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      The Democratic superlawyer Trump can’t silence: ‘We are in the break-glass moment of American history’

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      Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic election attorney, has not shied away from standing up to the Trump administration, and has been targeted for retribution this year multiple times as a result.He’s one of scores of lawyers the Trump administration has named in executive actions, joining a list that includes big law firms and attorneys who worked for people Donald Trump considers his opponents.There’s no shortage of reasons why the president would hate Elias and want to shut him down: Elias has for decades represented high-profile Democrats, including the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, and prominent liberal groups, including the Democratic national committee (DNC). He hired the research group that investigated Trump’s ties to Russia in 2016, eventually becoming the Steele dossier. He specializes in election law and won 64 of the 65 cases he worked on in response to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.In one presidential memo, the Trump administration listed “examples of grossly unethical misconduct” by lawyers, singling out Elias for his involvement in the Steele dossier. The law firm Elias used to work for, Perkins Coie, got its own presidential action that cited the dossier. Trump mentioned Elias by name in March at a Department of Justice press conference, calling him a “radical” who was trying to “turn America into a corrupt, communist and third-world country”.While a long list of big-name law firms have capitulated to Trump’s demands, Elias says his firm was built to withstand the pressure and its important to him to use his platform to fight back, though his outspokenness often comes with pushback.The presidential memo, which names Elias as an example of an attorney to target, directed the attorney general to “take all appropriate action to refer for disciplinary action” any attorney that violated ethical guidelines and to “review conduct by attorneys or their law firms in litigation against the Federal Government over the last 8 years”.Elias isn’t aware he’s under investigation, but said he thinks people not taking Trump literally is “one of the great failings” of his time in power.“Every day we wake up and we see another vindictive act by this administration against its political opponents, whether they be in elective office or be in the private sector,” he said. “I think anyone who uses their voice to speak up against Donald Trump needs to be realistic about the nature of this administration and the threats it poses.”He didn’t escape scrutiny during Trump’s first term. He first came up on Trump’s radar, to his knowledge, when the president called him the Democrats’ “best Election stealing lawyer” after Elias went to work on a close Senate election in Florida in 2018.Trump’s second term, though, is like “day and night” from his first, Elias said. The president is now “single-mindedly focused on going after his political opponents” and any walls between Trump and the Department of Justice have crumbled.“It’s a very different thing when he is not just unleashing the hordes of hate on social media, not just activating the rightwing echo chamber, but is talking to people who are in positions of power to actually do something about his obsessions,” Elias said.Despite not posting on X anymore – his decision to stop using the platform prompted conspiracy theories from the right – he is far from quiet about his work and his opinions on the Trump administration. He posts often on other platforms, runs a democracy-focused outlet and files lawsuits against the Trump administration on the regular.“Every day we wake up and we see another vindictive act by this administration against its political opponents, whether they be in elective office or be in the private sector,” he said. “I think anyone who uses their voice to speak up against Donald Trump needs to be realistic about the nature of this administration and the threats it poses.”In response to questions about why the administration has targeted Elias, Davis Ingle, a spokesman for the White House, said Elias “is a crooked hack who was deeply involved in creating a false ‘dossier’ against President Trump on behalf of his crooked client Hillary Clinton, in order to sway the 2016 election in her favor. Marc Elias is a disgraceful swamp creature and President Trump is draining that swamp.”Elias, Democratic superlawyerA lifelong Democrat, Elias helped build up election law to what it is today. When he was a young lawyer, it was a rare specialty – election disputes were typically seen as political issues, not legal ones. Now, post-election disputes are almost entirely legal issues.A 2008 Senate race in Minnesota in which Democrat Al Franken eventually won over Republican Norm Coleman turned the tide. Elias served as Franken’s counsel in what became the longest recount in US history. At the time, some in his party said Franken should concede since Democrats had a strong majority in the Senate and Barack Obama had just won the White House. Elias is always on “team fight”, he said, because “as long as there is a legal fight to be had, we are going to have it”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome have opined that his fighting posture can be counterproductive to voting rights, especially with the courts growing more conservative, because the cases can create bad precedent. He has argued for increased coordination between outside political action committees and political parties, a move that Trump capitalized on for his ground game in 2024. In 2023, Joe Biden parted ways with Elias, with sources saying at the time that Biden’s team had frustrations and discomfort with Elias’s hard charging and big legal bills. That year, he also stopped representing the DNC.“There was a time where there were people who would say: ‘Marc is too quick to litigate, and you can make bad law.’ And I would say then, and I would certainly say now, what are you saving these laws for, if it is not for this moment? … We are in the break-glass moment of American history when it comes to free and fair elections and democracy and so, no, I don’t have any hesitation about litigating everything that we possibly can to protect elections.”He worked at Perkins Coie until 2021, heading up its political law work and counting a host of big-name Democratic groups and elected officials as his clients. He started his own firm, Elias Law Group, after that, and Democracy Docket, which documents attacks on democracy.The firm is built to “withstand the pressures of Donald Trump” and only takes on clients from Democratic campaigns, the party itself, clients associated with Democratic politics or groups advancing voting rights on a nonpartisan basis. It does not take on corporate clients or clients with government contracts. That stance is part of why Elias thinks his firm itself hasn’t been targeted in a Trump executive action. There are fewer ways to pressure him.Elias was initially surprised at the executive orders targeting law firms because he thought the firms would fight back and win, and Trump would look foolish in the process. He didn’t count on the “cowardice” of firms that instead struck up settlements with Trump, capitulating to the president’s demands by dropping cases and giving massive amounts of pro bono work to conservative causes. The firms that did fight back, including Perkins Coie, have won, but it’s hard to argue Trump didn’t achieve his goals by going after lawyers, he said.“I think he thought, if I can prevent big law from being that role, that’ll make it easier for me to run roughshod over people’s rights. And he’s not wrong about that,” Elias said. “He has actually intimidated a lot of law firms, I think, from taking on causes that they otherwise would have taken on.”When CBS’s 60 Minutes covered the crackdown on lawyers in May, host Scott Pelley noted that “it was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running through our system of justice”. Elias sat for an interview.Elias has grappled with whether and how to speak up. Over the years, he’s had threats against him and has at times needed to take extra security precautions. He receives a host of antisemitic commentary, including a writeup years ago in a neo-Nazi publication. He’s often listed as part of the “deep state” despite never working in the government, and called a “globalist”, a frequent antisemitic dog whistle, which he typically dismisses as trolling.He worries about his family. He worries about the people who work at his law firm every day, and about his clients, who have at times received blowback for their association with him.“Anyone who tells you that Donald Trump targets them and they don’t care, I think they’re just lying to you,” he said. “I think anyone who says they’re not afraid is either a psychopath or a liar. Of course you’re afraid. Literally the president of the United States, who ran for election on a campaign of vengeance and revenge, is talking about you. Of course you’re worried.” More

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      Ryan Routh found guilty of 2024 attempted assassination of Trump in Florida

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      The man accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course two months before Trump clinched his second presidency in the 2024 White House election has been found guilty by a jury in Fort Pierce, Florida.Ryan Routh – who now faces up to life in prison at a later sentencing hearing – reportedly tried to use a pen to stab himself in the neck as the guilty verdict was read in court. Officers quickly swarmed him and dragged him out of the courthouse.Jurors in Routh’s trial returned a verdict of guilty on all charges after deliberating for less than three hours.The government charged Routh, 59, with five criminal counts, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a Secret Service agent, after an incident on 15 September last year when he was spotted with a rifle hiding in bushes as Trump’s golfing party approached.Prosecutors said Routh, 59, had purchased a military-grade weapon, researched Trump’s movements and utilized a dozen burner phones as part of a plot to kill Trump that was motivated by political grievances.“Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence,” US attorney general Pam Bondi said in a statement on X.“This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our [now] president, but an affront to our very nation itself,” Bondi added before thanking prosecutors and law enforcement for “protecting” Trump and “securing this important verdict”.In a post on Truth Social, Trump thanked the attorney general, deputy Todd Blanche, and the justice department team for Routh’s conviction, calling it “meticulously handled”. He also thanked “the Judge and Jury for their time, professionalism, and patience”, adding:“This was an evil man with an evil intention, and they caught him. I would also like to thank the Secret Service, Department of Florida Law Enforcement, and the wonderful person who spotted him running from the site of the crime, and acted by following him, and getting all information on car type and license plate to the Sheriff’s Office, IMMEDIATELY, which led to his arrest and conviction.“What incredible instinct and foresight this person had – A very big moment for JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”Routh’s attempt on Trump’s life on 15 September 2024 came just nine weeks after the then presidential candidate narrowly survived a previous attempted assassination at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In the earlier case, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired eight shots at Trump, with one bullet grazing his ear, before being killed by Secret Service counter-snipers, officials have said.At the trial, Routh represented himself despite having no legal expertise. In court filings, he suggested his case should be settled by a golf match.If Trump won, the president could execute Routh, the filing suggested. If Routh won, he said, he would become president.Routh also requested a putting green for match practice and asked for “female strippers” to be present.His self-representation intermittently threatened to derail proceedings. The presiding judge, Aileen Cannon – who dismissed an unrelated case against Trump involving federal classified documents – advised Routh to keep his comments relevant after he remarked that “modern trials seem to eliminate all that is human”. But Routh continued his musings on the “history” of human existence.Routh was once a North Carolina construction worker who had moved to Hawaii and styled himself as a mercenary leader. He tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians in Ukraine.Prosecutors said Routh made 17 trips to scope out Trump’s golf course. Over the course of his two-week trial, prosecutors called 38 witnesses, including two bothers who testified about receiving a box from Routh five months earlier that contained wires, pipes and bullets.After investigators arrested Routh, the brothers said they opened the box to find a 12-page letter in which he wrote: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job.”Routh ultimately was spotted by a Secret Service agent as he hid in nearby shrubbery while aiming a rifle at a member of Trump’s security detail. An agent fired on Routh, who initially fled the scene but was later captured driving north.Police later said the perimeter of the golf course was not fully secured as Trump was not an incumbent president and his visit was not scheduled. Routh was captured after a tipoff from a witness who had made a record of a license plate number of a car into which a man had jumped into after running out of the bushes.Routh chose not to testify in his own defense but instead called three witness, two of whom testified about his character. He told the court that he hoped they would show jurors he was incapable of killing Trump, who retook the Oval Office in January.“Give it your worst,” Routh told Cannon after she warned him about using character witnesses. “We can analyze every moment of my life. We are here to ascertain the truth – we are going to give the jury everything.”He called Marshall Hinshaw, a longtime friend, asking him if his “personal opinion” of Routh was that he was “peaceful and gentle, and nonviolent?”“I would say so,” Hinshaw said. “I would not expect you to harm anyone, Ryan.”Routh asked Hinshaw about his parenting style. “You are not aware of me hitting or spanking my children?” Routh asked.“No, maybe the other way around,” Hinshaw said. As the questioning continued, Cannon said: “This must cease. I am going to ask you to wrap up.” She later warned that she would bar Routh from addressing the jury if his closing argument was “disconnected”.Routh also called Michael McClay, a US Marine Corps veteran and expert in sniper tactics. McClay noted that Routh’s rifle – a Chinese-made variant of the AK-47 – would routinely misfire and that its scope appeared to be attached with putty, tape and glue.“Is there any way you could put a chance of success rate?” Routh asked McClay. McClay replied: “With the severity and seriousness of this, I am not going to guess that.”“I respect that,” Routh said.Routh’s line of questioning went further astray when he asked McClay, “If someone is not dedicated to their mission 100%, is an exit plan vital to those who are cowards?”McClay answered: “I don’t understand.” More

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      White House aide sworn in as interim US attorney after Trump fired predecessor

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      Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, was sworn in on Monday as the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia after Donald Trump removed her predecessor who declined to bring charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.The appointment of Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience and was the most junior lawyer on Trump’s personal legal team, alarmed current and former prosecutors about political pressure to indict the president’s political enemies regardless of the strength of the evidence.For months, federal prosecutors investigated whether there was sufficient evidence to act on referrals by Trump officials at other agencies against Comey, for lying to Congress about matters related to the 2016 election, and against James, for mortgage fraud over a house she bought her niece.The prosecutors ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against either Comey or James, leading Trump to issue a series of extraordinary social media posts over the weekend demanding that the justice department seek criminal charges regardless.Halligan was sworn in shortly after noon by Pam Bondi, the attorney general, at justice department headquarters, replacing Erik Siebert, who had declined to bring the prosecutions. Interim US attorneys can only serve for 120 days but Trump is expected to submit her nomination to the Senate for a full term.Halligan’s lack of prosecutorial experience was notable given the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia occupies one of the most sensitive posts at the justice department and oversees around 300 lawyers and staff. With the Pentagon and the CIA nearby, the office also handles sensitive national security cases.The officials who have historically been appointed as US attorney in the eastern district of Virginia have extensive experience in that office. The US attorney during Trump’s first term, G Zachary Terwilliger, had been a prosecutor there for years before being elevated to the top job.Before joining the White House, Halligan was an insurance lawyer in Florida and worked for the Save America Pac before joining the Trump legal team as the most junior lawyer, helping to draft briefs in the federal criminal case over Trump’s mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club.A White House spokesperson defended Halligan’s appointment, saying in a statement: “Lindsey Halligan is exceptionally qualified to serve as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She has a proven track record of success and will serve the country with honor and distinction.”Two of Halligan’s former colleagues on the Trump legal team on the classified documents case credited her as a fast learner who provided meaningful contributions in filings. Generally, they said, they were happy to have her on the team.Halligan was at Mar-a-Lago when the FBI executed a search warrant to retrieve classified documents and, as the Florida-barred lawyer on Trump’s team, she was responsible for filing a request to have a so-called special master conduct a review of the materials that had been seized.According to a person familiar with the episode, Halligan found her account on the Pacer was not set up to file the special master request electronically and had to deliver the brief in person.During the drive from Ft Lauderdale, where she was based, to the US district court in West Palm Beach, she got stuck in traffic on the highway and realized she would not make it to the courthouse before it closed for the weekend. Halligan did a U-turn and drove back to Ft Lauderdale, where the case got assigned to the Trump-appointed US district judge Aileen Cannon.Halligan attended the subsequent court hearing on the special master request as the third-chair lawyer, one of the only times she was at counsel’s table in a federal courtroom.Within months, Halligan was in Trump’s political orbit.When Trump hosted a watch party for the 2022 midterms at Mar-a-Lago, Halligan sat at Trump’s table with Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s longtime confidant and personal lawyer; Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy; and Sergio Gor, director of the White House presidential personnel office. More

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      Supreme court lets Trump fire FTC commissioner for now and will hear arguments later

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      The US supreme court on Monday let Donald Trump fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, for now, while agreeing to hear arguments in the case in December, setting up a major test of presidential power over government agencies designed by Congress to be independent.The court granted a justice department request to block a judge’s order that had shielded Rebecca Slaughter, who sued to challenge Trump’s action, from being dismissed from the consumer protection and antitrust agency before her term expires in 2029.The supreme court said it will hear arguments in the case, which could lead to the justices overruling a landmark 90-year-old precedent upholding job protections put in place by Congress to give the heads of certain federal agencies a degree of independence from presidential control.The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from Monday’s order letting Trump remove Slaughter for now.John Roberts, the chief justice, on 8 September had paused an order from Loren AliKhan, a Washington-based US district judge – – a move that allowed Trump to keep Slaughter out of her post – to give the court more time to consider how to respond to the justice department’s request.Federal law permits a president to remove FTC commissioners only for cause – such as inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office – but not for policy differences. Similar protections cover officials at other independent agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board.Slaughter was one of two Democratic commissioners who Trump moved to fire in March. The firings drew sharp criticism from Democratic senators and antimonopoly groups concerned that the move was designed to eliminate opposition within the agency to big corporations.AliKhan in July blocked Trump’s firing of Slaughter, rejecting the Trump administration’s argument that the tenure protections unlawfully encroach on presidential power. The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit on 2 September in a 2-1 decision kept the judge’s ruling in place.The supreme court did not set a precise date for the arguments scheduled for December.The lower courts ruled that the statutory protections shielding FTC members from being removed without cause conform with the US constitution in light of a 1935 supreme court precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v United States. In that case, the court ruled that a president lacks unfettered power to remove FTC commissioners, faulting Franklin Roosevelt’s firing of an FTC commissioner for policy differences.The Trump administration in its supreme court filing in Slaughter’s case argued that “the modern FTC exercises far more substantial powers than the 1935 FTC”, and thus its members can be fired at will by the president.Lawyers for Slaughter in court papers pushed back against that contention, arguing that the FTC’s development over the decades is “a story of continuity, not transformation”. More

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      Jury finds LA protester not guilty of assaulting border patrol agent

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      A Los Angeles protester charged with assaulting a border patrol agent in June was acquitted on Wednesday after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incident.The not guilty verdict for Brayan Ramos-Brito is a major setback for the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in southern California and for Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who has become a key figure in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The 29-year-old defendant, who is a US citizen, was facing a misdemeanor and was the first protester to go to trial since demonstrations against immigration raids erupted in LA earlier this summer.Border patrol and prosecutors alleged that Ramos-Brito struck an agent during a chaotic protest on 7 June in the south Los Angeles county city of Paramount outside a complex where the Department of Homeland Security has an office. But footage from a witness, which the Guardian published days after the incident, showed an agent forcefully shoving Ramos-Brito. The footage did not capture the demonstrator assaulting the officer.The jury delivered its not guilty verdict after a little over an hour of deliberations, the Los Angeles Times reported. Bovino testified earlier in the day and faced a tough cross-examination from public defenders.Bovino was one of four border patrol agents who testified as witnesses, but was the only one to say he saw the alleged assault by Ramos-Brito, according to the LA Times. Videos played in court captured the agent shoving Ramos-Brito, sending him flying backward, and showed the protester marching back toward the agent, the paper reported. The videos did not capture Ramos-Brito’s alleged assault.There were multiple factual discrepancies in DHS’s internal reports on the protest, which initially led to charges against five demonstrators, the Guardian reported in July. A criminal complaint suggested Ramos-Brito and others had attacked agents in protest of the arrests of two sisters, but records showed the women had been arrested in a separate incident that occurred after Ramos-Brito’s arrest.A supervisor later documented the correct timeline and “apologized” for errors, records showed.At trial, Cuauhtemoc Ortega, a federal public defender, sought to cast doubt on Bovino’s credibility, questioning him about facing a misconduct investigation several years ago, which resulted in a reprimand for referring to undocumented people as “scum, filth and trash”, the LA Times reported.After Bovino responded that his comment was in reference to a “specific criminal illegal alien”, Ortega read from the reprimand, signed by Bovino, which said he was describing “illegal aliens”, the newspaper said.Ortega also argued the agent who Ramos-Brito allegedly assaulted lied about the incident and Bovino was “trying to cover up for him”.Bovino has previously faced scrutiny for making false and misleading statements. He defended a major immigration sweep in January by claiming agents had a “predetermined list of targets”, many with criminal records, but documents showed that 77 out of 78 people taken into custody during the operation had no prior record with the agency, a CalMatters investigation revealed.And in June, while defending the arrest of a US citizen in a high-profile case, Bovino falsely claimed on social media that the man was charged with assaulting an officer.In Ramos-Brito’s trial, videos also contradicted initial claims of a border patrol agent who had said he was chasing a man who assaulted him, but was stopped by Ramos-Brito and Jose Mojica, another protester, the LA Times said. The footage showed no chase.Mojica first shared his account of the incident with the Guardian days after his arrest, saying he was assaulted and injured and had not attacked officers. The US attorney’s office subsequently dismissed felony assault charges it had initially filed against Mojica and Ramos-Brito, but then filed a lower-level misdemeanor against Ramos-Brito.Ramos-Brito’s attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.A spokesperson for Bill Essayli, the US attorney appointed by the president earlier this year, declined to comment on the acquittal. Border patrol officials did not immediately respond to an inquiry and requests for comment from Bovino.Essayli’s office has aggressively prosecuted protesters and people accused of interfering with immigration arrests, with more than 40 cases filed in June and July. But prosecutors have repeatedly dismissed some of the felony charges soon after filing them.Carley Palmer, an attorney who served as a supervisor in the US attorney’s office in LA until she left last year, said Thursday it was notable that the federal government had devoted significant resources to a misdemeanor case against an individual with no reported criminal history. Bovino, a senior official, flew in from Chicago for the trial.It is challenging to win convictions in cases like these without video evidence, she said: “The government bears the burden of proof, and if you don’t have footage of the relevant events, then everything is going to rise and fall on the credibility of your witnesses. If the witnesses are law enforcement officers and jurors believe they had bias … that’s really going to hurt their credibility.”The discussion at trial of Bovino’s past misconduct could create challenges for the government moving forward, she added: “In addition to harming the individual case, if a law enforcement witness has their credibility impeached on the stand, that can impact if they can testify in future cases and if their word can be relied on in sworn affidavits going forward.”Meghan Blanco, an attorney who represented Mojica, said it was significant that jurors did not believe the statements of such a senior official.“These jurors had the opportunity to listen firsthand to the CBP officer overseeing enforcement nationally and could not have found his testimony to be credible,” said Blanco, a former federal prosecutor. “It is a bad sign for the federal government. They are doing everything they can to try to legitimize their prosecutions, and thank God the jury and the public are seeing right through it.” More

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      Top Democrat accuses Trump of dismantling efforts to prosecute sex crimes

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      A top House Democrat on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of “systematically dismantling” efforts to prosecute sex crimes and hunt down traffickers, as the president faces continued pressure to make public investigative files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.The memo from House judiciary committee ranking member Jamie Raskin and his staff, shared exclusively with the Guardian, said that beyond refusing the demands for transparency around Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, Trump has also undercut efforts to hold people accused of similar crimes accountable by “systematically dismantling the offices and programs we rely on to combat human trafficking and prosecute sex crimes”.“President Trump in office has repeatedly taken the side of criminal sex predators and violent abusers against their victims, and this pattern goes well beyond his strenuous efforts to bury the Epstein Files,” Raskin wrote in the memo.“Far from aiding victims and survivors, President Trump consistently sides with their abusers,” he said. “His all-of-government policy to aid traffickers and sex criminals and abandon survivors has made American women dramatically less safe.”White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the accusations “total nonsense” before criticizing former president Joe Biden and his handling of immigration. “Their party’s president spent the last four years coddling and apologizing for criminals and sexual predators. Joe Biden’s wide open border allowed hundreds of thousands of innocent children to be kidnapped across the southern border by smugglers and gang members illegally residing in our communities,” Rogers said.She added that Trump had “totally secured our border to stop the trafficking of children” and “implemented tough-on-crime policies to hold these disgusting monsters accountable to the fullest extent of the law”.Raskin’s memo to Democratic members of the judiciary committee comes in advance of testimony scheduled for Wednesday by FBI director Kash Patel, at which Democrats are expected to press him for details on the bureau’s handling of its investigation into Epstein.Appearing before the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, Patel acknowledged shortcomings in how an investigation into Epstein was handled that led to the financier pleading guilty in 2008 to charges related to procuring a child prostitute. However, the director insisted that court orders prevented him acceding to Democrats demands to release more files related to Epstein.In the memo, Raskin argues: “The Trump Administration’s sympathetic alignment with powerful sex traffickers and rapists goes far beyond its efforts to suppress the truth of what happened in one explosive case,” and pointed to several policies Trump implemented that he believes help criminals.Among those are its dismantling of USAID, which he described as one of the most effective agencies at documenting trafficking routes and undermining efforts to use forced labor to scam Americans.“Closing USAID has blinded federal law enforcement to developing threats overseas, allowing trafficking networks to strengthen in power, influence, and size, almost certainly leading to an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into the United States,” Raskin said.About half of the federal law enforcement personnel who would normally be investigating criminals and terrorists are now focused on deportations as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the memo said. This includes one in five FBI agents, almost two thirds of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and three quarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration, among other agencies.“By diverting extraordinary amounts of money and personnel to its immigration crackdown, the Trump Administration has undermined the investigation and prosecution of nearly every other law enforcement priority, including human trafficking and child exploitation,” Raskin wrote.Trump has also cancelled hundreds of grants to local law enforcement agencies and non-profits that were used to help victims of such crimes, according to the memo. Federal funds are no longer flowing to trainings of sexual assault nurse examiners in disadvantaged areas or victim advocates employed at rape crisis centers, nor to American Sign Language interpretation for survivors of domestic violence.Trump’s immigration crackdown has intruded into efforts to help trafficking survivors, with the memo saying one organization has been told it cannot use grant money to help anyone in the country illegally. Such a notice may violate federal law, and the groups receiving the grants typically have no way of knowing their clients’ immigration status, Raskin said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnother group that received federal funding to work with child abuse victims had its funding terminated after more than three decades, then partially restored with instructions that “its affiliates to never again mention race, class, and gender diversity in it training materials”.“These findings reveal the Trump Administration’s structural bias in favor of human traffickers, rapists, and sexual violators and against their victims, survivors, and opponents. The question of why this alignment exists cannot be answered in this memo, but the pattern is unmistakable,” Raskin wrote.He also noted that several top officials, including defense secretary Pete Hegseth and health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, have been accused of inappropriate conduct, while the Trump administration acted to facilitate the return of “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan from Romania, where they faced charges including rape. Dozens of those who were pardoned of charges related to January 6 had also faced trafficking and sex abuse charges before and after the insurrection, Raskin said.The memo comes amid a spike in interest in the Epstein case, which began in July after the justice department released a report concluding that his death was a suicide, and saying no further information about the matter would be released. The assertions flew in the face of conspiracy theories Trump and his senior officials have encouraged that held Epstein was at the heart of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving global elites.A bipartisan group of lawmakers is circulating a petition in the House of Representatives that would force a vote on legislation mandating the release of the Epstein files. The petition needs just one more signature to succeed.Trump opposes the effort, calling it a “Democrat hoax”, but sent a deputy attorney general to interview Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and petitioned unsuccessfully for release of grand jury transcripts related to the financier’s indictment.The House oversight committee is also investigating the Epstein matter, and earlier this month released a “birthday book” containing a sexually suggestive drawing Trump appears to have made for his one-time friend. More

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      Prosecutor in Epstein case sues Trump justice department over abrupt firing

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      Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor involved in cases against Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and led the recent case against Sean “Diddy” Combs, filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging her abrupt termination as politically motivated retaliation against her father, former FBI director James Comey.According to the court documents, the justice department fired Comey without cause or explanation on 16 July, citing only “article 2 of the United States constitution and the laws of the United States” in a brief email. When she asked for a reason, interim US attorney Jay Clayton told her: “All I can say is it came from Washington. I can’t tell you anything else.”Just three months before her termination, the 35-year-old prosecutor received a glowing review from the same attorney who would later deliver news of her firing, the lawsuit alleges.The lawsuit seeks her reinstatement, back pay, and a declaration that her termination violated the constitution.Her removal came after a sustained pressure campaign by Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and Trump administration whisperer with clear influence over personnel and policy decisions. In May, Loomer posted to her 1.7 million X followers calling for the firing of James Comey’s “liberal daughter”.“Both Maurene Comey and Lucas Issacharoff need to be FIRED from the DOJ immediately,” Loomer wrote. After the termination, Loomer celebrated: “This comes 2 months after my pressure campaign on Pam Blondi to fire Comey’s daughter.”The lawsuit alleges the firing was designed to retaliate against James Comey, whom Trump has attacked in hundreds of social media posts, repeatedly calling him the “worst” FBI director in history. Tensions escalated in May when the elder Comey posted a cryptic message featuring seashells arranged to spell “8647”, which Trump interpreted as an assassination threat.Maurene Comey’s case portfolio included high-profile wins: the conviction of Maxwell for sex trafficking, the prosecution of gynecologist Robert Hadden for sexual abuse, and most recently leading the team that convicted Combs.The Trump administration has argued that article 2 grants unlimited presidential removal authority over career prosecutors, but the federal lawsuit claims that violates constitutional separation of powers and federal service protections.In a farewell email to colleagues, Comey said: “If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decision of those who remain. Do not let that happen.” More

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      US supreme court to decide on legality of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs

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      The US supreme court agreed on Tuesday to decide the legality of Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, setting up a major test of one of the Republican president’s boldest assertions of executive power that has been central to his economic and trade agenda.The justices took up the justice department’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing most of his tariffs under a federal law meant for emergencies. The court swiftly acted after the administration last week asked it to review the case, which involves trillions of dollars in customs duties over the next decade.The court, which begins its next nine-month term on 6 October, placed the case on a fast track, scheduling oral arguments for the first week of November.The justices also agreed to hear a separate challenge to Trump’s tariffs brought by a family-owned toy company, Learning Resources.The US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington ruled on 29 August that Trump overreached in invoking a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the tariffs, undercutting a major priority for the president in his second term. The tariffs, however, remain in effect during the appeal to the supreme court.The levies are part of a trade war instigated by Trump since he returned to the presidency in January that has alienated trading partners, increased volatility in financial markets and fueled global economic uncertainty.Trump has made tariffs a key foreign policy tool, using them to renegotiate trade deals, extract concessions and exert political pressure on other countries.Trump in April invoked the 1977 law in imposing tariffs on goods imported from individual countries to address trade deficits, as well as separate tariffs announced in February as economic leverage on China, Canada and Mexico to curb the trafficking of fentanyl and illicit drugs into the US.The law gives the president power to deal with “an unusual and extraordinary threat” amid a national emergency. It historically had been used for imposing sanctions on enemies or freezing their assets. Prior to Trump, the law had never been used to impose tariffs.Trump’s Department of Justice has argued that the law allows tariffs under emergency provisions that authorize a president to “regulate” imports.
      “The stakes in this case could not be higher,” the justice department said in a filing. Denying Trump‘s tariff power “would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe”, it added.Trump has said that if he loses the case the US might have to unwind trade deals, causing the country to “suffer so greatly”.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported in August that the increased duties on imports from foreign countries could reduce the US national deficit by $4tn over the next decade. More