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    Trump Says He Wants Alcatraz Restored as a Prison

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    The project would be extraordinarily expensive at a time when the administration already plans to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department’s budget.President Trump said on Sunday that he wanted federal law enforcement agencies to work on restoring Alcatraz, now a museum, to a functioning maximum-security prison.Repeating one of his constant refrains that the United States had become a dangerous, lawless place, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he wanted Alcatraz, an island in San Francisco Bay, to be enlarged and rebuilt “to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our country illegally.”It was not immediately clear how his musing could be put into action, given that any such project would be extraordinarily expensive and that the administration already planned to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department budget.Mr. Trump said he had instructed the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department to work on his idea, along with the F.B.I. — a curious choice given that the bureau plays no role in incarcerating people convicted of crimes.A reopened Alcatraz, Mr. Trump wrote, would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice.” The prison captured the public imagination as the home of the “worst of the worst” until it was closed in 1963 and eventually turned into a popular museum attraction.In addition to holding the gangster known as “Machine Gun Kelly” and Al Capone — whose multiple indictments Mr. Trump often mentioned on the campaign trail to describe himself as unfairly persecuted — Alcatraz is most famous for the escape of three men in 1962. They were never found, and it remains unclear whether they survived the swim from the island, which is more than a mile from shore in cold water with strong currents. Today, Alcatraz is best known as a damp, frigid and nostalgic staple of tourist packages and children’s field trips.By comparison, the current federal super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colo., has never had an inmate escape.In California, Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator representing San Francisco, called Mr. Trump’s idea “absurd on its face” and the latest example of what he called the president’s “continuing unhinged behavior.”A spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom laughed when asked about the president’s order. “Looks like it’s Distraction Day again in Washington, D.C.,” Izzy Gardon, the governor’s director of communications, said.Mr. Gardon pointed out that it had been more than six decades since Alcatraz operated as a prison, and that turning it back into a facility to house inmates would take many years and significant federal investment at a time when the president has said he wants to slash spending.Maggie Haberman More

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      College Assistant Admissions Director Charged With Attempted Sex Trafficking

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      The authorities arrested Jacob Henriques, 29, after he had tried to solicit prospective and admitted students for sex, the Justice Department said. He worked for Emmanuel College in Boston.A former assistant admissions director at Emmanuel College in Boston was arrested Friday and accused of soliciting an underage applicant for sex, the Justice Department said.Prosecutors charged the director, Jacob Henriques, 29, with one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor after he used his position to gain access to the personal information of admitted and prospective students, and tried to solicit them for sex, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts.In a statement, Emmanuel College said that it fired Mr. Henriques after contacting law enforcement and starting an investigation. “Emmanuel College is saddened, angered and shocked by these serious federal allegations,” it said.Whether Mr. Henriques had legal representation was not immediately clear. On April 25, Mr. Henriques found the personal information of at least three of the students after meeting with several, prosecutors said. He then contacted and offered to “pay them for some fun,” the authorities added, and sent pornographic videos or images in some cases.The same day, he began contacting a fourth victim after she committed to attending the college, according to prosecutors.One of the victims, a 17-year-old, toured the college with Mr. Henriques on April 25, prosecutors said. Mr. Henriques asked her what grade she was in, and hours after the tour, he began texting the victim on the phone number on her admissions form, prosecutors said. He offered to pay her $400 for “some fun” and told her that he had pornographic videos and pictures for her, prosecutors said. He continued to contact her that night, refusing to tell her his identity or how he had her number, they added.Mr. Henriques then sent the prospective student five pornographic videos and asked whether she wanted to engage in sexual acts with him, prosecutors said. After her multiple refusals, Mr. Henriques continued to text her, saying “he would buy her anything she wanted” if she changed her mind, prosecutors said. Over the following days, he went into her admissions profile nearly 50 times, according to the Justice Department.Mr. Henriques contacted the student through email after she blocked his number, prosecutors said.A profile of Mr. Henriques that had been on Emmanuel College’s website said that he graduated in 2021 and was an “avid Boston sports fan,” and that his favorite thing about the college was its small classes, which allowed students “to connect with peers and faculty.”If Mr. Henriques is convicted, he could receive from 10 years to life in prison, the Justice Department said. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Boston on Monday. More

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      How Google’s Antitrust Case Could Upend the A.I. Race

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      A federal judge issued a landmark ruling last year, saying that Google had become a monopolist in internet search. But in a hearing that began last week to figure out how to fix the problem, the emphasis has frequently landed on a different technology, artificial intelligence.In U.S. District Court in Washington last week, a Justice Department lawyer argued that Google could use its search monopoly to become the dominant player in A.I. Google executives disclosed internal discussions about expanding the reach of Gemini, the company’s A.I. chatbot. And executives at rival A.I. companies said that Google’s power was an obstacle to their success.On Wednesday, the first substantial question posed to Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, after he took the stand was also about A.I. Throughout his 90-minute testimony, the subject came up more than two dozen times.“I think it’s one of the most dynamic moments in the industry,” said Mr. Pichai. “I’ve seen users’ home screens with, like, seven to nine applications of chatbots which they are trying and playing and training with.”An antitrust lawsuit about the past has effectively turned into a fight about the future, as the government and Google face off over proposed changes to the tech giant’s business that could shift the course of the A.I. race.For more than 20 years, Google’s search engine dominated the way people got answers online. Now the federal court is in essence grappling with whether the Silicon Valley giant will dominate the next era of how people get information on the internet, as consumers turn to a new crop of A.I. chatbots to answer questions, find solutions to their problems and learn about the world.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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      Judge Rejects Efforts to Free F.B.I. Informant Who Lied About Hunter Biden

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      The Trump administration had signaled it might try to undo the guilty plea and six-year prison sentence for Alexander Smirnov.A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid by the Justice Department to free a former F.B.I. informant who had pleaded guilty to lying about Hunter Biden and evading his taxes, saying that nothing about the facts of the case had changed and the man might still flee if released.The longtime informant, Alexander Smirnov, pleaded guilty in December in exchange for a six-year prison sentence, admitting that he had lied to the government when he claimed to have information about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter.Before Mr. Smirnov was charged and eventually admitted his guilt, Republican lawmakers had promoted his false claims about the Bidens in their push to try to impeach President Biden. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Smirnov’s allegations were also amplified by the Trump supporter Kash Patel, who is now the director of the F.B.I.Then, in an abrupt reversal this month, the Justice Department that had sent Mr. Smirnov to prison filed court papers seeking to have him released early, saying it was taking a second look at the case. That request was filed under instructions from senior Justice Department officials in Washington, according to people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a U.S. District Court judge, Otis D. Wright II, rejected that request, saying neither prosecutors nor Mr. Smirnov’s lawyers had presented any evidence that Mr. Smirnov was any less of a flight risk than when he was arrested. The judge also pushed back on what he said were inaccurate claims by the lawyers about the precise terms of his plea deal.The parties in the case, the judge wrote, “present no new facts in their papers that would alter the court’s conclusion that Smirnov is a flight risk, let alone provide ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that he is not one.”The Smirnov case was an offshoot of the federal investigation into Hunter Biden, and the plea deal was negotiated by David C. Weiss, the special counsel who led the inquiry and then stepped down in January.During the Biden administration, the Justice Department argued against the release of Mr. Smirnov, who had been arrested at the Las Vegas airport after returning to the United States from overseas.In the department’s filing earlier this month, prosecutors said that “clear and convincing evidence for defendant’s nonviolent offenses of conviction shows that defendant is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person.”The judge’s order said that the government’s new argument was unconvincing, writing that “the fact remains that Smirnov has been convicted and sentenced to 72 months in prison, providing ample incentive to flee.” More

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      U.S. Reverses Itself, Saying U.N.’s Gaza Agency Can Be Sued in New York

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      The Justice Department and the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office told a judge that an immunity law did not apply. A group of Israelis had accused the agency of assisting Hamas.Reversing a Biden administration position, President Trump’s Justice Department argued that a lawsuit could proceed in Manhattan that accuses a United Nations agency of providing more than $1 billion that helped to enable Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.The lawsuit says that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency allowed Hamas to siphon off the organization’s funds to help build a terrorist infrastructure that included tunneling equipment and weapons that supported the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 were taken hostage.The Biden administration argued last year that UNRWA could not be sued because it was part of the United Nations, which enjoys immunity from such lawsuits.But the Justice Department told a federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday that neither UNRWA nor the agency officials named in the lawsuit were entitled to immunity.“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers,” the department wrote in a letter to Judge Analisa Torres of Federal District Court, adding, “The government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts.”“The prior administration’s view that they do not was wrong,” the department said.The letter was submitted by Yaakov M. Roth, a senior Justice Department official, and Jay Clayton, the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.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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      Indicted ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Pays Roger Stone $600,000 to Lobby for Him

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      The longtime Trump ally is lobbying Congress to change the law that the crypto entrepreneur Roger Ver was charged with violating.Roger J. Stone Jr., the longtime associate of President Trump’s, has been lobbying for a pioneering cryptocurrency investor known as “Bitcoin Jesus” who is facing federal fraud and criminal tax charges, according to congressional filings.Mr. Stone filed paperwork last month indicating that he had been retained by Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin investor who was charged last year and accused of shielding his cryptocurrency holdings from $48 million in taxes.Mr. Stone noted in a filing last week that he had been paid $600,000 by Mr. Ver since early February to help his client’s case, partly by trying to abolish the tax provisions at the heart of the charges.Mr. Ver, a former California resident who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014, was arrested last year in Spain, according to the Justice Department, which announced plans at the time to extradite him.Mr. Ver disputed the charges, claiming in a video posted on social media in January that he was being threatened with a possible sentence of more than 100 years in prison because of his political views and his role in promoting cryptocurrency.In the video, which was framed as an appeal to Mr. Trump, Mr. Ver linked his case to the president’s grievances about the weaponization of the justice system.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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      Ex-Army Sergeant Gets 7 Years for Selling Military Secrets to Chinese Conspirator

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      Korbein Schultz, 25, who was an intelligence analyst, accepted $42,000 in bribes for sensitive documents, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in 2024.A former U.S. Army intelligence analyst with top secret security clearance was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday for selling classified military information to a foreign national who was most likely connected to the Chinese government, federal prosecutors said.The analyst, Sgt. Korbein Schultz, 25, sent at least 92 sensitive documents to a conspirator, who was not named, in a period of less than two years, the authorities said. The material included technical manuals for intercontinental ballistic missile systems and information on Chinese military tactics, they said.Mr. Schultz, of Wills Point, Texas, received $42,000 in exchange for the information, according to the Justice Department.He pleaded guilty last August to six criminal counts that included conspiracy to obtain and transmit national defense data, bribery of a public official and exporting technical defense data. The counts all together could have brought a sentence of up to 65 years in prison.Mr. Schultz will also be required to complete three years of supervised release as part of his sentence, which was handed down in federal court in Nashville.“Protecting classified information is paramount to our national security, and this sentencing reflects the ramifications when there is a breach of that trust,” Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a statement on Wednesday. “This soldier’s actions put Army personnel at risk, placing individual gain above personal honor.”Mary Kathryn Harcombe, a federal public defender who represented Mr. Schultz, declined to comment on the sentence.Mr. Schultz, who was assigned to the 506th Infantry Battalion, was arrested in March 2024 at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.Prosecutors said that he had shared his Army unit’s operational order with the conspirator before the unit was deployed to Eastern Europe to support NATO operations. The conspirator contacted him shortly after he had received his top secret security clearance, they said.He also supplied the person with details on U.S. military exercises in South Korea and the Philippines, in addition to lessons learned by the U.S. Army from the Ukraine-Russia war that are applicable to Taiwan’s defense, the authorities said.Military officials said that Mr. Schultz had given his contact in China technical manuals for the HH-60 helicopter and the F-22A fighter aircraft, along with a tactical playbook on how to counter unmanned aerial systems in large-scale combat operations.According to the indictment, Mr. Schultz unsuccessfully tried to recruit another Army intelligence officer to help him obtain more sensitive documents for the conspirator, who reportedly lived in Hong Kong and worked for a geopolitical consulting firm overseas. More

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      U.S. Says Tren de Aragua Charges Will ‘Devastate’ Its Infrastructure

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      Federal prosecutors charged six members of the Venezuelan gang and 21 members of a violent splinter group.New York City’s mayor and police commissioner and a top White House immigration official announced on Tuesday two indictments charging 27 people they said were linked to Tren de Aragua, a gang that the Trump administration has said poses a unique threat to America.“Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang — it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a news release touting the charges, adding that the arrests “will devastate TdA’s infrastructure” in three states.Six defendants were named as members or associates of Tren, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The other 21 people, prosecutors said, had broken away to join a violent splinter group called anti-Tren.Still, officials argued, in displaying dozens of seized handguns and rifles, the existence of both groups showed Tren de Aragua’s singular harm. Members of the gangs had engaged in murders and assaults, sex trafficking and human smuggling, according to the indictments.At a news conference, Thomas D. Homan, whom President Trump appointed as “border czar,” said the indictments showed the necessity of his immigration policies.“New York City — you’re a sanctuary city, you’re sanctuary for criminals,” said Mr. Homan, the so-called border czar.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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      Trump Administration Continues to Defy Judge’s Orders in Abrego Garcia Case, Lawyers Say

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      Continuing a pattern of stonewalling, the Justice Department has defied a judge’s order to explain what the Trump administration has done, and plans to do, to seek the release of a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador last month, according to court papers filed on Tuesday.In refusing to reveal much of anything about the administration’s role in improperly sending the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador or its subsequent efforts to seek his freedom, department lawyers repeatedly claimed that the information constituted state secrets that needed to be protected, the papers said.“The government responded to plaintiffs’ discovery requests by producing nothing of substance,” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote on Tuesday morning to Judge Paula Xinis, who is handling the case in Federal District Court in Maryland.In their letter, the lawyers asked Judge Xinis to hold a hearing as early as 1 p.m. on Wednesday to discuss how to proceed with what they described as the “government’s failure to comply with this court’s orders.”The White House’s repeated resistance to court orders — not only in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case, but in other legal proceedings as well — has edged the administration ever closer to an open showdown with the judicial branch in a way that could threaten the constitutional balance of power.Three courts — including the Supreme Court and the federal appeals court that sits over Judge Xinis — have directly told the Trump administration to “facilitate” the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia. They have instructed the administration to devise a way of handling his case as it should have been handled if the government had not erroneously flown him to El Salvador on March 15 in violation of an earlier court order.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