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    Forget diplomatic niceties: it’s beyond time Europe denounced Trump’s trashing of democracy in the US | Paul Taylor

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    What do you do when you discover your best friend is abusive to their partner at home? That question, or something similar, should be addressed to European leaders – and indeed to all of us in the European public space, who are watching, often speechless, as Donald Trump takes a cudgel to the institutions of American democracy.For the last nine months, European leaders have bitten their tongues, looked the other way and engaged in flattery, appeasement and wild promises to keep the US president sweet and engaged in European security. The overwhelming imperative for Trump to stand with Europe against Russia over its war on Ukraine – or at least not against us and alongside Vladimir Putin – has led them to swallow unrealistic defence spending targets and unbalanced trade terms. For what gain?No European leader has publicly contradicted Trump’s inflated claims to have ended eight wars in eight months, nor criticised his demolition of the multilateral rules-based free trade order, his assault on the United Nations, or his selective use of tariffs to pursue political vendettas around the world.The only time European leaders briefly found their voices was when JD Vance used the stage of the Munich security conference to launch a fierce attack on European democracy. Vance accused US allies of suppressing free speech and said he was more worried by “the threat from within … the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values” than by any threat from Russia or China to the continent’s freedom. To underline his support for freedom of anti-immigrant hate speech, he chose to meet the leader of the far-right German AfD Alice Weidel in Munich in the midst of an election campaign, and to snub Berlin’s then-chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats.With millions of Americans now taking to the streets to protest against Trump’s authoritarian drift at home, isn’t it time for European leaders to speak up and assert their moral autonomy by signalling Europe’s support for democracy in the US, and for those who are trying to defend it?This is not to suggest that an expression of European dismay would have any practical effect on the dismantling of checks and balances in the US political system, the abolition of the USAID foreign aid agency, the crackdowns on universities, law firms and science, the abuse of the justice system against political enemies, or the purging of the armed forces and, most alarmingly, the deployment of the military in American cities to combat the “enemy from within”.While the US can protect security in Europe and deserves our undying gratitude for having done so for the last 80 years, Europeans cannot protect democracy in the US. They can and must, however, protect liberal democracy in Europe, which risks becoming a collateral victim of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy agenda.What happens in America doesn’t stay in America. It is often a precursor for trends in Europe. Just as the #MeToo and “woke” movements spilled over from Hollywood studios and US campuses to European film sets and universities, so the tide of illiberalism and repression rising in Washington is already washing up on European shores in countries such as Hungary and Serbia. By speaking up about Trump’s assaults on the independence of the US civil service, judiciary, legal profession, media and armed forces, and his moves to criminalise dissent, European leaders would be asserting the values of the rule of law, the separation of powers and liberal democracy that they have a duty to preserve at home.If Elon Musk can use his social media platform and the world’s biggest fortune to intervene in German elections in favour of Weidel’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – or in British politics in support of convicted anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson – then surely we, too, can make our voices heard in US politics. We can offer support and practical cooperation to states, cities and courts that share our values, and moral support to US freedom campaigners. Our governments and regions can build partnerships on climate action, civil rights and development assistance with like-minded US states and local authorities. We can offer jobs, visas and scholarships to US scientists and academics hit by Trump’s cuts to research funding. Europe stands only to gain from a self-inflicted American brain drain.The massive No Kings protests in towns and cities across the US were fortunately peaceful, despite Trump’s deployment of armed forces in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland and other cities, and the attempted mobilisation of the National Guard across 19 states. But having branded his leftwing opponents “domestic terrorists”, the risk is growing that Trump will make good on his threat to invokethe 1807 Insurrection Act and claim sweeping powers to use the military against American protesters.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe last time the US military was used for domestic policing against demonstrations was under Richard Nixon in 1970, when the National Guard shot dead four students protesting, at Kent State University in Ohio, against the draft and the US military intervention in Cambodia. An earlier precedent for the deadly use of force against peaceful protesters was in Selma, Alabama in 1965, when state and local police violently broke up civil rights marches by black Americans demanding the unhindered right to vote. On both those historic occasions, European media criticised the use of force against peaceful demonstrators, but governments on this side of the Atlantic kept their mouths shut, motivated by the principle of non-interference in the affairs of an allied state.With the administration and its billionaire buddies intervening at will in support of hate speech and its proponents in Europe and against EU digital regulation, there is no longer any justification for staying silent. On the contrary, the defence of European liberal democracy starts by recognising when it is under threat in our closest ally.

    Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre More

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      Portland judge rejects Trump request to allow national guard deployment

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      A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift her order blocking the deployment of federalized national guard troops to the city, saying that she would decide the matter by Monday.The hearing in Portland and one in Washington DC are the latest in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Troop deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see whether the US supreme court intervenes to allow it.The Portland district court judge, Karin Immergut, who is based in the city, had previously issued two temporary restraining orders blocking the deployment of national guards troops there, in response to a persistent but small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.Her first order, blocking the deployment of 200 troops from the Oregon national guard, said that Donald Trump had exceeded his authority by taking federal control of the troops based on his claim that the city was in a state of war-like rebellion. Trump’s assessment, Immergut ruled, was “simply untethered to the facts”.When Trump responded to that order by sending 200 troops from California’s national guard to Oregon, and threatened to send 400 more from Texas, Immergut determined it was an attempt to evade her order, and issued a second order barring the deployment of troops from anywhere in the country to Portland.Immergut’s first order was lifted on Monday by a three-judge panel of the ninth circuit court of appeals, over the strong dissent of the only judge on the panel who lives in Portland. But because the government never appealed Immergut’s second order, it remains in effect and the deployment of troops remains blocked until she decides whether or not to lift or modify it in response to the appeals court ruling.At a virtual hearing on Friday, Immergut cited two reasons for her to delay lifting the second injunction. The first was that the appeals court did not address a central fact in her second order: that she had issued it in part because the government responded to her first order by attempting to evade it. The second was that the ninth circuit appeals court is currently considering a call from one of its judges to rehear the appeal of her first order before a larger panel of 11 judges.At the end of the hearing, Immergut said that she would decide by Monday, if not earlier.The US district judge, Jia Cobb, an appointee of Joe Biden, was hearing arguments Friday on a request from Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general, for an order that would remove more than 2,000 guard members from Washington streets.In August, Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the district – though the Department of Justice itself says violent crime there is at a 30-year low.Within a month, more than 2,300 guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling under the army secretary’s command. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist them.It is unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb’s office said troops were likely to remain in Washington through at least next summer.“Our constitutional democracy will never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand,” they wrote.Government lawyers said Congress empowered the president to control the DC national guard’s operation. They argued that Schwalb’s lawsuit is a frivolous “political stunt” threatening to undermine a successful campaign to reduce violent crime in Washington.Although the emergency period ended in September, more than 2,200 troops remain. Several states told the Associated Press they would bring their units home by 30 November, unless their deployment is extended.Among the states that sent troops to the district was West Virginia. A civic organization called the West Virginia Citizen Action Group says the governor, Patrick Morrisey, exceeded his authority by deploying 300 to 400 guard members to support Trump’s efforts there.Morrisey has said West Virginia “is proud to stand with President Trump”, and his office has said the deployment was authorized under federal law. The state attorney general’s office has asked Richard D Lindsay, a Kanawha county circuit court judge, to reject the case, saying the group has not been harmed and lacks standing to challenge Morrisey’s decision.Lindsay heard some arguments Friday before continuing the hearing to 3 November to give the state time to focus more on whether Morrisey had the authority to deploy the cuard members.“I want that issue addressed,” Lindsay said.April Perry, a district judge, on Wednesday blocked guard deployment to the Chicago area until a case in her court is decided or the US supreme court intervenes. Perry previously blocked the deployment for two weeks through a temporary restraining order.Attorneys representing the federal government said they would agree to extend the order, but would also continue pressing for an emergency order from the supreme court that would allow for the deployment.Lawyers representing Chicago and Illinois have asked the supreme court to continue to block the deployment, calling it a “dramatic step”. More

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      Alabama executes man on death row by controversial nitrogen gas method

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      An Alabama man convicted of helping to burn a man alive was executed by nitrogen gas – a form of suffocation which defense lawyers have described as cruel and unusual punishment – on Thursday shortly after the US supreme court signed off on the seventh execution using the contested method.Anthony Boyd, 54, was sent to the death chamber at the William C Holman correctional facility on Thursday evening.“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in killing anybody,” said Boyd in his final words, per the Associated Press. “There can be no justice until we change this system … Let’s get it.”He was strapped to a gurney and forced to breathe nitrogen through an industrial mask, fatally depriving his body of oxygen. He was pronounced dead at 6.33pm.On Thursday, the six conservative justices on the supreme court denied Boyd’s petition for a stay of execution over the fierce opposition of their three liberal peers. Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote an excoriating dissenting opinion in which she invited readers to use a stopwatch to time four minutes.“Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating … That is what awaits Anthony Boyd tonight,” Sotomayor said.Boyd’s execution was the eighth time the gas has been used to kill a man after its initial experimentation by Alabama on Kenny Smith in January 2024. In March, Louisiana became the second state to deploy nitrogen as a killing method, with the execution of Jessie Hoffman Jr.Advocates of the death penalty have embraced the nitrogen method, which they insist is an acceptable alternative to the prevalent execution method in the US, lethal injection. A boycott of medical drugs sold to corrections departments has made it increasingly difficult for states to procure the chemicals used in lethal injections, and as a result they have turned to other methods including nitrogen.But the track record for this new killing procedure has been deeply troubling. The first prisoner to die by the gas, Smith, was seen by witnesses writhing and convulsing on the gurney.At a recent hearing in federal court in which Boyd appealed against his execution by nitrogen, Smith’s widow, Deanna Smith, likened the process of watching her husband die to “watching somebody drown without water”.The second person killed by Alabama using nitrogen, Alan Miller, also visibly shook and trembled for about two minutes in September last year. In the Louisiana execution, Hoffman was recorded still breathing 16 minutes into the procedure.Boyd’s lawyers argued in federal district court that the method was a violation of the eighth amendment of the US constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. They said that previous nitrogen executions had caused prisoners “extreme pain and terror of suffocation while still conscious, inflicting gratuitous suffering beyond what is constitutionally permitted”.Earlier this month the federal judge in the case, Emily Marks, declined to stop Boyd’s execution from going ahead. She said she had no doubt that a person deprived of oxygen “experiences discomfort, panic and emotional distress”, but ruled that the constitution does not guarantee a painless death.Boyd was sentenced to death for the murder of Gregory Huguley in 1995. Prosecutors said he was one of four men who kidnapped Huguley after he failed to pay $200 for cocaine, then doused him in petrol and set fire to him.Boyd has always protested his innocence. The prosecution case depended on the testimony of an eyewitness with no forensic evidence connecting Boyd to the crime.“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in any killing,” Boyd said when he phoned in to a recent press conference held by his supporters.His death sentence was handed down by a jury vote of 10 to two. Alabama and Florida are the only states that allow people to be sent to death row on the basis of a non-unanimous jury verdict. More

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      ‘Rogue president’: growing number of US judges push back against Trump

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      US district and appeals courts are increasingly rebuking Donald Trump’s radical moves on tackling crime, illegal immigration and other actions where administration lawyers or Trump have made sweeping claims of emergencies that judges have bluntly rejected as erroneous and undermining the rule of law in America.Legal scholars and ex-judges note that strong court pushback has come from judges appointed by Republicans, including Trump himself, and Democrats, and signify that the administration’s factual claims and expanding executive powers face stiff challenges that have slowed some extreme policies.Among the toughest rulings were ones this month by Judge Karin Immergut in Oregon and Judge April Perry in Chicago. Both district judges sharply challenged Trump’s plans to deploy national guard troops to deal with minimal violence that Trump had portrayed as akin to “war” zones, spurring the judges to impose temporary restraining orders.Immergut, whom Trump nominated for the court in his first term, rejected Trump’s depiction of Portland as “war-ravaged”, and in need of saving from “Antifa and other domestic terrorists” concluding that the “president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts”. But a court of appeals ruled on 20 October that Trump could send national guard troops to the city.Elsewhere, district judge William Young in Boston issued a scathing 161-page ruling last month calling some of Trump’s deportation policies illegal efforts to deport non-citizen activists at colleges in violation of their first amendment rights “under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition of antisemitism”. Young was nominated by Ronald Reagan.Some former appeals court judges say that the district courts and courts of appeals are responding appropriately to a pattern of unlawful conduct by Trump and his top deputies.“The president and attorney general are openly contemptuous of the constitution and laws of the United States and of the federal courts, and the arguments they make to the courts mirror that personal contempt,” said retired court of appeals judge J Michael Luttig. “The federal district courts and the courts of appeals well understand that and they are going to have none of it.”View image in fullscreenRecent court rulings reveal a pattern of strong judicial rebukes to the Trump administration from district and appeals courts on multiple issues since Trump took office again, which the legal news and analysis site Just Security has documented.A Just Security study, which was spearheaded by New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, revealed that courts’ distrust of government information and representations hit over 40 cases as of 15 October versus 35 cases in mid-September. Similarly, it noted that courts’ findings of “arbitrary and capricious” administrative action totaled 58 cases on 15 October versus 52 in mid-September. The study showed courts’ concerns over noncompliance with judicial orders totaled over 20 cases as of 15 October up from 15 cases a month before.But despite the growing number of strong lower court rulings against the administration, some may well get reversed by the supreme court given its 6-3 conservative majority, and its rulings that have markedly expanded presidential powers.Nonetheless, legal scholars and ex-federal judges stress that recent district court rulings against Trump’s radical policies are grounded in fact and reveal profound scepticism about a number of the administration’s sweeping legal claims.“US district judges have the responsibility to determine the relevant facts before applying the law. Accordingly, the credibility of a party and its counsel are immensely important,” said former federal judge John Jones, who is now president of Dickinson College.“Simply put, the president’s reputation for hyperbole that lapses into outright lies precedes him in these cases, and judges are increasingly refusing to take the administration’s rationale for its actions at face value.”For example, Perry called the Department of Homeland Security’s depiction of events in Chicago “simply unreliable” with a “lack of credibility”. She noted that state and local law enforcement contradicted the case for deploying the national guard and Trump’s assertion that it was a “war zone”, and warned that using the guard could fuel “civil unrest”.Days later, the seventh circuit court of appeals upheld Perry’s ruling that denied a White House request to deploy national guard troops on Chicago streets in response to a lawsuit brought by the city of Chicago and Illinois.But on Friday the Trump administration asked the supreme court to pause those rulings and permit Trump to deploy troops in Illinois, boosting efforts to send the national guard into the Chicago area.Elsewhere, on Monday a three-judge appeals court panel ruled 2-1 that the Trump administration can send the national guard to Portland, lifting Immergut’s ruling and allowing some 200 federalized guard troops to be sent to the city to protect federal buildings.Responding to the ruling, Oregon’s attorney general said if the decision is allowed to stand Trump would have “unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification”.More broadly, scholars and other experts voice strong criticism of the administration’s legal claims.“Trump is abusing the laws that authorize domestic military deployment in a crisis, and the courts are starting to push back,” said Liza Goitein, the Brennan Center’s senior director of liberty and national security.“In the United States, federal armed forces cannot be used to execute the law except when civilian authorities have been completely overwhelmed. As judges in Oregon and Illinois have recognized, the facts on the ground simply don’t justify deployment of the military.“A court could reach the opposite conclusion only by extending a dangerous level of deference to the president, effectively giving him free rein to use the military as a domestic police force. That would be contrary to American principles and traditions, and it would pose a grave threat to democracy and individual liberty.”Not surprisingly, some recent rulings by district judges have outraged Maga world and top Trump officials, who have decried them in incendiary terms. The White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, called Immergut’s ruling “legal insurrection”, which some analysts worry could incite violence.Trump, too, fired back at Immergut’s ruling. “I wasn’t served well by the people who pick judges,” Trump told reporters soon after the ruling, seemingly forgetting he had nominated her, and then misidentifying her sex. “Portland is burning to the ground … That judge ought to be ashamed of himself.”Trump’s attacks on Immergut and earlier dust-ups with judges who ruled against the administration were advanced this month by El Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele, who urged the Trump administration to emulate his policies and impeach “corrupt judges”.“If you don’t impeach the corrupt judges, you CANNOT fix the country,” Bukele tweeted, sparking multi-billionaire and Maga ally Elon Musk to retweet it as “essential”.But legal experts say the ruling by Immergut and other district judges who have pushed back hard against administration policies are fully warranted and reasonable, given extreme moves by Trump on immigration, crime and other fronts they deem unjustified or illegal.“I think the strong district court response in these contexts is striking,” said Columbia law professor Gillian Metzger. “It’s occurring in other Trump contexts as well – for example, the administration’s efforts to deny appropriated funding or target law firms – but immigration enforcement and calling out the national guard are traditional executive areas where you’d expect the president to get deference.”Metzger said: “Judges are perceiving an administration that is asserting power in novel ways and at odds with basic norms and longstanding practices – eg, employing the national guard in a partisan fashion over the objections of state and local leaders, deploying Ice officers in aggressive ways, etc – and at times violating governing statutes.”Other legal scholars go further.“The problem is not rogue judges, but a rogue president. The problem is not what judges are doing but what the president is doing,” said former Massachusetts judge Nancy Gertner, who now teaches law at Harvard.Gertner pointed in particular to Young’s ruling in a deportation case involving efforts by the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to deport pro-Palestinian non-citizen students and professors who protested against Israel’s actions in Gaza.In his ruling, Young wrote that Trump’s conduct violated his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States” and the actions of his administration represented a “full-throated assault on the first amendment”.Gertner noted that the “case involved sending people to countries without due process. We gave due process to people involved with the September 11 attacks. Sending people to countries where they had no relatives, NO TIES, was a flagrant violation of law.“What the Trump administration has been doing is so unprecedented and so far from normal and so illegal it makes sense that judges have issued injunctions stopping them.”Luttig stressed: “The judges of the United States will not be threatened and intimidated by this president and this attorney general. They will continue to honor their oaths to the constitution, which means the president and attorney general can expect loss after loss after loss, at least before the nation’s lower federal courts.” More

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      ‘We are on a dangerous path’: Oregon attorney general slams decision allowing Trump to send troops to Portland – live

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      The Oregon attorney general, Dan Rayfield, has issued a statement following the ruling from the ninth circuit court of appeals, which lifted the temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of the state’s national guard.He said that if the ruling is allowed to stand, it would give Donald Trump “unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification”.“We are on a dangerous path in America,” he added.The three-judge panel was split in their decision, with Clinton-appointee Susan Graber dissenting from her colleagues. Rayfield added:
      Oregon joins Judge Graber in urging the full Ninth Circuit to ‘act swiftly’ en banc ‘to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.’ And, like her, we ‘ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little while longer’.
      In a court-ordered disclosure filed on Monday, the US interior department revealed that it plans “to abolish 2,050 positions”, including sweeping cuts to the Bureau of Land Management, and smaller numbers at the Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey and other agencies. Among the positions slated for elimination are Bureau of Reclamation workers who provide maintenance for the Hoover Dam.The declaration, with a detailed appendix of positions to be cut from Rachel Borra, the interior department’s chief human capital officer, was submitted to comply with an order issued by the US district court for the northern district of California in a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and four other national unions that represent federal workers at risk of losing their jobs.The planned layoffs are paused for now by a temporary restraining order that US District court judge Susan Illston expanded during an emergency hearing on Friday.As our colleague Anna Betts reports, construction crews started demolishing part of the East Wing of the White House to make way for Donald Trump’s planned ballroom on Monday.The Washington Post on obtained and published a photo of the demolition activity, showing construction in progress and parts of the exterior ripped down.A Daily Mail reporter shared video of the demolition on social media.Read the full story here:Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the House Democratic minority, just called on Republicans to negotiate an end to the government shutdown by citing Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Maga Republican from Georgia.“The Republican health care crisis, as Marjorie Taylor Greene has repeatedly indicated, is real,” Jeffries told reporters. “And it’s having devastating impacts that are becoming increasingly apparent to the American people. In Idaho, 100,000 Americans are at risk of losing their health care if the Affordable Care Act tax credits expire, because it will become unaffordable for them.”He went on to cite examples in other states where some people are “finding out that their health insurance premiums are about to increase by more than $2,000 per month.”A growing share of Americans believe religion is gaining influence and society – and view its expanding role positively, a new report by the PEW research center has found. It comes as the Trump administration has sought to fuse conservative Christian values and governance, especially in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In just one year, the share of US adults who believe religion is gaining influence in American society has increased sharply. While still a minority view, 31% say religion is on the rise — up from just 18% a year earlier, in February 2024 – the highest figure recorded in 15 years.Meanwhile, the percentage who say religion is losing influence dropped from 80% to 68%.According to the PEW survey, these changing perceptions of religion suggest a broader shift in a country that was rapidly secularizing. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans (59%) now express a positive view of religion’s influence in public life, either because they see its rising power as a good thing, or view its decline as a bad thing. Only 20% express negative views, while the rest remain neutral or uncertain.Notably, the shift is not confined to one party or demographic. Both Republicans and Democrats, as well as nearly all major religious groups and age brackets, have become more likely to say religion is gaining ground — and more likely to feel their religious beliefs conflict with mainstream American culture. That sense of cultural conflict is now a majority view, with 58% of US adults reporting at least some tension between their beliefs and broader society.Finally, while views on religious truth vary, nearly half of Americans (48%) say many religions may be true — more than double the share (26%) who say only one religion is true.Pew’s findings suggest a significant cultural shift unfolding under an administration that has explicitly championed Christian conservatism as a governing ethos.It is perhaps significant that Susan Graber, the lone dissenting voice on the three-judge federal appeals court panel that just permitted Donald Trump to deploy federal troops to Portland, Oregon, in the only one of the three to be based in Portland.Graber, a former law school classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton who was nominated to the federal bench by Clinton while serving on the Oregon supreme court, wrote a scathing dissent to the majority ruling, which lifts a lower-court order that had temporarily blocked Trump from sending in troops to what he falsely claims is a “war-ravaged” city.The other two judges on the panel, both nominated by Trump during his first term, are based in Arizona and Idaho.Graber said in an interview in 2012, that “it was kind of love at first sight with Portland” for her when she first moved to the city to work as a law clerk.In her dissent, she urged the full appeals court to reverse the decision by the panel, writing that there was “no legal or factual justification supported the order to federalize and deploy the Oregon National Guard”.She continued: “Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd. But today’s decision is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions.”The judge added: “The majority’s order abdicates our judicial responsibility, permitting the President to invoke emergency authority in a situation far divorced from an enumerated emergency.”Graber concluded:“We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending – sometimes breaking – the truth. By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda. I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur. Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.”The Oregon attorney general, Dan Rayfield, has issued a statement following the ruling from the ninth circuit court of appeals, which lifted the temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of the state’s national guard.He said that if the ruling is allowed to stand, it would give Donald Trump “unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification”.“We are on a dangerous path in America,” he added.The three-judge panel was split in their decision, with Clinton-appointee Susan Graber dissenting from her colleagues. Rayfield added:
      Oregon joins Judge Graber in urging the full Ninth Circuit to ‘act swiftly’ en banc ‘to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.’ And, like her, we ‘ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little while longer’.

      A three-judge panel on the ninth circuit court of appeals has ruled that the Trump administration can deploy the national guard to Portland, Oregon. They lifted a lower court judge’s decision that blocked the president from federalizing and sending roughly 200 troops to the city to guard federal buildings, as largely small and peaceful protests took place in recent weeks outside an immigration facility in the city.

      Donald Trump welcomed Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese to the White House, signing a rare earth minerals deal as trade tensions with China escalate. The pair just signed a rare earths agreement which opens up Australia’s vast mineral resources. Albanese added that the deal was an “eight and a half billion dollar pipeline” to supply critical rare earths to the US. Meanwhile, Trump doubled down on his threat of imposing a 157% tariff on Chinese imports if both nations can’t reach a trade deal. This, after Beijing announced they were tightening exports of rare earth minerals. “We have a tremendous power, and that’s the power of tariff, and I think that China will come to the table and make a very fair deal,” the president added.

      Donald Trump said he didn’t think Ukraine would win back land that was captured by Russia during the war. “They could still win it,” Trump remarked during his meeting with Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese. “I don’t think they will. They could still win it. I never said they would win it. Anything can happen. You know, war is a very strange thing.” Trump’s seeming skepticism of a Ukrainian victory came several days after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he appeared more keen on negotiating a peace agreement than supplying the nation with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

      The president has said that Hamas is “going to behave” or will face severe repercussions. While taking questions from reporters today, Trump said that Hamas are “going to be nice, and if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them”. This comes after Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.

      The government shutdown entered its 20th day, with little end in sight. The House remains out of session, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle blame the other party for the impasse on Capitol Hill. Earlier, White House economic adviser said that shutdown would “likely” end this week after the No Kings protests took place across the country. The Senate will vote, for the 11th time, on a House-passed funding bill to reopen the government at 5:30pm ET.
      A three-judge panel on the ninth circuit court of appeals has ruled that the Trump administration can deploy the national guard to Portland, Oregon.They lifted a lower court judge’s decision that blocked the president from federalizing and sending roughly 200 troops to the city to guard federal buildings, as largely small and peaceful protests took place in recent weeks outside an immigration facility in the city.Per that last post, it’s worth putting that in the context of Greene’s decision to buck the Republican party line in recent months.My colleagues David Smith and George Chidi, have been reporting on the Georgia’s congresswoman’s “streak of independence” on issues ranging from healthcare to Gaza to the Jeffrey Epstein files. They report that Greene has broken ranks with Republicans and won unlikely fans among Democrats, stirring speculation about her motives – and future ambitions.David and George write that the lawmaker, who was once “one of Donald Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers” has stopped short of directly criticising the president himself and has so far avoided incurring his wrath. “But her willingness to dissent is all the more remarkable under a president who notoriously prizes loyalty and punishes critics,” they note.You can read more of their reporting below.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative of Georgia, on Monday morning criticized Mike Johnson’s strategy to keep the House shuttered for weeks, calling on the lower chamber to return to session immediately.“The House should be in session working,” Greene wrote on X. “We should be finishing appropriations. Our committees should be working. We should be passing bills that make President Trump’s executive orders permanent. I have no respect for the decision to refuse to work.”The callout from Greene, who is aligned with the right flank of her party, is a noticeable crack in support for Johnson’s hardline approach from the GOP over an extended congressional recess. Since 19 September, when members last cast votes, the chamber has not been conducting legislative business, although members have staged press conferences.According to Politico, House speaker Mike Johnson spoke with the president earlier, and will be at the White House at 4pm as Donald Trump welcomes the Louisiana State University (LSU) baseball champions.Also present will be the athletes from LSU Shreveport, the city where Johnson was born and raised. Part of his congressional district also includes the city.in BogotáColombia has recalled its ambassador to Washington amid a furious war of words between the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and Donald Trump over deadly US strikes on boats in the Caribbean.The row took a sharp turn this weekend when Petro accused the US of “murdering” a Colombian fisher in an attack on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro and his administration said the mid-September strike was a “direct threat to national sovereignty” and that the victim was a “lifelong fisherman” and a “humble human being”.In response, Trump, who has claimed such attacks are designed to stop drug-smuggling to the US, called Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and vowed to end aid payments to Colombia, one of the largest recipients of US counter-narcotics assistance. He also ordered Petro to “close up” drug cultivation sites, saying if not “the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”. Speaking onboard Air Force One, Trump added that he would announce new tariffs on Colombian goods.Colombia’s interior minister, Armando Benedetti, said the remarks were a “threat of invasion or military action against Colombia”. Petro said that Colombia’s five-decade conflict stemmed from “cocaine consumption in the United States” and claimed American contributions had been “meagre and null in recent years”.Texas Republican congressman Chip Roy suggested using the “nuclear option” to end the shutdown that would avoid Senate filibuster requirements which mandate a 60-vote majority to reopen the US government, The Hill reports.“We need to be taking a look at the 60-vote threshold. We really do,” Roy said on Monday.Top Republican senators used this tactic to avoid needing Democrats’ support to confirm a host of Trump nominees in September. South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune, the Senate majority leader, said he would not do this to achieve a continuing resolution that would reopen the government, per the Hill.“At a minimum, why don’t we take a look at it for [continuing resolutions]?” Roy reportedly said. “Why don’t we just say, look, I mean, we have a 50-vote threshold for the budget, we have a 50-vote threshold for reconciliation, why shouldn’t we have a 50-vote threshold to be able to fund the government?”Republicans have supported this 60-vote benchmark when Democrats hold the majority. Thune has said that maintaining the filibuster is among his leading priorities, the Hill reported.“I think Republicans ought to take a long, hard look at the 60-vote threshold, because I think we’re just being beholden to a broken system right now,” Roy also said.Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed concern about eliminating this threshold.”I would be deeply concerned if the Democrats had a bare majority in the Senate right now, Marxist ideology taking over the Democrat party,” Johnson reportedly said earlier this month. “Do I want them to have no safegaurds and no stumbling blocks or hurdles at all in the way of turning us into a communist country? I don’t think that’s a great idea.”While the US Senate is poised to vote – for the 11th time – on a House-approved bill that would reopen the government this afternoon, Americans could face still more shutdown-related travel delays if funding efforts fail.US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Monday that travelers might see more disruptions because air traffic controllers are not getting paid during the shutdown.Air traffic controllers are deemed “excepted” staffers, meaning they still work during shutdowns, but receive back pay when the government reopens and funding resumes, CBS News explains.“They got a partial paycheck a week ago Tuesday. Their next paycheck comes a week from Tuesday, and in that paycheck there will be no dollars. They don’t get paid,” Duffy said in a Fox and Friends interview.“I think what you might see is more disruptions in travel as more of them look to say, how do I bridge the gap between the check that’s not coming and putting food on my table?” CBS noted him saying. “And we have heard they are taking Uber jobs. They are doing DoorDash, they are figuring out ways to keep their families afloat … And, again, a lot of them are paycheck to paycheck.”Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his threat of imposing a 157% tariff on Chinese imports if both nations can’t reach a trade deal.“We have a tremendous power, and that’s the power of tariff, and I think that China will come to the table and make a very fair deal, because if they don’t, they’re going to be paying us 157% in tariffs,” Trump told reporters during his sit-down with Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese.Trump, who claimed that “China has treated us with great respect” not afforded to prior administrations, said that if a deal weren’t brokered, “I’m putting on an additional 100%” on 1 November.Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, are expected to meet in several weeks to discuss trade.Trump’s reiteration of this tariff threat comes just several days after he admitted that a 157% tax is unfeasible.“It’s not sustainable, but that’s what the number is,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “It’s probably not, you know, it could stand. But they forced me to do that.”Donald Trump said he didn’t think Ukraine would win back land that was captured by Russia during the war.“They could still win it,” Trump remarked during his meeting with Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese. “I don’t think they will. They could still win it. I never said they would win it. Anything can happen. You know, war is a very strange thing.”Trump’s seeming skepticism of a Ukrainian victory came several days after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he appeared more keen on negotiating a peace agreement than supplying the nation with Tomahawk cruise missiles.Trump told Ukraine and Russia to “stop the war immediately”.The comments mark yet another shift in Trump’s position on Ukraine’s chances in the years-long conflict. Trump said in September that he believed Ukraine could regain all territory seized by Russia.During Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024, and early this year, Trump said that Ukraine would have to give up territories seized by Russia to stop the war, The Associated Press notes.The president has said that Hamas is “going to behave” or will face severe repercussions.“They’re going to be nice, and if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them,” Trump added.This comes after Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.“Hamas has been very violent, but they don’t have the backing of Iran any more. They don’t have the backing of really anybody any more. They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they’ll be eradicated,” Trump said in the Cabinet Room at the White House. More

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      Comey asks judge to dismiss criminal charges claiming selective prosecution

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      Former FBI director James Comey formally asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal charges against him, arguing he was the victim of a selective prosecution and that the US attorney who filed the charges was unlawfully appointed.“The record as it currently exists shows a clear causal link between President Trump’s animus and the prosecution of Mr Comey,” Comey’s lawyers wrote in their request to dismiss the case, calling a 20 September Truth Social post in which he disparaged Comey and called for his prosecution “smoking gun evidence”. “President Trump’s repeated public statements and action leave no doubt as to the government’s genuine animus toward Mr Comey.” Comey’s lawyers attached an exhibit to their filing on Monday, which contains dozens of public statements from Trump criticizing Comey.Comey was indicted on 25 September with one count of making a false statement and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding. The charges are related to Comey’s 30 September 2020 testimony before Congress, and are connected to Comey’s assertion he had never authorized anyone at the FBI to leak information. The precise details of the offense have not been made public and Comey has pleaded not guilty and forcefully denied any wrongdoing.The charges were filed against Comey, though career prosecutors in the justice department determined charges were not warranted. Trump forced out Erik Siebert, the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, in September and installed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide. The Comey charges were filed days later.“In the ordinary case, a prosecutor’s charging decision is presumptively lawful and rests within her broad discretion. This is no ordinary case,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “Here, direct evidence establishes that the President harbors genuine animus toward Mr. Comey, including because of Mr. Comey’s protected speech, that he installed his personal attorney as a ‘stalking horse’ to carry out his bidding; and that she then prosecuted Mr. Comey—days before the statute of limitations expired, with a faulty indictment—to effectuate the President’s wishes.”Comey’s Monday filing says that the fact that career prosecutors did not believe there was enough evidence to bring a case bolsters his argument that he was selectively prosecuted. They also argue that the indictment mischaracterizes the question Comey was asked that prompted the answer prosecutors say was a lie and the basis of his criminal false statement.According to the indictment, Comey was asked by a US senator whether he “had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1”. (Comey’s lawyers wrote in their filing on Monday that Person 1 was Hillary Clinton.)The accusation relates to a question from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. During the 2020 hearing, Cruz noted that in 2017 congressional testimony, Comey denied “ever authoriz[ing] someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton Administration”. Cruz went on to note that Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, had said Comey authorized him to leak information to the Wall Street Journal.In response, Comey said he stood by his prior testimony. Comey’s lawyers argued on Monday the indictment was defective because Cruz’s question had been focused on McCabe, but the government informed them that the person Comey is alleged to have authorized to leak to the media is Daniel Richman, a friend of Comey’s and professor at Columbia University.“The indictment omits Senator Cruz’s words that explicitly narrow the focus of his questions to Mr. McCabe and misleadingly implies that the questioning related to Mr. Richman. In fact, Mr. Comey’s September 2020 exchange with Senator Cruz made no reference whatsoever to Mr. Richman, who ultimately appears in the indictment,” they wrote. They also note that Cruz asked about the “Clinton administration” and not “Hillary Clinton”.Career prosecutors interviewed Richman as part of their investigation into Comey and found him not helpful to making a case, according to the New York Times. John Durham, a special counsel appointed to investigate the FBI’s inquiry into Russian meddling, also told investigators he did not uncover evidence to support charges against Comey.Comey’s lawyers also argued on Monday that the case should be dismissed because Halligan was not lawfully appointed.“The United States cannot charge, maintain, and prosecute a case through an official who has no entitlement to exercise governmental authority,” they wrote.US attorneys must be confirmed by the Senate and can only serve for 120 days on an interim basis unless their appointment is extended by the judges overseeing their district. Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor, served for the 120-day limit and Halligan does not appear to have met other exceptions that would allow her to continue to serve.“The period does not start anew once the 120-day period expires or if a substitute interim U.S. Attorney is appointed before the 120-day period expires,” Comey’s attorneys wrote.Halligan has also overseen criminal fraud charges against New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, in connection to allegations she lied on mortgage documents. James has said she is not guilty. Legal experts have said that case does not appear to be strong. More

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      Donald Trump claims to be the president of peace, but at home he is fomenting civil war | Jonathan Freedland

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      Donald Trump had better hope the members of the Nobel committee are not paying attention to what’s happening inside the United States. If they did take a look, they’d notice a jarring pattern. While the US president likes to play the peacemaker abroad, at home he is Trump, bringer of war.It’s easy for the first fact to conceal, or divert our attention away from, the second. This week was a case in point. It began with Trump travelling to Israel, where he was hailed as a latter-day Cyrus, a mighty ruler whose name would be spoken of for millennia to come, the man who had brokered what he himself boasts is an “everlasting” peace.Never mind that Trump’s success, for which he certainly deserves some credit, was in pushing Hamas and Israel to agree a ceasefire and release of hostages and prisoners, a fragile arrangement that does not address, let alone solve, the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He presented it as a triumph of the ages and one more notch on his peacemaker’s bedpost, taking the tally of wars he claims to have ended to eight.Indeed, buoyed up by his success, he is having another go at the one he thought would be easy but which, to his irritation, has proved as complex as all the hated experts and deep state naysayers warned it would be: Russia’s war on Ukraine. On Thursday he announced his plan to meet yet again with Vladimir Putin, this time hosted by Viktor Orbán in Budapest (which has the happy side-benefit of trolling the EU).Unfazed by the failure of their last meeting in Alaska, and by his own failure ever to stand up to Putin, Trump clearly believes he has pacific momentum and that the healing magic his touch brought to Gaza will similarly unite Moscow and Kyiv.But what undermines this new, Nobel-ready look of Trump’s is not only the absurd braggadocio, or even the confusion of the style and optics of peacemaking for the substance and hard graft it requires. It is the fact that he is fomenting war at home on his own citizens. I am not speaking metaphorically. Increasingly, serious analysts not prone to hyperbole are warning that Trump seems bent on provoking a second American civil war. The evidence is piling up.The most obvious is Trump’s deployment of US troops on the streets of America’s cities. He claims that his original decisions to send in the National Guard to Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago, Portland and Memphis were motivated solely by concern over crime. In his telling, these places were “overrun” by violence and local police needed his help. But that doesn’t stack up.The data shows that most of the cities Trump has targeted have lower rates of violent crime than other large cities that have remained untouched. (Of the 10 major US cities with the biggest crime problems, Trump has hit only one: Memphis.) So why would Trump be sending in the troops?One explanation is that he lives in such a closed filter bubble, his sources of information so narrow, that he is not in possession of the actual facts. Earlier this month, he described Portland, Oregon as a “burning hellhole”, adding that “You see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy.” The people of Portland – cycling or taking their kids to the park, as normal – were bemused. It seemed Trump had been watching Fox News, confusing footage from the riots of 2020 with today.But none of this is a mistake. For what the likes of Chicago, LA and Portland have in common is not imagined rates of runaway crime but something that angers Trump much more: they are Democrat-run cities in Democrat-led states. (The giveaway is that Cleveland, Ohio and Kansas City, Missouri have higher rates of violent crime but are under Republican governors. So they have been left alone.)This is a political act by Trump, designed to intimidate potential strongholds of opposition. Some critics suspect the administration hopes to provoke violence from those whose cities now feel like occupied territory. Perhaps a riot or an attack on the military that can be instantly spun, as the assassination of Charlie Kirk was, as an act of leftist terrorism that merits a further crackdown, seizure of emergency powers or suspension of liberties.Others believe this is about normalising the presence of troops on the streets before next year’s midterm elections, a crucial contest that could see Republicans lose the House of Representatives, handing Democrats a serious check on Trump’s power. In this view, troops will be in place either to scare away minorities and others who might usually vote for the Democratic party, or for the battle after polling day, to enforce an attempt by the White House to void results that don’t go their way. Think of a re-run of 6 January 2021 – except this time with the armed forces on hand to ensure Trump’s will is done.The obvious objection to this scenario is that the US military would surely refuse to let itself be used as a partisan political instrument. But that is to miss what Trump and Pete Hegseth – now rebranded not as secretary of defence, but as secretary of war – are doing to the US military. Witness last month’s jawdropping meeting of hundreds of top US admirals and generals, gathered from across the globe. Trump could not have been clearer, instructing them that they now faced an “enemy from within”, that their job was to deal with “civil disturbances” and that they should regard America’s “dangerous cities as training grounds”. At one point, Hegseth said that any officer who disagreed with the new, Trumpian conception of the US military should “do the honorable thing and resign”.All of this comes in the context of a president who is nakedly using the justice system to punish his critics – note the indictment issued on Thursday against his former national security adviser John Bolton – whose chief adviser called the Democratic party a “domestic extremist organisation” even before the Kirk killing; that sends masked agents to snatch people, including US citizens, off the streets; that is using the government shutdown to eliminate “Democrat agencies”, meaning those pockets of the independent civil service that might act as a restraint on presidential whim, while cutting funds to institutions, from the universities to public broadcasting, that might do the same; and that is imposing ideological orthodoxy on the entire federal bureaucracy, with the FBI’s firing of an employee who had displayed the pride flag only the latest example.Trump likes talking the peace talk when it comes to Palestinians and Israelis or Russians and Ukrainians. But inside the US, where red meets blue, he does not see a contest between rivals but rather a conflict with an enemy he admits he hates – one that has to be fought by any means necessary, even to the very end.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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      Judge dismisses suit by young climate activists against Trump’s pro-fossil fuel policies

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      A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by young climate activists that aimed to halt Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel executive orders.The dismissal by US district judge Dana Christensen on Wednesday came after 22 plaintiffs, ages seven to 25 and from five states, sought to block three of the president’s executive orders, including those declaring a “national energy emergency” and seeking to “unleash American energy” – as well as one aimed at “reinvigorating” the US’s production of coal.According to the plaintiffs, the executive orders amount to unlawful executive overreach and breach the state-created danger doctrine – a legal principle designed to prevent government officials from causing harm to their citizens.Among the plaintiffs were also several young individuals who had previously been part of the landmark 2023 Held v Montana case – the first constitutional climate trial in the United States. In that case, a judge ruled in favor of the youth plaintiffs who argued that the Montana state government had violated their constitutional right to a healthy environment.In Wednesday’s ruling, Christensen said that the plaintiffs have presented “overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing at a staggering pace, and that this change stems from the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused by the production and burning of fossil fuels”.However, Christensen went on to say: “Yet while this court is certainly troubled by the very real harms presented by climate change and the challenged [executive orders’] effect on carbon dioxide emissions, this concern does not automatically confer upon it the power to act.”He added: “Granting plaintiffs’ injunction would require the defendant agencies, and – ultimately – this court, to scrutinize every climate-related agency action taken since” the start of Trump’s second presidency on 20 January 2025.“In other words, this court would be required to monitor an untold number of federal agency actions to determine whether they contravene its injunction. This is, quite simply, an unworkable request for which plaintiffs provide no precedent,” Christensen continued.According to a new report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and ethics non-profit, Trump has picked more than 40 people who were directly employed by coal, oil and gas companies to be part of his administration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince taking office, Trump has launched broad attacks on both sustainable energy alternatives and climate science. In August, his administration released a report that said “climate change is a challenge – not a catastrophe”, a claim that drew sharp criticism from climate experts who called the report a “farce” filled with misinformation. More

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      Jack Smith hits back at claims that Trump prosecutions were politically motivated

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      In a rare interview former justice department special counsel Jack Smith has hit back against accusations that the federal prosecutions of Donald Trump he oversaw were politically motivated, calling the claims “absolutely ludicrous”.Speaking with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the UK’s University College London in an interview last week, Smith defended the integrity of the criminal investigations he led and his work as special counsel in the Biden administration.“The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case, or who got chosen, is ludicrous,” Smith said in the interview which was posted online on Tuesday.Smith led two federal investigations that resulted in unprecedented indictments against a former president, when Trump was charged in 2023 – one case concerning his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the other involving his handling of classified materials after leaving office and the obstruction of government efforts to retrieve them. Trump pleaded not guilty in both cases and denied any wrongdoing.Both cases were dismissed following Trump’s re-election in 2024, consistent with a justice department policy barring indictment of a sitting president, which Trump became again in January 2025.Smith, who resigned from the justice department in January, said in the interview that his special counsel team had acted independently and were not interested in politics.“Those people I brought in were all former longtime, former federal prosecutors who had worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations over and over again,” he said. “These are team players who don’t want to do anything but good in the world. They’re not interested in politics.“I get very concerned when I see how easy it is to demonize these people for political ends when these are the very sort of people I think we should be celebrating,” he added. “The idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it’s absolutely ludicrous and it’s totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor.”When describing the actions of the current justice department under Trump, Smith said that “nothing like what we see now has ever gone on.”He pointed to the department’s dismissal of a federal corruption case against Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor.“This case in New York City, where the case against the mayor was dismissed in the hopes that he would support the president’s political agenda,” Smith said. “I mean, just so you know, nothing like it has ever happened that I’ve ever heard of.”He also criticized the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who has been charged with one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding, which he denies.“This latest prosecution of the former director of the FBI,” Smith said, “just reeks of lack of process.”“Process shouldn’t be a political issue,” Smith said. “If there’s rules in the department about how to bring a case, follow those rules, you can’t say, ‘I want this outcome, let me throw the rules out’.”Smith said that the firings and attacks on public servants, “particularly nonpartisan public servants” has a “cost for our country that is incalculable” adding that “it’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us.”“If you think getting rid of the people who know most about national security is going to make our country safer, you do not know anything about national security,” he said. “And that’s happening throughout the department – it makes me concerned.”Smith also noted how some career prosecutors have left the justice department.“They’re being asked to do things that they think are wrong and because they are not political people, they’re not going to do them,” Smith said. “And I think that explains why you’ve seen the resignations you’ve seen.”The White House and Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.In a statement to NBC, the White House said: “The Trump Administration will continue to deliver the truth to the American people while restoring integrity and accountability to our justice system.”Meanwhile, on Tuesday, House Republicans requested that Smith testify about what they described as his “partisan and politically motivated prosecutions” of Trump. More