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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

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      Inside the Urgent Fight Over the Trump Administration’s New Deportation Effort

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      The push to deport a group of Venezuelans raises questions about whether the government is following a Supreme Court order requiring that migrants receive due process.On Thursday evening, lawyers helping Venezuelan immigrants most at risk of being removed under an 18th-century wartime powers act received an ominous alert: U.S. immigration officials were handing out notices at a detention facility in Texas, informing migrants that they were considered enemies under the law and would be removed from the country.“I am a law enforcement officer authorized to apprehend, restrain and remove alien enemies,” read the notice, a copy of which was filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Accordingly, under the Alien Enemies Act, you have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States.”The notice said the migrant could make a phone call but did not specify to whom. The single-page notice also did not mention any way to appeal the order.The Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants must receive advance notice that they are subject to removal under the rarely invoked wartime powers law — and that they must have an opportunity to challenge their removal in court.News of the notices being handed out at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, warning of impending deportations prompted a flurry of legal actions by the A.C.L.U. on Friday in several courts. Early Saturday, the Supreme Court stepped in with unusual speed, ruling that no flights could depart.“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the court said. It is unclear when the justices will make a ruling on whether deportation flights can continue.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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      A Timeline of the Trump Administration’s Use of the Alien Enemies Act

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      In the 36 days since President Trump invoked a powerful wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of gang membership, a complex and high-risk legal battle has played out in the federal courts.The Supreme Court has weighed in twice, issuing orders limiting the government’s use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The court’s latest order, which came around 1 a.m. on Saturday, blocked the deportations of Venezuelans held in Texas hours after the American Civil Liberties Union said the Trump administration was preparing to expel them without due process.At times, the Trump administration has been accused of disregarding judicial orders as it proceeds with its immigration policies and deportation efforts, deepening legal scholars’ concern that the country could be facing a constitutional crisis.Here is a timeline:March 14: The Trump administration issued an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act, but the order was not immediately made public. The proclamation said that the government was targeting the violent Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, which it said was threatening an invasion of the United States. The Alien Enemies Act allows the government to detain and expel immigrants age 14 or older without a court hearing when the United States is invaded or at war. It is the fourth time the law has been invoked in American history.March 15: Fearing that the Trump administration was preparing to immediately expel Venezuelans in custody without hearings, the A.C.L.U. filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington seeking to block the president from invoking the law. The same day, the administration published the executive order. In a hastily scheduled virtual hearing, a federal judge in Washington, James E. Boasberg, was told by the A.C.L.U. that planes were leaving the United States with Venezuelans. He ordered the government not to deport anyone under the law and to return any planes that had already taken off, “however that’s accomplished.”March 16: On social media, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, published a video of men being led off a plane in handcuffs and taken into a prison in his country. Mr. Bukele posted an article about Judge Boasberg’s order and wrote, “Oopsie… Too late.” The Trump administration insisted it did not violate Judge Boasberg’s order. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that federal courts “have no jurisdiction” over the president’s handling of foreign affairs.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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      Appeals Court Pauses for Now Contempt Proposal by Trial Judge

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      A federal appeals court on Friday night put off for the moment a plan by a trial judge to open contempt proceedings to determine whether the Trump administration had violated an order he issued last month stopping flights of Venezuelan migrants from being sent to El Salvador under a powerful wartime statute.In a single-page order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that it was entering what is known as an administrative stay to give itself more time to consider the validity of the contempt proposal by the trial judge, James E. Boasberg.On Wednesday, Judge Boasberg, concerned that the White House had ignored his order to pause all deportation flights headed to El Salvador under the wartime law, known as the Alien Enemies Act, gave Trump officials a choice. He said they could provide the men who were sent without hearings to El Salvador the due process they had been denied or they could face a searching contempt investigation into who among them was responsible for having not complied with his directives.In court papers filed on Friday morning, lawyers for the Justice Department told the appeals court that neither option was acceptable. The lawyers accused Judge Boasberg of overstepping his authority by seeking, on the one hand, to tell the Trump administration how to conduct foreign policy and, on the other, to effectively try to assume the role of an investigating prosecutor.The appeals court made clear that it was not ruling on the merits of the Justice Department’s accusations. The panel simply wanted additional time to consider the complexities of Judge Boasberg’s plan.That plan, laid out in an order this week, suggested that the judge was trying to pin down who in the administration was behind what he called the “willful disregard” of his oral instructions issued during a hearing on March 15. Speaking from the bench that day, he said any deportation flights headed to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act needed to be halted at once and that any planes already in the air should turn around.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