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    Trump fires two DoJ senior career officials including pardon attorney

    Donald Trump’s administration on Friday fired at least two senior career officials at the US justice department, including the head of the office that handles presidential pardon requests, according to a social media post and sources familiar with the matter.Liz Oyer served as pardon attorney since 2022, a career justice department position. Oyer was fired “effective immediately,” according to a memo she shared on LinkedIn, which cited Trump’s executive authority under the US constitution.Oyer, who was appointed by Biden in 2022, posted on LinkedIn: “I’m sad to share that I was fired today from the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years. I am so proud of the team we built in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who will carry on our important work. I’m very grateful for the many extraordinary people I’ve had the opportunity to connect with on this journey. Thank you for your partnership, your support, and your belief in second chances.”Oyer’s former office reviews requests for clemency from people convicted of federal offenses and makes recommendations to the White House on whom the president should pardon.Oyer’s termination comes two weeks after Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson as “pardon czar”, a role in which she will recommend people for presidential commutations.Bobak Talebian, the head of the justice department’s Office of Information Policy, which handles public records requests under the US Freedom of Information Act, was also fired, according to a source familiar with the matter.The moves mark the latest instance of the Trump administration removing or sidelining career justice department officials, who typically keep their positions across presidential administrations.A justice department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the moves.Trump-appointed officials previously reassigned several veteran national security and criminal prosecutors to a newly created immigration office. The top career ethics official left the justice department after facing a similar reassignment.About eight senior career FBI officials also were forced out before the confirmation of Trump-nominated FBI director Kash Patel by the Senate.Justice department leaders have generally not given reasons for the dismissals, but have broadly emphasized that career officials must be trusted to enforce Trump’s agenda.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA union said on Friday the US Department of Labor reinstated about 120 employees who had been facing termination as part of the Trump administration’s mass firings of recently hired workers.The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, told Reuters that the probationary employees had been reinstated immediately and that the department was issuing letters telling them to report back to duty on Monday.Coral Murphy Marcos contributed to this report More

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    Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite rulings against Trump’s order

    Transgender women incarcerated in the US prison system have been transferred to men’s facilities under Donald Trump’s executive order, despite multiple court rulings blocking the president’s policy, according to civil rights lawyers and accounts from behind bars.Trump’s day-one “gender ideology” order, one of several sweeping attacks on trans rights, said the attorney general “shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers” and that no federal funds go to gender-affirming treatment or procedures for people in custody.The executive order was quickly challenged in court. In three lawsuits filed on behalf of trans women housed in women’s prisons, federal judges have ruled that the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cannot withhold their medical treatment and was barred from moving them to men’s facilities. One judge said the plaintiffs had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow”.Lawyers fighting Trump’s directive say the court rulings prevented the transfers of 17 trans women who are plaintiffs in the cases, but others not included in the litigation are now facing placements in men’s facilities.“I’m just continuing to be punished for existing,” said Whitney, a 31-year-old trans woman who was transferred from a women’s facility to a men’s prison this week. The BOP changed her records from “female” to “male”, records show. In messages before her transfer, she said she felt like a “pawn in others’ political games”. The Guardian is not using her full name due to concerns about retaliation.Kara Janssen, an attorney representing trans women in litigation, said she learned of another trans woman not included in the lawsuits who was recently transferred to a facility that houses men, and also had the gender marker in her records changed. Janssen also learned of a trans woman newly entering the BOP system who had gender-affirming surgeries before her incarceration, but was placed in a men’s facility.Prisons are required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (Prea), a longstanding federal law, to screen incarcerated people for sexual assault risk and consider LGBTQ+ status when making housing decisions. Legal experts say Trump’s blanket policy of housing trans women in men’s facilities clearly violates Prea.“This is incredibly unnecessary and cruel,” said Janssen. “Our clients are desperate and scared.”The BOP did not respond to requests for comment.Trans people have long faced high levels of sexual violence and discrimination behind bars, and the implementation of Trump’s order has unleashed chaos, panic and significant violations of their rights beyond the threats of housing transfers, attorneys said.Internal BOP memos seen by the Guardian show that officials are now requiring staff to refer to trans residents by their legal names and incorrect pronouns, as well as deny requests for gender-appropriate clothing accommodations. The BOP has also rescinded policies that allowed trans women to have their pat-down searches conducted by female guards.Susan Beaty, a senior attorney for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, who represents roughly 20 trans people in federal prisons, said they have received reports that some trans people were forced under threat of discipline to hand over their underwear, including bras and boxers, as if they were contraband. They said they’ve also heard accounts of male guards searching trans women in encounters several of the women described as “groping”. Some staff have been emboldened to harass and taunt trans people, Beaty said.“It is already so difficult to be a trans person in prison in this country, and now this administration’s measures are intentionally terrorizing and traumatizing incarcerated trans people even further,” Beaty said.“It is essentially sanctioning sexual assault in some instances,” added Janssen, of the male pat-downs of trans women. Some trans people had told her they were suffering suicidal thoughts and daily nightmares.Whitney, who was recently transferred, said in interviews prior to her move that staff for weeks gave her conflicting information. In mid-February, she and another trans woman were placed into a form of isolation called a “special housing unit” and told they could be there for months, she said. The other woman attempted suicide out of fear of being transferred, she said.Days later, the women were moved back to the general population. Whitney’s doctor, however, then told her that her hormone therapy medications would start to be tapered down. Whitney said going off those medications would wreak havoc on her body and mind, describing it “like a slow death”. The doctor also said staff would start using male pronouns for her, though she said that had not happened yet. She said she was also told she would be allowed to keep women’s underwear she already owns, but would not be issued new garments.Last week, medical staff told Whitney her medications would not be changed after all, she said, but then days later, she was told to pack because she was being transferred to a men’s facility.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m nervous. Worried. Apprehensive. Anxious. Scared. You name it,” Whitney said before her transfer. “One moment I am feeling relief, and the next I am growing gray hairs. That’s probably one of the most stressful things about all this. Are you safe or are you not?”The litigation is ongoing and is most immediately focused on maintaining trans people’s housing and medical care, attorneys said. But Janssen said lawyers would also be fighting for trans women who have long been housed in male facilities and were in the pipeline to be transferred, and advocating against the rollback of basic accommodations across the system. “It’s cruel and unusual punishment because you’re punishing this group for no reason other than you don’t think they should exist.”One judge criticized the US government for failing to address plaintiffs’ concerns that their gender dysphoria would be exacerbated in men’s prisons “whether because they will be subject to searches by male correctional officers, made to shower in the company of men, referred to as men, forced to dress as men, or simply because the mere homogenous presence of men will cause uncomfortable dissonance”.Alix McLearen, who was the acting director of the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) in 2022 before she retired in 2024, said Trump’s order endangers trans people and staff. The NIC is part of the BOP and does training and policy development for corrections officials. McLearen led the drafting and implementation of the “transgender offender manual” when she oversaw women and special populations at BOP. That manual has recently been rescinded.“If you yank this away, no one knows what to do,” McLearen said. “If you are going to change a policy, you [should] do it slowly and thoughtfully.”Confusion in a prison setting increases stress levels and the potential for conflict among staff and incarcerated people, McLearen said.Trump’s order also increases the already high risk of sexual and physical assault of trans people in prison, said Julie Abbate, the national advocacy director of Just Detention International, a human rights group focused on sexual abuse in prisons and jails.Putting a target on trans people in prison only increases their risk of assault, which in turn also puts staff in the dangerous position of intervening in violent situations, said Abbate, who spent 15 years at the civil rights division of the US justice department and helped draft national Prea standards.Trump’s policy has no benefit, McLearen said. The order purports to “defend women” in prisons, but McLearen said it addresses a problem that does not exist.“This is fake – this whole executive order is false on its face,” McLearen said. “It’s scapegoating. Trans people are easy to scapegoat.” More

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    Trump administration to drop case against plant polluting Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

    The Donald Trump administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation.Legal filings made public on Friday morning reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, which is allegedly largely responsible for some of the highest cancer risk rates in the US for the surrounding majority-Black neighborhoods.The litigation was filed under the Biden administration in February 2023 in a bid to substantially curb the plant’s emissions of a pollutant named chloroprene, a likely human carcinogen. It had targeted both the current operator, the Japanese firm Denka, and its previous owner, the American chemical giant DuPont, and formed a central piece of the former administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to address environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. A trial had been due to start in April 2025 following lengthy delays.Community leaders in Reserve had expressed grave concerns about the case’s future following Trump’s return to the White House after the president moved to gut offices within the EPA and justice department responsible for civil rights and environmental justice.On Friday, 84-year-old Robert Taylor, a resident in Reserve who has lost a number of family members to cancer, described the move as “terrible” for his community.“It’s obvious that the Trump administration doesn’t care anything for the poor Black folk in Cancer Alley,” Taylor said. “[Trump’s] administration has taken away what protections we had, what little hope we had.”Filings show that parties involved in the litigation, including lawyers for Denka and DuPont, met on Wednesday and agreed jointly with the US justice department to dismiss the case.The EPA referred all questions about the lawsuit to the US justice department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.DuPont did not immediately respond to a request for comment.A spokesperson for Denka did not respond to questions from the Guardian but issued a statement thanking the Trump administration and lauding Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, for his “unwavering support”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe chemical firm pointed to a $35m investment in emissions offsets and said “the facility’s emissions are at an historical low”. The company “remains committed to implementing the emissions reductions achieved as we turn the page from this relentless and draining attack on our business”, the statement added.According to the complaint filed in 2023, emissions from the plant pose “an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare”. The lawsuit had specifically singled out the risk to children living near the plant and those attending an elementary school situated close to the plant’s fence line. It noted that average readings at an air monitor near the school between April 2018 to January 2023 showed that those under 16 could surpass the EPA’s excess cancer risk rate within two years of their life.On Friday, Taylor vowed to continue pushing back against pollution.“We are going to fight them and prepare ourselves to keep going. We were preparing for the worst, and I don’t know how it could get any worse now that the government has totally abandoned us, it seems.” More

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    Court rules Trump’s firing of labor board official illegal, saying president is not a king

    A federal court ruled that Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of a former senior official at the top US labor watchdog was illegal, and ordered that she be reinstated.Gwynne Wilcox was the first member of the National Labor Relations Board to be removed by a US president since the board’s inception in 1935.The framers of the US constitution “made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king – the President included – and not just in name only”, the judge Beryl A Howell, wrote in the ruling.Howell presided over the hearing held on Wednesday on a motion for summary judgment in the District of Columbia. “The President does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire plaintiff from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law,” she wrote.“A president who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a ‘dictator,’ perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the US Constitution,” wrote Howell.Article II of the US Constitution outlines the executive powers and responsibilities of the president. Howell continued, “in our constitutional order, the president is tasked to be a conscientious custodian of the law, albeit an energetic one, to take care of effectuating his enumerated duties, including the laws enacted by the Congress and as interpreted by the Judiciary”.Wilcox filed the lawsuit early last month, alleging her removal was a “blatant violation” of the National Labor Relations Act, which stipulates that members of the board can only be removed for negligence or misconduct. Her removal left the board with only two members, lacking the quorum of at least three members required to rule on cases.“I’m ready to get back to work,” said Wilcox after the hearing in a speech outside the courthouse today. “It’s not just about me, but I’m glad to be the face of this fight.”Her attorney, Deepak Gupta, noted this was the beginning of a long fight.Wilcox was confirmed by the Senate in September 2023, and set to serve until August 2028. She sought a declaratory judgment ruling her removal unlawful and an injunction to permit her to complete her appointed term.The White House has defended her removal, and that of the NLRB general counsel, claiming that “these were far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump administration”.During the hearing, Howell noted that in court, the Trump administration claimed the law prohibiting removal of board members was unconstitutional. Similar arguments have been made in recent lawsuits against the NLRB by SpaceX, Amazon and other employers in response to labor law enforcement actions pursued against the corporations.Howell explained the US supreme court precedent of Humphrey’s Executor, a 1935 case in which the court ruled that a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission had been unlawfully removed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.Former NLRB chairs and labor leaders criticized the removal of Wilcox, claiming it violated that precedent set by the supreme court, undermined the independence of the NLRB and in effect halted federal labor law enforcement in the US.The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, held a rally in support of Wilcox outside the courthouse during Wednesday’s hearing.“A week after taking office, President Trump effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and jeopardized the NLRB’s independence by illegally firing Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the Board,” said the AFL-CIO. More

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    US justice department to review conviction of former election clerk

    Donald Trump’s justice department said it will review the Colorado conviction of former election clerk Tina Peters, who received a nine-year prison sentence for her role in a voting system data-breach scheme as part of an unsuccessful quest to find voter fraud in 2021.Yaakov Roth, an acting assistant attorney general, wrote in a court filing on Monday that the Department of Justice was “reviewing cases across the nation for abuses of the criminal justice process”, including Peters’.“This review will include an evaluation of the state of Colorado’s prosecution of Ms Peters and, in particular, whether the case was ‘oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives’,” Roth wrote, echoing the language in a Trump executive order on “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government”.Peters, then the clerk of Mesa county, allowed a man affiliated with the pillow salesman and election denier Mike Lindell to misuse a security card to access the Mesa county election system. Lindell posted about the DoJ’s statement on his fundraising website, telling donors their assistance had “contributed to positive developments at the Department of Justice that give us hope that the wheels are in motion for the early release of Tina Peters”.Jurors found Peters guilty in August, convicting her on seven counts related to misconduct, conspiracy and impersonation, four of which were felony charges. Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced her in October to nine years in prison, calling Peters “as defiant as a defendant that the court has ever seen” and said he believed Peters would do it all over again if she could.Peters had argued for probation and is appealing against her conviction.The DoJ’s statement of interest notes that Peters’ physical and mental health have deteriorated while she’s been in prison, and that “reasonable concerns have been raised” about her case, including the “exceptionally lengthy sentence” the court imposed and the denial of bail for Peters while her appeal plays out. Her appeal deserves “prompt and careful consideration” by the court, Roth wrote.Dan Rubinstein, the Mesa County district attorney, said in a statement that “nothing about the prosecution of Ms Peters was politically motivated”.“In one of the most conservative jurisdictions in Colorado, the same voters who elected Ms Peters, also elected the Republican district attorney who handled the prosecution, and the all-Republican board of county commissioners who unanimously requested the prosecution of Ms Peters on behalf of the citizens she victimized,” Rubinstein said.“Ms Peters was indicted by a grand jury of her peers, and convicted at trial by the jury of her peers that she selected.”Peters has become a cause célèbre on the right, with some Republicans promoting a “free Tina Peters” movement. A small rally in Fort Collins, Colorado, over the weekend called attention to Peters’ appeal, and protesters there insisted she was innocent and had discovered election fraud.Trump cannot pardon Peters because she was convicted of state crimes, not federal ones. Some Colorado Republicans have suggested Trump should withhold federal funds from the state until the Democratic governor Jared Polis agrees to pardon Peters, Colorado’s 9News reports. More

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    Elon Musk’s quest for power has a new target: Wisconsin’s supreme court

    He is slashing US government agencies, building electric vehicles and space rockets and running one of the world’s biggest social media platforms. But Elon Musk has still found time – and money – to meddle in a relatively obscure election in a state of 6 million people.The close ally of Donald Trump is spending millions of dollars in an effort to tip the scales in favor of a Republican candidate running for a seat on the highest court in Wisconsin. Critics regard it as a statement of intent by Musk to expand his political power in America by playing an insidious role in key races across the country.“It’s one of the most significant threats to our democracy in the current moment,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “You’ve got money and power in one person who’s been given access to the upper echelon of the federal government. He’s fused the power of the Oval Office with his almost unlimited amount of money to support Republicans, both at the state level and national level.”Musk has grabbed attention during Trump’s first month in office with his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, a team of mostly young male software engineers who have laid waste to the federal government and dismissed thousands of workers in ways that have been challenged in the courts.Musk’s startling ascent was on vivid display when he spoke to reporters alongside Trump in the Oval Office and wielded a chainsaw before a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Earlier this week, he held court at a cabinet meeting, where the president dared any of his officials to express discontent about Musk’s scorched-earth approach. No one did.But away from the TV cameras, Musk is also at work in Wisconsin, which holds an election for its state supreme court on 1 April. The vote will decide whether liberals maintain a 4-3 majority with major cases dealing with abortion, union rights, election law and congressional redistricting already under consideration by the court or expected to be argued before it soon.Such campaigns are now non-partisan in name only. Republicans are lining up behind Brad Schimel while Democrats are backing Susan Crawford. It could be the most significant US election since November, an early litmus test after Trump won every swing state, including Wisconsin.Crawford has received $3m from the state Democratic party, including $1m that the party received from the liberal philanthropist George Soros and $500,000 from the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker.Musk’s America political action committee is spending $1m to back Schimel, a former state attorney general who attended Trump’s inauguration last month. Another group Musk has funded, Building America’s Future, is spending $1.6m on TV ads attacking Crawford, a Dane county circuit judge. It reportedly had to withdraw one social media ad after it featured a photo of a different woman named Susan Crawford.Crawford told a recent meeting of the Wisconsin Counties Association: “Elon Musk is trying to buy a seat on our supreme court so Brad Schimel can rubber-stamp his extreme agenda.”Schimel denies that money would affect his independence on the court. He told reporters: “I don’t have any agenda that I’m working alongside anyone. I’m grateful for our supporters, but they’re getting nothing except me following the law.”But Musk has both business and political incentives to back him. Tesla, the electric car company owned by Musk, has a lawsuit pending in Wisconsin challenging the state’s decision blocking it from opening dealerships. The case could ultimately be decided by the Wisconsin supreme court and Schimel has not committed to stepping aside.Furthermore, in the event of a disputed election in the crucial swing state in 2028, the supreme court could be decisive. Musk tweeted last month: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!” And as Doge lays siege to the administrative state, the courts have provided the strongest pushback. Tilting them to the right could neutralise that opposition and work to Musk’s advantage.Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin, said: “He is not the first far-right billionaire to pour money into a Wisconsin supreme court election but he is spending money hand over fist at the same time the whole world is wondering whether courts will ever be a check on the Musk/ Trump/GOP attack on the rule of law.“While he’s firing veterans with disabilities in Wisconsin from the veterans administration, he’s also working to buy a supreme court majority that could eliminate any possibility of accountability to state law.”Musk exploded onto the political stage last year, spending nearly $300m supporting Republican campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission filings. While most of his efforts went toward electing Trump, a super political action committee he founded also spent millions of dollars on House of Representatives races to keep Republicans in control.Musk also dabbled in state politics in Texas, where he had moved several of his businesses. In 2024, he gave $1m to a tort reform group supporting Republicans in state legislative races and $2m to a political action committee that campaigned to elect Republican judges in the state.Wikler believes there is more to come. “There’s been a question about whether Musk would follow Trump in only caring about elections when Trump is on the ballot. The answer is now clearly no. Musk wants control over every level of government at the same time as he takes control of people’s personal tax information and treasury payments that keep childcare centres open in Wisconsin,” he said.He added: “Musk is trying to execute a uniquely and profoundly grotesque perversion of justice by buying the court system while defying the constitution in order to rip off the poor and the middle class to enrich himself.”Not even Republicans are safe from the world’s richest man, whose fortune is estimated at $426bn. Musk threatened to fund primary election challengers to members of Congress who failed to back Trump’s cabinet picks and legislative priorities.Charlie Sykes, a conservative political commentator based in Wisconsin, said: “Elon Musk’s money is the bullets in the chamber aimed at wavering Republicans: ‘You don’t support us, Elon Musk will come into your state or your district [and] he will spend more money than God has to defeat you in a primary.’”Musk’s control of the X social media platform gives him profound influence over online discourse and the flow of information. His own feed, with 219 million followers, has become like a running commentary on the Trump administration.He has even sought to flex his muscles abroad, backing Germany’s far-right AfD party, calling for Nigel Farage to quit as leader of Britain’s Reform UK party and pushing false claims that white people are persecuted in South Africa.But while he currently appears omnipotent – a Time magazine cover depicted him sitting behind the Resolute desk like a president – there are signs of growing public discontent.In a Washington Post-Ipsos opinion poll, 34% of respondents said they approved of how Musk was handling his job, compared with 49% disapproving and 14% not sure. Protests against the tech oligarch have been held across the country and congressional Republicans have faced the backlash at raucous town halls.Sykes questions how long Musk’s political honeymoon can last: “He’s signalling that, at least for now, he’s going to be Trump’s enforcer and he’s going to be the force multiplier for the right wing. But as he does so, he’s also establishing himself as an independent force. The dilemma for Trump is that Musk is useful until he’s not but he’s not easy to get rid of.“In the end, there can only be one. The dilemma right now is it’s important to keep the focus on what Elon Musk is doing but not forget that the only reason he’s been empowered to do it is because of Donald Trump.” More

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    ACLU sues to block White House from sending 10 immigrants to Guantánamo

    Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 undocumented immigrants detained in the US to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, their second legal challenge in less than a month over plans to hold up to 30,000 people there for deportation.The latest federal lawsuit so far applies only to 10 men facing transfer to the naval base in Cuba, and their attorneys said the administration will not notify them of who would be transferred or when. As with a lawsuit the same attorneys filed earlier this month for access to people already detained there, the latest case was filed in Washington and is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.At least 50 people are known to have been transferred already to Guantánamo Bay, and the civil rights attorneys believe the number now may be about 200. They have said it is the first time in US history that the government has detained non-citizens on civil immigration charges there. For decades, the naval base was primarily used to detain foreigners associated with the 11 September 2001 attacks.Trump has said Guantánamo Bay, also known as “Gitmo”, has space for up to 30,000 people and that he plans to send “the worst” or high-risk “criminal aliens” there. The administration has not released specific information on who is being transferred, so it is not clear which crimes they are accused of committing in the US and whether they have been convicted, or merely charged or arrested.“The purpose of this second Guantánamo lawsuit is to prevent more people from being illegally sent to this notorious prison, where the conditions have now been revealed to be inhumane,” said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney and lead counsel on the case. “The lawsuit is not claiming they cannot be detained in US facilities, but only that they cannot be sent to Guantánamo.”The 10 men are from nations including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Venezuela, and their attorneys say they are neither high-risk criminals nor gang members. In a 29 January executive order expanding operations at Guantánamo Bay, Trump said that one of his goals was to “dismantle criminal cartels”.Their attorneys described their latest lawsuit as an emergency filing to halt imminent transfers and challenge the Trump administration’s plans. They contend that the transfers violate the men’s right to due legal process, guaranteed by the fifth amendment to the US constitutionThe latest lawsuit also argues that federal immigration law bars the transfer of non-Cuban migrants from the US to Guantánamo Bay and that the US government has no authority to hold people outside its territory, and that the naval base remains part of Cuba legally. The transfers are also described as arbitrary.The men’s attorneys allege that many of the people who have been sent to Guantánamo Bay do not have serious criminal records or even any criminal history. Their first lawsuit, filed 12 February, said people sent to the naval base had “effectively disappeared into a black box” and could not contact attorneys or family. The US Department of Homeland Security, one of the agencies sued, said they could reach attorneys by phone.In another, separate federal lawsuit filed in New Mexico, a federal judge on 9 February blocked the transfer of three immigrants from Venezuela being held in that state to Guantánamo Bay. Their attorneys said they had been falsely accused of being gang members.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe migrant detention center at Guantánamo operates separately from the US military’s detention center and courtrooms for foreigners detained under George W Bush during what Bush called the post-9/11 “war on terror”. It once held nearly 800 people, but the number has dwindled to 15, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, who was assigned to Guantánamo when he was on active duty, has called it a “perfect place” to house undocumented immigrants, and Trump has described the naval base as “a tough place to get out of”.A United Nations investigator who visited the military detention center in 2023 said conditions had improved, but that military detainees still faced near constant surveillance, forced removal from their cells and unjust use of restraints, resulting in “ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law”. The US said it disagreed “in significant respects” with her report. More

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    Pardoned January 6 rioter said ‘I’m shooting myself’ before Indiana deputy fatally shot him

    The pardoned US Capitol attacker who was shot to death by an Indiana sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop in January had first told the officer: “I’m shooting myself,” before attempting to retrieve a gun from his car, according to officials as well as newly released video of the encounter.Matthew Huttle’s killing by the deputy – whose body-worn and dashboard cameras captured video of the traffic stop – was “legally justified” and would not lead to any criminal charges, prosecutors said in a statement published on Thursday.Huttle, 42, had traveled to Washington DC with his uncle, Dale, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021 in a desperate attempt to prolong his presidency despite his losing the 2020 White House election to Joe Biden, according to federal prosecutors. Matthew Huttle entered the Capitol for about 15 minutes – recording it on video – and agreed to a plea deal that resulted in about six months of prison for him.Dale Huttle, meanwhile, received 30 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to using a long flagpole to jab a police officer protecting the Capitol.The Huttles were among more than 1,500 Capitol attackers who were pardoned by Trump on 20 January, his first day back in the Oval Office after retaking it by defeating Kamala Harris in November’s election.Six days after Trump’s mass clemency, a deputy stopped Matthew Huttle as he drove at 70mph (113km/h) in a 55mph zone near the line between the north-west Indiana counties of Jasper and Pulaski. The deputy told Huttle he would be arrested for being a habitual traffic offender, which prompted the motorist – who had been ordered out of his car – to say: “No, I can’t go to jail for this.”Huttle later sprinted for his car as the deputy shouted: “No, don’t you do it buddy! No, no, no, no, no!”The deputy and Huttle struggled in the latter man’s car. Video captured Huttle shouting: “I’m shooting myself”, and investigators said he “reached in a manner consistent with retrieving a weapon”.Prosecutors said the deputy fired multiple shots at Huttle – mortally wounding him – after seeing him raise a gun. Investigators subsequently found a loaded 9mm pistol as well as additional ammunition inside Huttle’s car, prosecutors also said.“Based on the evidence … the deputy’s actions were legally justified under Indiana law,” said the statement signed by prosecutor Chris Vawter, which called Huttle’s killing a case of self-defense. “This investigation is now closed, and no charges will be filed.”Attempts to contact an attorney for Huttle were not immediately successful. In court filings pertaining to the case against him in the January 6 attack, Huttle’s attorney, Andrew Hemmer, claimed that his client was “not a believer in any political cause” and only went to the Capitol that day “because he thought it would be a historic moment”.“He had nothing better to do after getting out of jail” in connection with a driving violation, Hemmer wrote of Huttle.Those who criticized the clemency that Trump granted the Capitol attackers included the US’s largest police union, which had endorsed him over Harris, a former prosecutor.The Fraternal Order of Police said in a joint statement with the International Association of Chiefs of Police: “Crimes against law enforcement are not just attacks on individuals or public safety – they are attacks on society and undermine the rule of law.”Huttle was one of multiple pardoned Capitol attackers who have since landed in news headlines over other legal issues.That group included a man left facing unresolved charges in Texas of having solicited a minor.Another pardoned January 6 participant was rearrested on federal gun charges. And yet another was handed a 10-year prison sentence for killing a woman in a 2022 drunk-driving crash, according to authorities. More