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    Another Reason People Fear the Government

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    Why do Americans have such deep distrust of their government?It’s a simple question with a complex answer, but here’s part of the reason: All too often, the government wrongfully inflicts profound harm on American citizens and then leaves them with no recourse. It violates the law and leaves its victims with no way to be made whole.Let me give you two recent examples, both taken from Supreme Court cases that were argued this term and have not yet been decided.In the predawn hours of Oct. 18, 2017, an F.B.I. SWAT team detonated a flash-bang grenade at a home at 3756 Denville Trace in Atlanta. A team of federal agents rushed in.The family inside was terrified. Hilliard Toi Cliatt lived there with his partner, Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son, Gabe. They had no idea who had entered their house. Cliatt tried to protect Martin by grabbing her and hiding in a closet.Martin screamed, “I need to get my son.” The agents pulled Cliatt and Martin out of the closet, holding them at gunpoint as Martin fell to the floor, half-naked. When they asked Cliatt his address, “All the noise just ended.”He told them: 3756 Denville Trace. But it turned out they were supposed to be at 3741 Landau Lane, an entirely different house down the block. The agents left, raided the correct house and then returned to apologize. The lead agent gave the family his business card and left the family, according to their Supreme Court petition, in “stunned disbelief.”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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      White Supremacist Is Charged in 2019 Arson at Tennessee Civil Rights Landmark

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      Regan Prater set fire to the main offices of the Highlander Research and Education Center and took credit for it in encrypted messages, prosecutors said.A Tennessee man with ties to several white supremacist groups has been charged with setting a fire in 2019 that destroyed the offices of a social justice center connected with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., according to court records.In a federal criminal complaint that was unsealed on April 24, the F.B.I. said that the man, Regan Prater, 27, set fire to the main offices of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn., near Knoxville, and spray-painted an Iron Guard cross on the pavement outside.The symbol originated with fascists in Romania in the 1920s and 1930s, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It has more recently been used by white supremacists, including one who murdered 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019.Investigators in Tennessee said that Mr. Prater, of Tullahoma, took credit for the arson while chatting with an informant on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that he used to communicate with other white supremacists.“I didn’t admit that, but dots can be connected,” Mr. Prater wrote to the informant when asked if he had set the fire, according to the complaint.He then gave details about how he had started the blaze, telling the informant, “It was a sparkler bomb and some Napalm.”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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      Torture and Secret C.I.A. Prisons Haunt 9/11 Case in Judge’s Ruling

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      Prosecutors have said they will appeal the decision, although they lost a similar appeal this year.When a military judge threw out a defendant’s confession in the Sept. 11 case this month, he gave two main reasons.The prisoner’s statements, the judge ruled, were obtained through the C.I.A.’s use of torture, including beatings and sleep deprivation.But equally troubling to the judge was what happened to the prisoner in the years after his physical torture ended, when the agency held him in isolation and kept questioning him from 2003 to 2006.The defendant, Ammar al-Baluchi, is accused of sending money and providing other support to some of the hijackers who carried out the terrorist attack, which killed 3,000 people. In court, Mr. Baluchi is charged as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.He is the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man accused of masterminding the plot.The judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, wrote that it was easy to focus on the torture because it was “so absurdly far outside the norms of what is expected of U.S. custody preceding law enforcement questioning.”“However,” he added, “the three and a half years of uncharged, incommunicado detention and essentially solitary confinement — all while being continually questioned and conditioned — is just as egregious” as the physical torture.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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      What We Know About Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan’s Arrest

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      Judge Hannah Dugan is accused of obstructing justice after directing a migrant out of her courtroom as federal agents waited to arrest him. Her arrest has raised several questions.F.B.I. agents arrested on Friday a Milwaukee judge accused of obstructing justice by directing an undocumented immigrant out of her courtroom through a side door while federal immigration agents waited in a hallway to arrest him.The arrest of the judge, Hannah C. Dugan, quickly drew condemnation from Democratic leaders and prompted protests in the Wisconsin city.But the U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi, defended the move, saying Judge Dugan’s arrest sent a “strong message” to judges that the Trump administration will prosecute them if they obstruct justice by “escorting a criminal defendant out a back door.”A protest was held in front of the Milwaukee County Courthouse to support Judge Dugan on Friday.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesAnd after the arrest, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, posted a photo of her in handcuffs on X, adding, “No one is above the law.”The arrest has raised several questions — many of which remain unanswered. Here’s what we know so far.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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      Wisconsin Judge Arrested, Accused of Shielding Immigrant From Federal Agents

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      Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” an immigrant being pursued by the authorities, the F.B.I. director said in a social media post that he later deleted.F.B.I. Director Kash Patel said on Friday that agents had arrested a county judge in Milwaukee on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed the arrest of a sitting judge, a major escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with local authorities over deportations.The bureau arrested Judge Hannah Dugan on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” an immigrant being pursued by federal authorities, Mr. Patel wrote on social media. He later deleted the post for reasons that were not immediately clear. An F.B.I. spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Brady McCarron, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals, confirmed that the judge had been arrested by F.B.I. agents on Friday morning. The charging document against the judge was not immediately available in federal court records.The Trump administration has vowed to investigate and prosecute local officials who do not assist federal immigration enforcement efforts, denouncing what they call “sanctuary cities” for not doing more to assist federal apprehensions and deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.The Milwaukee case involves a frequent flashpoint in that debate, when immigration agents try to arrest undocumented immigrants who are appearing in state court. Local authorities often chafe at such efforts, arguing they endanger public safety if people dealing with relatively minor legal issues feel it is unsafe to enter courthouses.In the first Trump administration, a local Massachusetts judge was indicted by the Justice Department on charges of obstructing immigration authorities. The charges were dropped after the judge agreed to refer herself to potential judicial discipline. More

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      F.B.I. Agents in Southeast Asia Paid for Sex While Police Stood By, Watchdog Says

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      Solicitation of prostitutes took place over several years even as employees were training to combat human trafficking, according to a document released to The Times in a lawsuit.F.B.I. agents stationed overseas had sex with prostitutes in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand, even as some bureau employees attended training meant to combat human trafficking, a practice that often exploits vulnerable women, according to an investigation by the Justice Department’s watchdog.The document, made public on Thursday in response to a lawsuit by The New York Times, covers activity from 2009 to 2018, and describes F.B.I. employees paying for or accepting sex while socializing with each other and with the police in several countries, portraying a lascivious culture where women were freely used for sex.The previously unreleased information gives the fullest picture to date of damning conduct by F.B.I. agents abroad, resolving some of the unanswered questions from a scandal that began under the first Trump administration and was largely kept quiet for years as government lawyers argued against disclosing details. They come as the new F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has promised to remake the bureau.Prostitution is prevalent in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand but illegal in all three countries. The F.B.I., which has made combating sex trafficking a priority, prohibits employees from paying for sex.The F.B.I. did not immediately respond to a request to comment.Some of the activity happened when officials were in other countries for conferences or events. In 2017, F.B.I. officials visiting Bangkok for an event twice went to bars where they negotiated for sex in the company of the police, the report says.That same year, the Royal Thai Police co-hosted a training course with the F.B.I. and Homeland Security Investigations, a law enforcement agency within the Homeland Security Department, on combating human trafficking.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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      LeShon Johnson, Ex-N.F.L. Running Back, Ran Major Dogfighting Kennel, U.S. Says

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      Federal investigators say that they seized 190 pit-bull-type dogs from the former player, who previously pleaded guilty to state dogfighting charges in 2004.The federal authorities said this week that they had broken up a major dogfighting kennel in Oklahoma led by the former National Football League running back LeShon Johnson, seizing 190 pit-bull-type dogs in what they described as the most ever taken from a single person in a federal case.In a news release, the Justice Department said on Tuesday that a 21-count indictment against Mr. Johnson, 54, had recently been unsealed in federal court in Muskogee, Okla. He was arrested on March 20 and arraigned the same day before being released, according to court documents.Mr. Johnson, who played for the Green Bay Packers, the Arizona Cardinals and the New York Giants in the 1990s, is facing felony charges of possessing and trafficking dogs for use in an animal fighting venture. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.He previously pleaded guilty to state dogfighting charges in 2004 and received a five-year deferred sentence.“The F.B.I. will not tolerate criminals that harm innocent animals for their twisted form of entertainment,” Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, said in a statement. “The F.B.I. views animal cruelty investigations as a precursor to larger, organized crime efforts, similar to trafficking and homicides.”Courtney R. Jordan, a lawyer for Mr. Johnson, declined to comment on Wednesday.Investigators say that Mr. Johnson “selectively bred ‘champion’ and ‘grand champion’ fighting dogs — dogs that have respectively won three or five fights” as part of his criminal enterprise, which was known as Mal Kant Kennels and was based in Broken Arrow, Okla., and Haskell, Okla.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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      E.P.A. Offers No New Evidence in Battle Over $20 Billion in Climate Grants

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      Nonprofit groups have sued the agency to get access to grants approved by Congress to fund climate and clean energy projects across the country.In a legal filing Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency did not provide direct evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse in a $20 billion climate grant program that the agency canceled citing “unacceptable risk.”For weeks, the grant program has been mired in controversy, with its funds frozen, as the E.P.A. attempted to claw back money that was approved by Congress for clean energy programs. At least three of the grant recipients have filed lawsuits seeking access to the funds they were promised.Last week, a federal judge ordered the E.P.A. to justify its moves to freeze the funds and cancel the program. The motion stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Climate United, a nonprofit group that was supposed to receive $7 billion under the initiative.But in response to the judge’s order on Monday, the E.P.A. did not present new direct evidence. Instead, it referred to unidentified media reports as well as a video released last year by Project Veritas, a conservative group known for using covert recordings to embarrass its political opponents.The video, filmed in a social setting, showed an E.P.A. staff member at the time, talking about the outgoing Biden administration’s efforts to quickly spend federal money. He compared it to throwing “gold bars” off the Titanic. A lawyer for the former staff member has since said he was not referring to the $20 billion grant program.But Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, has seized on the video and has repeatedly suggested the grants were vulnerable to fraud. At the request of the Trump administration, the $20 billion allocated to eight nonprofit groups have been frozen in accounts held at Citibank.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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      Kash Patel Pushes Command Changes at F.B.I.

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      Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, is pushing ahead with a plan to decentralize the agency’s command structure and divide the bureau into three regions, according to an internal email obtained by The New York Times.The move will mean that in effect, the top agents in 52 field offices around the country will no longer answer to the deputy director, a significant departure from the way the bureau has done business.Instead, those field offices will report to three branch directors at headquarters who will be in charge of the East, West and Central regions. The remaining three F.B.I. offices and the largest in the country — New York, Washington and Los Angeles — will answer to the deputy director.“These changes are meant to empower our S.A.C.s through improved engagement and leadership connections,” said the email, which was sent on Friday, referring to special agents in charge, who typically oversee field offices in a given region.It represents a shift after a quarter-century of an F.B.I. run under a structure put in place by Robert S. Mueller III after the Sept. 11 attacks. The model was established to address administrative lapses and bolster efforts to deter terrorism. In Mr. Patel’s iteration, he has appointed a total of five branch directors, eliminating the executive assistant directors who previously managed the F.B.I. on a daily basis.The announced changes were not unexpected, as Mr. Patel has already moved to reduce the number of F.B.I. employees working at headquarters and push them into the field, making good on a pledge he made before becoming director. His efforts have drawn praise from President Trump.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