan is the first publicly known instance of the Trump administration charging a local official for allegedly interfering with immigration enforcement.Emil Bove, the justice department’s principal associate deputy attorney general, issued a memo in January calling on prosecutors to pursue criminal cases against local government officials who obstructed the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts.Bove stated in the three-page memo: “Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands or requests.”Dugan has been charged with the federal offenses of obstructing a proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, according to documents filed with the court.The administration alleged that in the original encounter, the judge ordered immigration officials to leave the courthouse, saying they did not have a warrant signed by a judge to apprehend the suspect they were seeking, who was in court for other reasons.Prosecutors said that Dugan became “visibly angry” when she learned that immigration agents were planning an arrest in her courtroom, according to court filings.Dugan ordered the immigration officials to speak with the chief judge and then escorted Flores Ruiz and his attorney through a door that led to a non-public area of the courthouse, the prosecution complaint said.The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, citing sources it did not identify, said Dugan steered Flores Ruiz and his attorney to a private hallway and into a public area but did not hide the pair in a jury deliberation room as some have accused her of doing.Dugan was first elected as a county judge in 2016 and before that was head of the local branch of Catholic Charities, which provides refugee resettlement programs. She was previously a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, which serves low-income people.The case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a backdoor of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.That prosecution sparked outrage from many in the legal community, who slammed the case as politically motivated. Prosecutors under the Biden administration dropped the case against Newton district judge Shelley Joseph in 2022 after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.However, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, gave a media interview in which she said the administration would target any judges it believed were breaking the law.Bondi said on a Fox News segment that she believes “some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today … if you are harboring a fugitive, we will come after you and we will prosecute you.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 263 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      I’m a Jewish Israeli in the US standing up for Palestine. By Trump’s logic, I’m a terror supporter | Eran Zelnik

      by

      To Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:Given recent patterns, the FBI might need to take a hard look at my actions over the years. If Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Yunseo Chung, Badar Khan Suri and other recent Ice detainees are considered threats to national security, then so am I.I have committed the same acts they have committed, including publishing an article that calls the war in Gaza a genocide, participating in a protest against the genocide in Gaza, speaking and protesting in favor of BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions against Israel), participating in a sit-in at UC Davis about 10 years ago, and being vocal in general about the atrocities committed by Israel against the people of Gaza and Palestinians.Let me tell you a little more about myself and all the additional reasons you might want to investigate and perhaps arrest me. I was born in Israel and became a naturalized US citizen through my American mother. Given the administration’s recent challenges to the 14th amendment, which provides birthright citizenship, you might proceed from detaining legal residents to revoking the rights of naturalized citizens. Like other fascist regimes before you, you’ve been testing how much resistance you face in your effort to turn the United States into a fascist country. You start with the most marginalized, sending incarcerated trans women to men’s prisons, Venezuelans accused of gang affiliation to El Salvador, and detaining Arab and Muslim legal residents. But if the past is any indication, your next target might well be children of undocumented immigrants or naturalized citizens. Of course, as every student of fascism well knows, the ultimate goal is to apprehend all the supposed enemies of this administration, regardless of their legal status.Furthermore, I must confess to using academic concepts that have come under scrutiny as antisemitic by the Department of Justice taskforce for antisemitism. As a former member of the Israel Defense Forces, I have come a long way. It took me many years of soul-searching to realize that I was complicit in a settler-colonial occupation force and that my best recourse to make amends for that was to be outspoken about my country’s atrocities. As I tried to better understand the terrible tragedy of Zionism – a nationalist ideology that sought to free Jews from oppression only to end up as oppressors in Palestine – I confess to describing concepts such as apartheid, settler colonialism, ethno-nationalism and more. Perhaps even more disturbing from your perspective, I recently employed such concepts as genocide, settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing in a book I wrote about early American history.I also confess that in the past I have targeted white supremacist allies of this administration in my community of Chico, California. Clearly employing extralegal militias is part of this administration’s fascist playbook, as Trump already proved during the events of 6 January 2021. For instance, when my house was a target of antisemitic leafleting, I sought the help of a colleague and a local investigative journalist to make this very real form of antisemitism known to authorities. In the process the journalist uncovered troubling information that there is an armed white supremacist in our community who holds deep antisemitic convictions and now knows where I work. Had you really been interested in investigating antisemitism, you might have looked into the whereabouts of that individual. But since you want people like him around so that they can be activated when needed, and since all you really want is to cynically weaponize antisemitism, you might want to arrest me instead. After all, according to your standards, I – a Jew targeted by white supremacists – was all along the biggest threat to Jews in my own community.I have long heard stories about the rise of fascism in Europe from my grandparents, all of whom fled Europe and were refugees from antisemitism. The similarities between the actions of this administration and what my grandparents have lived through are unmistakable. I tell them here so that before you choose to arrest me, you will have one more opportunity to decide whether you will go down in history as aiding and abetting the rise of a fascist regime or as someone who refused to be part of another dark episode in this country’s history. Be forewarned: even if you yourself never directly suffer for your crimes, history will judge you.My dear grandfather, Otto, may his memory be a blessing, escaped Austria by the skin of his teeth when he was only 13 after the Nazi takeover of the country. Having witnessed the horrors of Kristallnacht in November of 1938 – the night when local mobs violently rioted against Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses across much of Germany and Austria and arrested 30,000 citizens just for being Jewish – his parents made the decision to flee to Shanghai, the only port that would accept them. Clearly, our current president’s rhetoric regarding enemies of the American nation from within and without, against immigrants, trans people and people deemed un-American in their political commitments (like myself), are eerily reminiscent of the stories my grandfather told me about the scapegoating of Jews.As I consider the memory of dear grandmother Rachel, may her memory be a blessing, who grew up in Poland and survived the Holocaust, including enduring a harrowing year in Auschwitz and the death march to Germany, I cannot shake the sense of another parallel. As Hitler and the Nazi party were consolidating power, they appointed sycophants like yourself and so many others to positions of power in the Nazi administration. The most important criterion for Hitler was not that the people in positions of power were competent or even knowledgeable, but that they would be spineless and loyal to him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to the historian Ian Kershaw, this type of leadership, where all bow to the great leader, led to the Holocaust, as the people surrounding Hitler constantly sought to outdo each other in their loyalty to the Führer. Knowing Hitler’s hatred for Jews, they constantly tried to curry favor by suggesting the most radical and far-reaching policy ideas towards Jews. This dynamic, which Kershaw called “working toward the Führer”, ultimately led Hitler and the people surrounding him to decide on the “Final Solution”, the plan to exterminate all the Jews in the world on an industrial scale in death camps. This idea of working toward the leader is upon us today, as we see institutions and even some in the Democratic party bowing before the great leader and his will. Instead of standing up to the administration at every turn, institutions, businesses and politicians across the country prefer to anticipate the administration’s wrath and eliminate any behavior or materials that might come under scrutiny. Meanwhile, Republicans rush to outdo each other in flattering the great leader, as American society seems frozen with fear in face of the rising tides of fascism.So, Kash Patel, do you want to arrest me and help bring about fascism?

      Eran Zelnik grew up in Israel and came to the US 15 years ago to complete his PhD in history. He now lives and teaches in Chico, California More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      FBI director Kash Patel removed as director of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

      by

      The Trump administration has replaced the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, as the interim head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and installed Dan Driscoll, secretary of the army, in his place, according to two people familiar with the matter.The abrupt change, which was announced to senior ATF officials on Wednesday morning, for the first time placed control of the embattled agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws to the defense department.Patel has been running the FBI and the ATF for months, but it had proved to be overly burdensome, and Driscoll was selected to replace Patel as the interim head, as he was one of the few Senate-confirmed appointees available, one of the people said.The initial move to have the FBI director run the ATF was unusual because the agency has traditionally had its own, separate director. The move to now transfer leadership outside the justice department entirely marks an additional departure.Driscoll is expected to simultaneously run the ATF and continue with his current role. A spokesperson for the justice department did not respond to a request for comment about the long-term implication of the move.Trump’s aides have viewed the ATF and its mission with skepticism and have discussed gutting the ATF or merging it with the Drug Enforcement Administration, another small and underfunded agency that has previously been part of the justice department.The decision to have the army secretary run the ATF could be the precursor to such a move or at least to dramatically reduce its size and scope. In recent weeks, ATF agents have been diverted to help with enforcing Trump’s immigration agenda.It also comes as Pam Bondi, the US attorney general who is under pressure from pro-gun groups, announced plans to eliminate the Biden-era ATF’s “zero tolerance” policy that strips licenses of firearms dealers found to have repeatedly violated federal laws and regulations. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Doge breaks into US Institute of Peace building after White House guts board

      by

      The Trump administration fired most of the board of the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and sent its new leader into the Washington DC headquarters of the independent organization on Monday, in its latest effort targeting agencies tied to foreign assistance work.The remaining three members of the group’s board – defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and national defense university president Peter Garvin – fired president and CEO, George Moose, on Friday, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press.An executive order that Donald Trump signed last month targeted the organization, which was created by Congress more than 40 years ago, and others for reductions.Current USIP employees said staffers from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” entered the building despite protests that the institute is not part of the executive branch. USIP called the police, whose vehicles were outside the building on Monday evening.USIP is a congressionally funded independent non-profit that works to advance US values in conflict resolution, ending wars and promoting good governance.Moose, said: “DOGE has broken into our building.” Police cars were outside the Washington building on Monday evening.The CEO vowed legal action, saying: “What has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private non-profit.”He said the institute’s headquarters, located across the street from the state department, is not a federal building. Speaking to reporters after leaving the building, Moose noted: “It was very clear that there was a desire on the part of the administration to dismantle a lot of what we call foreign assistance, and we are part of that family.”The Doge workers gained access to the building after several unsuccessful attempts Monday and after having been turned away on Friday, a senior US Institute of Peace official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.It was not immediately clear what the Doge staffers were doing or looking for in the non-profit’s building, which is across the street from the state department in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood.White House spokesperson Anna Kelly pointed to USIP’s “noncompliance” with Trump’s order.After that, “11 board members were lawfully removed, and remaining board members appointed Kenneth Jackson acting president,” she said. “Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the President’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”Jackson had been seen earlier on Monday trying to get into the non-profit’s building.Moose said the organization had been speaking with Doge since last month, trying to explain its independent status. Speaking of Trump, he said: “I can’t imagine how our work could align more perfectly with the goals that he has outlined: keeping us out of foreign wars, resolving conflicts before they drag us into those kinds of conflicts.”Doge has expressed interest in the US Institute of Peace (USIP) for weeks but has been rebuffed by lawyers who argued that the institute’s status protected it from the kind of reorganization that is occurring in other federal agencies.On Friday, Doge members arrived with two FBI agents, who left after the institute’s lawyer told them of USIP’s “private and independent status”, the organization said in a statement.Chief of security Colin O’Brien said police on Monday helped Doge members enter the building and that the private security team for the organization had its contract canceled.The US Institute of Peace says on its website that it is a nonpartisan, independent organization “dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad”.The non-profit says it was created by Congress in 1984 as an “independent nonprofit corporation”, and it does not meet US code definitions of “government corporation”, “government-controlled corporation” or “independent establishment”.Also named in the president’s executive order were the US African Development Foundation, a federal agency that invests in African small businesses; the Inter-American Foundation, a federal agency that invests in Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Presidio Trust, which oversees a national park site next to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.The African Development Foundation, which also unsuccessfully tried to keep Doge staff from entering its offices in Washington, went to court, but a federal judge ruled last week that removing most grants and most staff would be legal. The president of the Inter-American Foundation sued on Monday to block her firing in February by the Trump administration. More