Law (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump DoJ ally denies claim he urged defying court orders on immigration

      by

      Emil Bove, a top justice department official and former defense attorney for Donald Trump, denied to senators on Wednesday a whistleblower’s claim that he suggested prosecutors ignore orders from judges who ruled against the president’s immigration policy.In a hearing before the Senate judiciary committee to consider his nomination to serve as a federal appeals court judge, Bove, currently the principal associate deputy attorney general at the justice department, also rejected assertions from Democrats that corruption charges against New York City mayor, Eric Adams, were dropped in order to secure his cooperation with the president’s immigration enforcement agenda.The hearing convened hours after reports emerged that former justice department attorney Erez Reuveni filed a whistleblower complaint, alleging that Bove said prosecutors “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’” in instances when they rule against Trump’s immigration policies.“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove said in response to questions from the committee’s chair, Chuck Grassley.A former New York City-based federal prosecutor, Trump hired Bove as an attorney to defend him against the four state and federal indictments he faced before winning re-election last year. He then appointed Bove as acting justice department deputy attorney general his first weeks back in the White House, during which time he fired prosecutors who brought charges against January 6 rioters and requested a list of FBI agents who worked on the cases. He also oversaw legal motions to drop charges against Adams, which prompted the resignation of seven veteran prosecutors in New York who refused to cooperate.During his confirmation hearing for a seat on the appeals court overseeing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the US Virgin Islands, Republican lawmakers signaled no objections to moving his nomination to the Senate floor, while Bove described himself as unfairly maligned.“There is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media,” Bove said in his opening remarks. “I am not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer. I’m a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this.”Democrats described Bove as exactly what he claims not to be, with the committee’s ranking member, Dick Durbin, saying he “led the effort to weaponize the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies. Having earned his stripes as a loyalist to this president, he’s been rewarded with this lifetime nomination.”Durbin went on to allege that ending Adams’s prosecution amounted to “a quid pro quo” arrangement in which a federal judge “foiled your plans” by ordering the charges dismissed with prejudice, meaning they could not be brought again.“In order to get Mayor Adams to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration policy, you were prepared to drop the charges against him?” Durbin asked.Bove, who showed little emotion in responding to Democrats’ skeptical questioning, replied: “That’s completely false.”Durbin demanded details of Bove’s decision to fire prosecutors who worked on January 6 case, noting that in a memo, he echoed Trump’s words in describing the prosecutions as “a grave national injustice”.“I did and continue to condemn unlawful behavior, particularly violence against law enforcement. At the same time, I condemn heavy handed and unnecessary tactics by prosecutors and agents. Both of those things I submit are characteristic of these events,” Bove said, adding that the prosecutors were fired because they were specifically tasked with working on January 6 cases.Asked if he condemned Trump’s decision to pardon all those who were convicted or prosecuted over the insurrection, Bove replied: “It’s not for me to question president Trump’s exercise of the pardon power any more than it would be for me to question president Biden’s commutation of death sentences or his pardons of drug traffickers.”Republicans often angled their questions toward standing up Trump’s claim that he faced unfair prosecutions by a justice department that had become “weaponized” under Biden. Senator John Kennedy asked Bove to detail a time he saw a justice department employee act “predominantly on the basis of his or her political beliefs”.Bove replied that he witnessed such conduct only while serving as a defense attorney for Trump, where he alleged that members of special counsel Jack Smith’s team took “positions about the need to go to trial quickly … that I found, in my experience, to be completely inconsistent with normal practice, which led me to draw in inferences of the nature that you’re suggesting”.None of the two federal indictments Smith secured against Trump went to trial prior to his election victory last November. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Pam Bondi denies knowing Ice agents wore masks during raids despite video evidence

      by

      The attorney general, Pam Bondi, professed ignorance of reports of immigration officials hiding their faces with masks during roundups of undocumented people, despite widespread video evidence and reports that they are instilling pervasive fear and panic.Challenged at a Wednesday Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing by Gary Peters, a Democratic senator for Michigan, Bondi, who as the country’s top law officer has a prominent role in the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy, implied she was unaware of plain-clothed agents concealing their faces while carrying out arrests but suggested it was for self-protection.“I do know they are being doxxed … they’re being threatened,” she told Peters. “Their families are being threatened.”Bondi’s protestations appeared to strain credibility given the attention the masked raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have attracted on social media and elsewhere.Civil rights campaigners and democracy experts have criticised the raids as evocative of entrenched dictatorships and police states, and say it is a warning sign that the US is descending into authoritarianism.Peters said he understood officers’ concerns at being doxxed but said the failure to wear identifying insignia endangered both themselves and detainees.“The public risk being harmed by individuals pretending to be immigration enforcement, which has already happened,” he told Bondi. “And these officers also risk being injured by individuals who think they’re basically being kidnapped or attacked by some unknown assailant.“People think: ‘Here’s a person coming up to me, not identified, covering themselves. They’re kidnapping.’ They’ll probably fight back. That endangers the officer as well, and that’s a serious situation. People need to know that they’re dealing with a federal law enforcement official.”Bondi reiterated her proclamation of ignorance, saying: “It sounds like you have a specific case and will be happy to talk to you about that at a later time, because I’m not aware of that happening.”She turned the tables later in the hearing after Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, condemned Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and the Democratic vice presidential candidate in last year’s election, for comparing Ice agents with Nazi Gestapo officers.“This is dangerous for our agents, it’s wrong, and it cuts against and it undercuts the rule of law,” said Hagerty, who invited Bondi to explain how she intended to tackle “leftwing radicals” who he said were attacking Ice agents.In response, the attorney general said that it was protesters who were concealing their identities when assailing officers.“Those people are the ones who have really been wearing the mask and trying to cover their identities,” she said, citing the recent demonstrations in Los Angeles, against which Donald Trump deployed national guard units. “We’ve been finding them. We have been charging them with assault on a federal officer.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLisa Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska who has some voiced criticism of the Trump administration, told Bondi that her constituents were worried that resources had been transferred to immigration crackdowns at the expense of tackling violent crime.“We don’t have much of an Ice presence in Alaska,” she said. “All of a sudden, we’re now on the map. We have those that are being detained in our local jail that were flown up to the state several weeks ago to be detained up there.”She also cited the case of a restaurant owner who had been detained by Ice agents after living in the Alaskan city of Soldotna for 20 years. “His children are all integrated into the community,” Murkowski said.“The specific ask is whether or not immigration enforcement is being prioritized over combatting violent crime. And senator, before you walked in, I think senators on both sides of the aisle shared that same concern.”Bondi replied: “It is not and it will not. A lot of it does go hand in hand though, getting the illegal aliens who are violent criminals out of our country.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      DoJ leader suggested defying courts over deportations, whistleblower says

      by

      Emil Bove, the Department of Justice’s principal associate deputy attorney general, who Donald Trump nominated for the US court of appeals for the third circuit, reportedly said the department “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’” when it came to orders blocking the deportation of undocumented people.Former attorney at the justice department, Erez Reuveni, claimed Bove said the agency should violate court orders. In a whistleblower letter to members of Congress first obtained by the New York Times, Reuveni painted the scene of a lawless justice department willingly to defy the courts and fire the people who stood in their way.“Mr. Reuveni was stunned by Bove’s statement because, to Mr. Reuveni’s knowledge, no one in DOJ leadership – in any Administration – had ever suggested the Department of Justice could blatantly ignore court orders, especially with a ‘fuck you,’” says the letter, written by his lawyers at the Government Accountability Project.The comments came in the context of Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport people on removal flights in mid-March, the letter contends, after Bove “stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what”.At the time of Bove’s alleged comments, Reuveni, who was in the meeting, said he was in disbelief. But in the three weeks that followed, his disbelief became “a relic of a different time” as the department undermined the courts and rule of law. In three separate cases Reuveni was involved in, he found “internal efforts of DOJ and White House leadership to defy (court orders) through lack of candor, deliberate delay and disinformation”.Reuveni was a career attorney who had served across multiple administrations for 15 years in the department, including the first Trump administration.Reuveni says he directly witnessed and reported to his superiors a host of misconduct, including “DOJ officials undermining the rule of law by ignoring court orders; DOJ officials presenting ‘legal’ arguments with no basis in law; high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials misrepresenting facts presented before courts; and DOJ officials directing Mr. Reuveni to misrepresent facts in one of these cases in violation of Mr.Reuveni’s legal and ethical duties as an officer of the court”.Reuveni had notified the court in the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man erroneously deported to El Salvador who has since returned to the US, that Ábrego García’s deportation had been a “mistake”. He said he refused his superiors’ directive to file a brief to the court that would have misrepresented the facts of the case. He was subsequently put on administrative leave and then terminated on 11 April. Trump administration officials have said Reuveni didn’t “vigorously” or “zealously” defend his client, the United States.“Discouraging clients from engaging in illegal conduct is an important part of the role of lawyer,” the whistleblower letter says. “Mr. Reuveni tried to do so and was thwarted, threatened, fired, and publicly disparaged for both doing his job and telling the truth to the court.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBove is set for a confirmation hearing on his judicial nomination before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, where the whistleblower’s claims are sure to enter into questioning.The White House and justice department have denied Reuveni’s claims, according to the New York Times. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and Bove’s boss, called Reuveni’s accounts “falsehoods purportedly made by a disgruntled former employee and then leaked to the press in violation of ethical obligations” and questioned the timing of its release ahead of Bove’s confirmation hearing. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge orders release of Kilmar Ábrego García as he awaits federal trial

      by

      A Tennessee judge on Sunday ordered the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, whose mistaken deportation has become a flashpoint in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, while he awaits a federal trial on human smuggling charges. But he is not expected to be allowed to go free.At his 13 June detention hearing, prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if he were released on the criminal charges, and he could be deported before he has a chance to stand trial.US magistrate judge Barbara Holmes has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of Ábrego García’s release. The US government has already filed a motion to appeal the judge’s release order.Holmes acknowledged in her ruling on Sunday that determining whether Ábrego García should be released is “little more than an academic exercise” because Ice will probably detain him. But the judge wrote that everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence and “a full and fair determination of whether he must remain in federal custody pending trial”.Holmes wrote that the government failed to prove that Ábrego García was a flight risk, that he posed a danger to the community or that he would interfere with proceedings if released.“Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Ábrego’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” the judge wrote.Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the deportation mistake after the fact.The acting US attorney for the middle district of Tennessee, Rob McGuire, argued on 13 June that the likely attempt by Ice to try to deport him was one reason to keep him in jail.But Holmes said then that she had no intention of “getting in the middle of any Ice hold”.“If I elect to release Mr Ábrego, I will impose conditions of release, and the US Marshal will release him.” If he is released into Ice custody, that is “above my pay grade”, she said.The judge suggested that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security could work out between themselves whether the government’s priority is to try him on the criminal charges or deport him. No date has been set for the trial.Will Allensworth, an assistant federal public defender representing Ábrego García at the detention hearing, told Holmes that “it’s not necessarily accurate that he would be immediately deported.”A 2019 immigration judge’s order prevents Ábrego García, who had been living in Maryland, from being deported to his home country of El Salvador, Allensworth said in court. That’s because he faces a credible threat from gangs there, according to court papers.The government could deport him to a third country, but immigration officials would first be required to show that third country was willing to keep him and not simply deport him back to El Salvador, Allensworth said.The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee during which Ábrego García was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Although officers suspected possible smuggling, he was allowed to go on his way with only a warning. He has pleaded not guilty.At the detention hearing, McGuire said cooperating witnesses have accused Ábrego García of trafficking drugs and firearms and of abusing the women he transported, among other claims. Although he is not charged with such crimes, McGuire said they showed Ábrego García to be a dangerous person who should remain in jail pretrial.Ábrego García’s attorneys have characterized the smuggling case as a desperate attempt to justify the mistaken deportation. The investigation was launched weeks after the US government deported Ábrego García and the supreme court ordered the administration to facilitate his return amid mounting public pressure.The US is now expected to try to deport him again with much of the world watching and the outcome hard to predict.Most people in Ice custody who are facing criminal charges are not kept in the US for trial but deported, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor, said.The US will probably try to deport Ábrego García quickly without going before an immigration judge, the professor said. The government would not need a conviction to deport him because Ábrego García came to the US illegally.“The legal standard is laxer,” García Hernández said. “The government’s argument is on stronger legal footing.”However an immigration judge rules, the decision can be appealed to the board of immigration appeals, García Hernández said. And the board’s ruling can then be contested in a federal appeals court. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Mahmoud Khalil reunites with family after more than 100 days in Ice detention

      by

      Mahmoud Khalil – the Palestinian rights activist, Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident of the US who had been held by federal immigration authorities for more than three months – has been reunited with his wife and infant son.Khalil, the most high-profile student to be targeted by the Trump administration for speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza, arrived in New Jersey on Saturday at about 1pm – two hours later than expected after his flight was first rerouted to Philadelphia.Khalil smiled broadly at his cheering supporters as he emerged from security at Newark airport pushing his infant son in a black stroller, with his right fist raised and a Palestinian keffiyeh draped across his shoulders. He was accompanied by his wife, Noor Abdalla, as well as members of his legal team and the New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.“If they threaten me with detention, even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine,” he said at a brief press conference after landing. “I just want to go back and continue the work I was already doing, advocating for Palestinian rights, a speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished.”“This is not over, and we will have to continue to support this case,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “The persecution based on political speech is wrong, and it is a violation of all of our first amendment rights, not just Mahmoud’s.”The Trump administration “knows that they’re waging a losing legal battle,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens.Khalil embraced some of his supporters, many of whom were also wearing keffiyehs in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.Khalil was released from a Louisiana immigration detention facility on Friday evening after a federal judge ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter was unconstitutional and ordered his immediate release on bail.Khalil was sent to Jena, Louisiana, shortly after being seized by plainclothes US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in the lobby of his university residence in front of his heavily pregnant wife, who is a US citizen, in early March.The 30-year-old, who has not been charged with a crime, was forced to miss the birth of his first child, Deen, by the Trump administration. Khalil had been permitted to see his wife and son briefly – and only once – earlier in June. The American green card holder was held by Ice for 104 days.In ordering Khalil’s immediate release on Friday, federal judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, found that the government had failed to provide evidence that the graduate was a flight risk or danger to the public. “[He] is not a danger to the community,” Farbiarz ruled. “Period, full stop.”The judge also ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter by detaining them was unconstitutional.Speaking to reporters outside the Jena detention facility where an estimated 1,000 men are being held, Khalil said: “Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this. That doesn’t mean there is a right person for this. There is no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”“No one is illegal – no human is illegal,” he said. “Justice will prevail no matter what this administration may try.”The Trump administration immediately filed a notice of appeal, NBC reported.Khalil was ordered to surrender his passport and green card to Ice officials in Jena, Louisiana, as part of his conditional release. The order also limits Khalil’s travel to a handful of US states, including New York and Michigan to visit family, for court hearings in Louisiana and New Jersey, and for lobbying in Washington DC. He must notify the Department of Homeland Security of his address within 48 hours of arriving in New York.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKhalil’s detention was widely condemned as a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration’s assault on speech, which is ostensibly protected by the first amendment to the US constitution. His detention was the first in a series of high-profile arrests of international students who had spoken out about Israel’s siege of Gaza, its occupation of Palestinian territories and their university’s financial ties to companies that profit from Israeli military strikes.Khalil’s release marks the latest setback for the Trump administration, which had pledged to deport pro-Palestinian international students en masse, claiming without evidence that speaking out against the Israeli state amounts to antisemitism.In Khalili’s case, multiple Jewish students and faculty had submitted court documents in his support. Khalil was a lead negotiator between the Jewish-led, pro-Palestinian campus protests at Columbia in 2024. And during an appearance on CNN, he said, “The liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand, and you cannot achieve one without the other.”In addition to missing the birth of his son, Khalil was kept from his family’s first Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and his graduation from Columbia while held in custody from 8 March to 20 June.Trump’s crackdown on free speech, pro-Palestinian activists and immigrants has triggered widespread protests and condemnation, as Ice agents ramp up operations to detain tens of thousands of people monthly for deportation while seeking – and in many instances succeeding – to avoid due process.Three other students detained on similar grounds to Khalil – Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri and Mohsen Mahdawi – were previously released while their immigration cases are pending. Others voluntarily left the country after deportation proceedings against them were opened. Another is in hiding as she fights her case.On Sunday, a rally to celebrate Khalil’s release – and protest against the ongoing detention by thousands of other immigrants in the US and Palestinians held without trial in Israel – will be held at 5.30pm ET at the steps of the Cathedral of St John the Divine in upper Manhattan. Khalil is expected to address supporters, alongside his legal representatives.“Mahmoud’s release reignites our determination to continue fighting until all our prisoners are released – whether in Palestine or the United States, until we see the end of the genocide and the siege on Gaza, and until we enforce an arms embargo on the Israel,” said Miriam Osman of the Palestinian Youth Movement. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Court strikes down Louisiana law requiring display of Ten Commandments in schools

      by

      A panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state’s public school classrooms is unconstitutional.The ruling on Friday marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state – and that the poster-sized displays would isolate students, especially those who are not Christian.The mandate has been touted by Republicans, including Donald Trump, and marks one of the latest pushes by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms. Backers of the law argue the Ten Commandments belong in classrooms because they are historical and part of the foundation of US law.Heather L Weaver, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Friday’s ruling “held Louisiana accountable to a core constitutional promise: public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith”.The plaintiffs’ attorneys and Louisiana disagreed on whether the appeals court’s decision applied to every public school district in the state or only the districts party to the lawsuit.“All school districts in the state are bound to comply with the US constitution,” said Liz Hayes, a spokesperson for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs.The appeals court’s rulings “interpret the law for all of Louisiana”, Hayes added. “Thus, all school districts must abide by this decision and should not post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.”Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, said she disagreed and believed the ruling only applied to school districts in the five parishes that were party to the lawsuit. Murrill added that she would appeal the ruling, including taking it to the US supreme court if necessary.The panel of judges reviewing the case was unusually liberal for the fifth US circuit court of appeals. In a court with more than twice as many Republican-appointed judges, two of the three judges involved in the ruling were appointed by Democratic presidents.The court’s ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by parents of Louisiana schoolchildren from various religious backgrounds, who said the law violates language in the US constitution’s first amendment guaranteeing religious liberty and forbidding government establishment of religion.The ruling also backs an order issued last fall by US district judge John deGravelles, who declared the mandate unconstitutional and ordered state education officials not to enforce it and to notify all local school boards in the state of his decision.The state’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, signed the mandate into law last June.Landry said in a statement on Friday that he supports the attorney general’s plans to appeal.“The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our laws – serving both an educational and historical purpose in our classrooms,” Landry said.Law experts have long said they expect the Louisiana case to make its way to the US supreme court, testing the court on the issue of religion and government.Similar laws have been challenged in court.A group of Arkansas families filed a federal lawsuit recently challenging a near-identical law passed in their state. And comparable legislation in Texas currently awaits Governor Greg Abbott’s signature.In 1980, the supreme court ruled that a Kentucky law violated the establishment clause of the US constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. The court found that the law had no secular purpose but served a plainly religious purpose.And in 2005, the supreme court held that such displays in a pair of Kentucky courthouses violated the US constitution. At the same time, the court upheld a Ten Commandments marker on the grounds of the Texas state capitol in Austin. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Pete Hegseth suggests he would disobey court ruling against deploying military in LA

      by

      The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, suggested on Wednesday that he would not obey a federal court ruling against the deployments of national guard troops and US marines to Los Angeles, the latest example of the Trump administration’s willingness to ignore judges it disagrees with.The comments before the Senate armed services committee come as Donald Trump faces dozen of lawsuits over his policies, which his administration has responded to by avoiding compliance with orders it dislikes. In response, Democrats have claimed that Trump is sending the country into a constitutional crisis.California has sued over Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Los Angeles, and, last week, a federal judge ruled that control of soldiers should return to California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. An appeals court stayed that ruling and, in arguments on Tuesday, sounded ready to keep the soldiers under Donald Trump’s authority.“I don’t believe district courts should be determining national security policy. When it goes to the supreme court, we’ll see,” Hegseth told the Democratic senator Mazie Hirono. Facing similar questions from another Democrat, Elizabeth Warren, he said: “If the supreme court rules on a topic, we will abide by that.”Hegseth was confirmed to lead the Pentagon after three Republican senators and all Democrats voted against his appointment, creating a tie vote on a cabinet nomination for only the second time in history. The tie was broken by the vice-president, JD Vance.There were few hints of dissatisfaction among GOP senators at the hearing, which was intended to focus on the Pentagon’s budgetary needs for the forthcoming fiscal year, but Democrats used it to press for more details on the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, as well as the turmoil that has plagued Hegseth’s top aides and the potential for the United States to join Israel’s attack on Iran.The Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin asked whether troops deployed to southern California were allowed to arrest protesters or shoot them in the legs, as Trump is said to have attempted to order during his first term.“If necessary, in their own self-defense, they could temporarily detain and hand over to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. But there’s no arresting going on,” Hegseth said. On Friday, marines temporarily took into custody a US citizen at a federal building in Los Angeles.The secretary laughed when asked whether troops could shoot protesters, before telling Slotkin: “Senator, I’d be careful what you read in books and believing in, except for the Bible.”An exasperated Slotkin replied: “Oh my God.”Trump has publicly mulled the possibility that the United States might strike Iran. Slotkin asked if the Pentagon had plans for what the US military would do after toppling its government.“We have plans for everything,” Hegseth said, prompting the committee’s Republican chair, Roger Wicker, to note that the secretary was scheduled to answer further questions in a behind-closed-doors session later that afternoon.In addition to an aggressive purge of diversity and equity policies from the military, Hegseth has also ordered that military bases that were renamed under Joe Biden because they honored figures in the Confederacy to revert to their previous names – but officially honoring various US soldiers with the same name.The Virginia senator Tim Kaine said that in his state, several bases had been renamed under Biden in honor of accomplished veterans, and their families were never officially told that the names would be changed back.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You didn’t call any of the families, and I’ve spoken with the families, and the families were called by the press. That’s how they learned about this. They learned about it from the press,” Kaine said,He asked Hegseth to pause the renaming of these bases, which the secretary declined to do, instead saying: “We’ll find ways to recognize them.”Democrats also criticized Hegseth for turmoil in the ranks of his top aides, as well as his decision to name as the Pentagon’s press secretary Kingsley Wilson, who has repeatedly shared on social media an antisemitic conspiracy theory.The Pentagon head had a sharp exchange with the Democratic senator Jacky Rosen, who asked whether he would fire Wilson. “I’ve worked directly with her. She does a fantastic job, and … any suggestion that I or her or others are party to antisemitism is a mischaracterization.”“You are not a serious person,” the Nevada lawmaker replied. “You are not serious about rooting out, fighting antisemitism within the ranks of our DOD. It’s despicable. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”Rosen then asked if the far-right activist Laura Loomer was involved in the firing of a top national security staffer. Hegseth demurred, saying the decision was his to make, but the senator continued to press, even as the committee chair brought down his gavel to signal that she had run out of time for questions.“I believe your time is up, senator,” Hegseth said. A furious Rosen responded: “It is not up to you to tell me when my time is up. And I am going to say, Mr Secretary, you’re either feckless or complicit. You’re not in control of your department.” More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Appeals court likely to keep Trump in control of national guard deployed in LA

      by

      A federal appeals court on Tuesday seemed ready to keep Donald Trump in control of California national guard troops after they were deployed following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.Last week, a district court ordered the US president to return control of the guard to Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, who had opposed their deployment. US district judge Charles Breyer said Trump had deployed the Guard illegally and exceeded his authority. But the administration quickly appealed and a three-judge appellate panel temporarily paused that order.Tuesday’s hearing was about whether the order could take effect while the case makes its way through the courts, including possibly the supreme court.It’s the first time a US president has activated a state national guard without the governor’s permission since 1965, and the outcome of the case could have sweeping implications for Trump’s power to send soldiers into other US cities. Trump announced on 7 June that he was deploying the guard to Los Angeles to protect federal property following a protest at a downtown detention center after federal immigration agents arrested dozens of immigrants without legal status across the city. Newsom said Trump was only inflaming the situation and that troops were not necessary.In a San Francisco courtroom, all three judges, two appointed by Trump in his first term and one by Joe Biden, suggested that presidents have wide latitude under the federal law at issue and that courts should be reluctant to step in.“If we were writing on a blank slate, I would tend to agree with you,” Judge Jennifer Sung, a Biden appointee, told California’s lawyer, Samuel Harbourt, before pointing to a 200-year-old supreme court decision that she said seemed to give presidents the broad discretion Harbourt was arguing against.Even so, the judges did not appear to embrace arguments made by a justice department lawyer that courts could not even review Trump’s decision.It wasn’t clear how quickly the panel would rule.Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, opened the hearing by asking whether the courts have a role in reviewing the president’s decision to call up the national guard. Brett Shumate, an attorney for the federal government, said they did not.“The statute says the president may call on federal service members and units of the Guard of any state in such numbers that he considers necessary,” Shumate said, adding that the statute “couldn’t be any more clear”.Shumate made several references to “mob violence” in describing ongoing protests in Los Angeles. But mayor Karen Bass lifted a curfew for downtown Los Angeles Tuesday, saying acts of vandalism and violence that prompted her curfew a week ago had subsided.“It is essential that this injunction be stayed, otherwise, lives and property will be at risk,” Shumate said.Harbourt argued that the federal government didn’t inform Newsom of the decision to deploy the guard. He said the Trump administration hasn’t shown that they considered “more modest measures to the extreme response of calling in the national guard and militarizing the situation”.Harbourt told the panel that not upholding Breyer’s ruling would “defy our constitutional traditions of preserving state sovereignty, of providing judicial review for the legality of executive action, of safeguarding our cherished rights to political protest”.Breyer’s order applied only to the national guard troops and not the marines, who were also deployed to LA but were not yet on the streets when he ruled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNewsom’s lawsuit accused Trump of inflaming tensions, breaching state sovereignty and wasting resources just when guard members need to be preparing for wildfire season. He also called the federal takeover of the state’s national guard “illegal and immoral”.Newsom said in advance of the hearing that he was confident in the rule of law.“I’m confident that common sense will prevail here: the US military belongs on the battlefield, not on American streets,” Newsom said in a statement.Breyer ruled the Trump violated the use of title 10, which allows the president to call the national guard into federal service when the country “is invaded”, when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government,” or when the president is unable “to execute the laws of the United States”.Breyer, an appointee of former president Bill Clinton, said the definition of a rebellion was not met.“The protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion,’” he wrote. “Individuals’ right to protest the government is one of the fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment, and just because some stray bad actors go too far does not wipe out that right for everyone.”The national guard hasn’t been activated without a governor’s permission since 1965, when President Lyndon B Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. More