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      Cooking the books? Fears Trump could target statisticians if data disappoints

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      Summarizing his befuddlement with numbers, Mark Twain observed that there were “lies, damned lies and statistics”.The acerbic phrase later become so deeply embedded in popular consciousness that it once formed the title to an episode of The West Wing, NBC’s portrayal of a fictitious US president played by Martin Sheen.Now professional economists and number-crunchers fear the aphorism could become a White House theme in real life. Buffeted by global markets and public opinion – both of which show a wary skepticism of Donald Trump’s affinity for trade wars – the president may be about to turn his renowned hostility to truths at odds with what he believes towards public servants charged with producing accurate information.A proposed rule change making it easier to fire civil servants deemed to be “intentionally subverting presidential directives” could pave the way for the White House to fire statisticians employed to produce objective data on the economy but whose figures prove politically inconvenient, experts warn.Statistics released by agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are used by the Federal Reserve Bank to set inflation policy and interest rates. They also form the basis on which businesses and investors take decisions.The US’s global reputation as a stable economic power and a reliable partner goes hand-in-hand with its long history of producing accurate data, dating back to the establishment of the BLS in 1884. Interfere with the latter and you risk sacrificing the former, experts warn.But with Trump under pressure to explain shrinking gross domestic product (GDP) figures amid economists’ warnings that tariffs could trigger a recession, the administration could use new employment rules to pressure workers into “cooking the books”.“There are a number of changes to the civil service that make it much easier for the administration to try to interfere with the activities of the statistical agencies and that worries me,” said Erica Groshen, a specialist in government statistics at Cornell University.While acknowledging that there is as yet “no evidence” the Trump administration has done so, Groshen, a former commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), fears a new rule proposed last month by the White House’s office of personnel management threatens the future integrity of federal agencies’ figures.The change, based on an executive order signed by Trump on 20 January immediately after his inauguration, would reclassify about 50,000 as-yet-unspecified permanent civil servant positions to “policy/career” category, thus enabling their removal for “poor performance or misconduct”.The precise roles to be so redefined have yet to be revealed but Groshen fears statistic specialists will be in the administration’s crosshairs.“Bureau of Labor Statistics’ leaders could be fired for releasing or planning to release jobs or inflation statistics unfavorable to the president’s policy agenda,” she wrote in a briefing paper that urges organizations dependent on BLS figures to submit comments criticizing the proposal.“By making it easier to remove employees if a president determines that they are interfering with his or her policies, it increases the potential for passivity or political loyalty to be prioritized over expertise and experience.”Trump regularly cast doubt on the accuracy of economic data when in opposition – calling positive BLS jobs figures during the Obama and Biden administrations “fake” but hailing them as accurate when they painted a rosy picture of the economy during his first presidency.Last month, when GDP figures showed an economic contraction during the first 100 days – partly fueled by tariffs – Trump put the blame on Biden.“We had numbers that, despite what we were handed, we turned them around and we were getting them really turned around,” he told reporters.The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick – who has direct responsibility over many of the statistical agencies – has suggested changing the way GDP is calculated in a way that might provide more upbeat figures but which would mark a departure from established practice and international standards.Diluting data agencies’ impartiality risks adding the US to the category of countries which have had the veracity of their economic statistics openly doubted, critics say. Groshen cited Argentina, whose official inflation figures were rejected as false by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Greece, where government statisticians were said to have miraculously made inflation and disqualifyingly high budget deficits “disappear” to enable it to join the European Union’s single currency, the euro, in the late 1990s.The sleight of hand had dire consequences. The 2008 global financial crash propelled the country’s economy into a tail-spin, forcing it to seek huge loans from the IMF and the EU, which were only given on condition of harsh austerity measures and cuts to public services.Popular anger over the conditions in Greece destabilised establishment political parties and led to a rise in support for radical and populist alternatives, including the leftwing Syriza, which won power in 2015. Frequent elections and changes of government since have raised concerns about the health of the country’s democracy.The IMF also censured Argentina and threatened it with expulsion in 2013 after officials were found to have been grossly understating the inflation rate for the previous six years.Argentina – historically one of the IMF’s biggest borrowers – did not receive another loan from the organisation until 2018. That loan, followed by another in 2022, failed to stabilise the country’s economy and in 2023, Javier Milei, a far-right candidate and professed admirer of Trump, was elected president pledging drastic spending cuts to address its chronic economic problems.Last month saw the fund agree to another $20bn bailout for Milei’s government.Despite these baleful precedents, the Trump administration’s sensitivity to economic figures indicating a tariff-driven slowdown creates a potential spur to follow a similar path, argued Erasmus Kersting, an economics professor at Villanova University.“I would say that there’s definitely an incentive to cook the books, but I don’t think that it is going to be very easy or feasible to do,” he said, citing the US’s long tradition of producing accurate economic figures.“The Bureau of Economic Analysis would essentially need to be silenced or defunded and replaced with some other statistical agency, which would then result in different figures. The same would be true of the Bureau of Labor statistics.”Accurate and unbiased figures are crucial in helping the Federal Reserve form sound policy, Kersting said. In their absence, Trump might have more scope to attack the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, who he has already accused of “playing politics” by not bowing to his demand to cut interest rates.Kitty Richards, a former treasury and White House official under the Biden and Obama administrations, said data collection had been impaired by Elon Musk’s attacks on federal agencies under the auspices of the unofficial “department of government efficiency,” or Doge.“We should view attacks on government data collection as hand in glove with attacks on journalism,” said Richards, now a senior fellow at Groundwork Collaborative, a thinktank. “Undermining data collection and casting doubt on data that is released is part of a program of undermining the public’s ability to learn the truth.”Even a temporary interruption of the US’s established data-collecting capacity would be a “real tragedy” and lead to a permanent loss of knowledge, she said. “You can’t go back and fix it. If you have a data series stretching back 50 years, then it gets cut for two or three years, you no longer have that 50-year data series. You’ve lost knowledge forever.”Greshen, who is calling on users of government statistics to object to the proposed civil service changes before a 30-day window expires on 23 May, said the fate of US democracy could hinge on the continued production of accurate figures.“In a democracy, you want to be feeding people the right information so they will make the right choices. But if the goal is to destroy democracy, you’d want to control the statistics to fit your story … you want to be promoting your own version of reality.” More

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      This pause in the trade war will be brief. Small businesses, plan accordingly

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      Donald Trump’s massive Chinese tariffs are on pause. The media debated. Wall Street rejoiced. Many of my clients breathed a sigh of relief. Big retailers jumped for joy. But for how long?For starters, the tariffs that weren’t paused – a 10% levy on all Chinese goods, plus a bonus 20% tax that somehow relates to fentanyl, are still in place. When you take into consideration existing tariffs on steel from previous Trump and Biden administrations, the effective tariff rate on Chinese goods is actually closer to 40%, according to an analysis done by the Wall Street Journal.That’s a big number. Maybe that won’t deter people from buying underwear at Target. But for companies that rely on steel and aluminum, semiconductors, synthetic fabrics, plastics, minerals, coatings and solvents as well as certain bearings, motors, pumps and parts, a 30-40% hike is a major impact on their margins, which will affect their spending and investments. Ultimately, the costs of the end products that use these materials will also rise as companies simply pass them down.Just as important, Trump’s animosity towards China – unfounded or not – isn’t going to just magically disappear. He’s called the Chinese cheaters, polluters and thieves. And his past actions – particularly in his first administration – do not bode well for a quick resolution to this issue.In 2018, the Trump administration not only imposed onerous tariffs on China but also issued some very harsh requirements to address trading issues with its closest economic rival.There were specific quotas set to limit our trade deficit. There were demands made to reduce the Chinese requirement forcing American companies to share or transfer technology with their Chinese counterparts. There were rules aimed at stopping the alleged (ha, ha) stealing of data and intellectual property by the Chinese.The problem is that none of this happened. What happened – shortly after the negotiations started – was Covid. And then 2020 and a new administration. But don’t think that Trump won’t raise these issues again. He will, and when this happens we’ll be back to the same place we started: excessive tariffs and a trade war with China.That doesn’t mean that businesses are completely stuck. Many – those that have the funds – are using the tariff suspension to buy up products from China like it’s a fire sale at Costco on Black Friday. Others are contracting with bonded warehouses and storage facilities in free-trade zones to accept products that are temporarily tariff-free, hoping that when they pull materials from these storage units those rates will have come down.I have clients who are aggressively searching for alternative suppliers. I have others who are bringing their assembly and manufacturing back to the US. Those that aren’t able to make these kinds of investments are trying to work out how and how much they can change pricing and what the market will take. A few have already created special line items on their invoices to separate out the tariff charge in an effort to say: “Hey, don’t blame me for this stuff!”My smartest clients started doing this stuff the day after Trump was elected. They listened to what he’d said during the previous couple of years. They read the writing on the wall. Now they’re ahead of the game. Good for them.Companies that didn’t do this – especially small businesses that have fewer resources and are more reliant on just a supplier or two – are in trouble, particularly if they buy from China. For any business still reliant on Chinese suppliers and markets, this pause isn’t going to last as long as you think. There will be a lot more coming in this trade war – and let’s hope it doesn’t turn into an actual war. The outlook is precarious and risky. Trump is volatile and emotional and has a history of knocking China. Plan accordingly. More

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      What the last Trump presidency can teach us about fighting back | Kenneth Roth

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      As Donald Trump abandons any pretense of promoting human rights abroad, he has sparked concern about the future of the human rights movement. The US government has never been a consistent promoter of human rights, but when it applied itself, it was certainly the most powerful. Yet this is not the first time that the human rights movement has faced a hostile administration in Washington. A collective defense by other governments has been the key to survival in the past. That remains true today.Trump no doubt poses a serious threat. He is enamored of autocrats who rule without the checks and balances on executive power that he would shirk. He has stopped participating in the UN human rights council and censored the US state department’s annual human rights report. He has summarily sent immigrants to El Salvador’s nightmarish mega-prison, proposed the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and threatened to abandon Ukraine’s democracy to Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.Even when his government has occasionally issued a rights-related protest – regarding Thailand’s deportation of Uyghurs to China or Rwanda’s invasion of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo via its cold-blooded M23 proxy force – the intervention has been half-hearted and not sustained.Yet the human rights movement survived Trump’s hostility during his first term, as well as such challenges as the George W Bush administration’s systematic torture and arbitrary detention in Guantánamo Bay and the Ronald Reagan administration’s support for brutal cold war allies. The most effective response, as I describe in my recent book, Righting Wrongs, was always to build coalitions of governments willing to defend human rights. Together, they had the moral and political clout to hold the line despite US opposition.In the first Trump administration, for example, the UN human rights council condemned Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship in Venezuela and established a fact-finding mission to monitor and report on his repression. Had Trump led the effort, Maduro might have dismissed it as Yanqui imperialism, but Trump had withdrawn from the council. Instead, the effort was led by a group of Latin American democracies plus Canada, operating as the Lima Group. They offered a principled defense of human rights that prevailed.Similarly, Trump played no role when my colleagues and I encouraged Germany, France and Turkey to pressure Vladimir Putin to stop Syrian-Russian bombing of hospitals and other civilian institutions in Syria’s north-western Idlib province. That initiative forced Putin to halt the bombing in March 2020, sparing 3 million civilians the constant threat of death from the skies. In December 2024, the HTS rebel group emerged from Idlib to overthrow Syria’s ruthless president, Bashar al-Assad.Nor was the US supportive when, in September 2017, the Netherlands led a small group of governments that persuaded the council to investigate and report on the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing of civilians in Yemen. When that scrutiny was lifted four years later, Yemeni civilian casualties doubled, showing that the bombers had behaved better when watched.When Trump withdrew from the council, the United States was replaced by tiny Iceland. Aided by the perception that it had no special interest other than a principled concern with human rights, it convinced the council to scrutinize the “drug war” summary executions by the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte is now in custody in the Hague on an international criminal court arrest warrant.Even Democratic presidents have sometimes vehemently opposed human rights initiatives. Bill Clinton’s administration was dead set against the creation of an international criminal court that could ever prosecute a US citizen. It tried one ploy after another to secure an exemption.A coalition of some 60 small and medium-sized governments from all parts of the world resisted. Their combined moral clout was enough to stand up to the superpower. When the final vote was held in Rome to establish the ICC in July 1998, the United States lost overwhelmingly, 120 to 7. A comparable coalition was behind the adoption of the treaty banning antipersonnel landmines, despite opposition by Washington and other major powers.Similar coalitions are key to defending human rights today. We see that already as an array of European governments refuses to accept Trump’s inclination to sacrifice Ukraine’s democracy to Putin’s aggression. We see it as Arab states, despite jeopardizing substantial US military aid, reject Trump’s war-crime proposal to “solve” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza by expelling the Palestinians. We see it as the UN human rights council, despite the US absence, continues to play an essential role in defending rights in such countries as Myanmar, North Korea, Belarus and Iran.But there is much more to be done.For example, Trump shows little interest in the fate of the Uyghurs. He once reportedly told Xi Jinping that China’s detention of 1 million of them (of a population of 11 million) “was exactly the right thing to do”. But western governments have not yet matched US law, adopted under Joe Biden, that presumptively bars all imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang, where most Uyghurs live, unless the imports can be proven not to have been made through forced labor.That is an important way to avoid complicity when Beijing blocks efforts to investigate supply chains in China. If other western governments went beyond a theoretical opposition to Uyghur forced labor, which cannot be upheld amid China’s obfuscation, to adopt a similar presumption against all imports from Xinjiang, it would go a long way toward ending this despicable practice.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Biden administration imposed sanctions on seven United Arab Emirates companies for their role in arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s Darfur region, where one of the world’s worst atrocity-induced humanitarian crises is unfolding. Other western governments should match or extend those penalties.Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo via the M23 force also calls out for concerted resistance. In 2013, the Obama administration, working closely with the British government, forced Kagame to end his support of the M23 by threatening to suspend Rwanda’s aid. The M23 immediately collapsed. Now that Rwanda is again using the M23 to invade eastern DRC, similar pressure is needed – not just condemnation, which has happened, but the suspension of aid, which has only begun to occur.The Trump administration, evidently seeking access to the region’s mineral wealth, has helped to negotiate a ceasefire between Rwanda and DRC but not the withdrawal of Rwandan forces or the M23 from DRC. That next step will come only with tougher economic pressure. But the European Union has done the opposite. In July 2024, it entered into a deal with Rwanda for minerals, a virtual invitation to export the proceeds of illegal mining in eastern DRC. Trump now seems to be doing the same.Western governments have also been tepid in responding to Trump’s outrageous sanctions on the international criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan (freezing his assets and limiting his travel to the United States) for having quite properly charged Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli prime minister’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant for the war crime of starving and depriving Palestinian civilians in Gaza. All ICC members should support Khan if he in turn criminally charges Trump for obstruction of justice under article 70 of the Rome Statute, which prohibits threatening or intimidating court personnel for the performance of their official duties – exactly what Trump has done.Despite Trump’s expressed interest in staying on as “king”, his reign will end. The question is what damage he will do to the human rights cause. Whether he leaves a global crisis or merely a discredited US government will depend in significant part on how other governments respond – whether they emulate or resist Trump’s indifference.Today, many governments are understandably concerned with simply managing the turmoil that Trump has caused, from tariff increases to military abandonment, but the need is urgent for them also to keep their broader responsibilities in mind. History shows that if they mount a concerted defense, the human rights movement will survive this rough patch. The rights of people around the world depend on such a principled, collective commitment.

      Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, was published by Knopf and Allen Lane in February More

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      Trump news at a glance: Gulf deals in the spotlight as experts warn receipt of overseas gifts ‘unprecedented’

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      With Donald Trump’s headline-making tour of the Gulf region now over, focus has now fallen on the deals made during the trip – for US companies, and for the president himself.Former White House lawyers, diplomatic protocol officers and foreign affairs experts have told the Guardian Donald Trump’s receipt of overseas gifts and targeted investments are “unprecedented” as the White House remakes US foreign policy under a pay-for-access code that eclipses past administrations.Meanwhile, the agreement struck by major US companies saw prominent executives negotiate their deals face-to-face with Gulf country leaders. Many of those agreements broke with the policies of Joe Biden’s administration, which imposed strict controls on the sales of the US’s most cutting-edge technology.‘Very disturbing’: Trump receipt of overseas gifts unprecedented, experts warnThe openness to foreign largesse was on full display this week as the US president was feted in the Gulf states during his first major diplomatic trip abroad this term, inking deals he claimed are worth trillions of dollars for the US economy.But quite often, the bottom line also has benefited Trump personally. His family’s wealth has ballooned by more than $3bn, according to press estimates, and the reported benefits from cryptocurrencies and other investment deals such as plans for new Trump-branded properties may be far larger. Deals for billions more have been inked by business associates close to Trump, meaning that their political support for the White House can translate into lucrative contracts abroad.Some argue the message being sent by the White House is that American foreign policy is being sold to the highest bidder.Read the full storyHow Donald Trump’s ‘historic’ Gulf state deals benefit a handful of powerful menStyling himself the broker-in-chief, Trump brought along an entourage of dozens of CEOs to the Middle East, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, Palantir’s Alex Karp and two dozen others.The deals stand to enrich the tech CEOs substantially by opening up new audiences for their products. These are the same men at the helm of AI development, and Trump’s use of them as surrogates seems likely to propagate the American model of technological power in new places.Read the full storyTrump to talk to Putin on Monday about Ukraine ceasefire proposal and tradeDonald Trump said that he will speak to both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an effort to stop what he called the “bloodbath” war in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed to a state-run Russian news agency that preparations were under way for a call.Trump’s call with Putin will be followed by a separate conversation with Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, and Nato leaders as part of the US effort to end the war that has raged since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.Read the full storyUS House Republicans propose fees on immigrants to fund Trump’s crackdownCongressional Republicans are proposing an array of new fees on immigrants seeking to remain in the United States in a move advocates warn will create insurmountable financial barriers.Legislation moving through the GOP-controlled House of Representatives could require immigrants to pay potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars to seek asylum, care for a minor in the government’s custody, or apply for humanitarian parole.Republican lawmakers have described the fees as necessary to offset the costs of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      As part of the latest Republican push in red states to promote ideologies sympathetic to Donald Trump, Oklahoma’s new social studies curriculum will ask high school students to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election results.

      US judges who have rebuked the Trump administration’s harsh deportation agenda are facing verbal assaults from the president and his allies which seem to be spurring other dangerous threats against judges, legal experts and former judges say.

      Pedro Pascal has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s attacks against artists. He urged creatives to “keep telling the stories, keep expressing yourself and keep fighting for it”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 16 May 2025. More

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      Trump to talk to Putin on Monday about Ukraine ceasefire proposal and trade

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      Donald Trump has said that he will speak to both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an effort to stop what he called the “bloodbath” war in Ukraine, in a barrage of new social media posts that included baseless conspiracy theories and a demand that Walmart not raise prices for customers because of tariffs he has imposed.Trump, posting on his Truth Social account on Saturday, wrote that he will speak to Putin on Monday morning. “THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” Trump wrote, in his customary all-capitalized prose.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed to a state-run Russian news agency that preparations were under way for a call between the US and Russian presidents.Trump’s call with the Russian president will be followed by a separate conversation with Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s leader, and Nato leaders as part of the US effort to end the war that has raged since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. “HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END,” Trump wrote.Russia and Ukraine have just concluded mostly fruitless talks, the first of their kind since the start of the war, in Istanbul. Ukraine said it was ready for a ceasefire but was faced by “unacceptable” demands from Russia, which attempted to fully invade its neighbor and has occupied the eastern flank of the country.It’s unclear what kind of progress Trump will be able to spur, if any, in the peace process. The US president has been heavily critical of Ukraine, freezing military aid and having an infamous argument with Zelenskyy at the White House in full view of the media, before appearing to soften after a face-to-face conversation at the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican.Trump had offered to travel to Turkey for the talks after his trip to the Middle East last week if Putin would also attend, and urged Zelenskyy to go, but Putin sent a team of low-level negotiators instead.Trump’s ire with Ukraine’s president does not seem to have abated, however, with the president telling Fox News on Friday he is upset with what the country has done with the aid handed to it by the US. “What bothered me, I hated to see the way it was, you know, excuse me, pissed away,” he said.“I think he’s the greatest salesman in the world. Far better than me,” Trump said of the Ukrainian president. “Where is all this money going?”In a social media post of his own, Zelenskyy mourned the death of nine civilians in “a Russian drone strike on an ordinary passenger bus”. He added: “Yesterday, as on any other day of this war, there was an opportunity to cease fire. Ukraine has long been offering this – a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives. Russia retains nothing but the ability to continue killing.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMarco Rubio, the US secretary of state, reported on social media that he had spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and told him that “the death and destruction must stop”. Rubio added on X, formerly Twitter, that the US “has presented a strong peace plan and we welcome the Prisoner of War exchange agreement reached in Istanbul. Let’s not miss this huge opportunity. The time for ending this war is now.”In a separate Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump complained about the impact of tariffs he has imposed, after Walmart, among other retailers, warned it will have to raise prices for Americans in response.“Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Trump posted, adding that the company should “‘EAT THE TARIFFS,’ and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”A further post from Trump featured a video of an evidence-free conspiracy theory that not only implied that Bill and Hillary Clinton were guilty of murder but also that Seth Rich, a Democratic staffer, was the source of Clinton campaign emails released by WikiLeaks in 2016. (Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian government hackers for hacking the email accounts of people close to Clinton in 2016 and delivering the hacked emails to WikiLeaks.) Rich was murdered in 2016 and his death provoked a slew of lies and wild conspiracy theories, fueled by Trump and other sources. Rich’s family reached a confidential settlement with Fox News in 2020 over the peddling of these lies. More

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      US judges who rule against Trump are being barraged with abuse and threats, experts warn

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      US judges who have increasingly rebuked the Trump administration’s harsh deportation agenda and other Maga policies are facing intense verbal assaults from the president and his allies, which seem to be spurring other dangerous threats against judges, say legal experts and former judges.The Trump administration’s escalating fight with the courts has come as more than 200 lawsuits have challenged executive orders and policies on multiple issues including immigrant deportations, penalizing law firms with links to political foes, agency spending and workforce cuts, and other matters.The wave of litigation has resulted in more than 100 executive orders by Trump and other initiatives being halted temporarily or paused by court rulings from judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans including some by Trump.Increasingly, ex-judges and legal experts warn the verbal attacks by Trump, his attorney general, Pam Bondi, and Maga allies are creating a hostile climate that endangers the safety of judges and their families.“The constant mischaracterization by Trump and his allies of judicial rulings as political in nature, together with their false, vituperative and ad hominem attacks on individual judges who make them, skews the public’s perception of the work of the federal judiciary,” said ex-federal judge John Jones, who is now the president of Dickinson College.Jones added: “These attacks foment a climate where the safety of judges and their families is at high risk.”Those risks were underscored when the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, Richard Durbin, this month wrote to Bondi and the FBI director, Kash Patel, requesting an investigation into anonymous pizza deliveries to at least a dozen judges that seem aimed at intimidating them as they handle cases involving the administration.Durbin’s letter noted some of the pizza deliveries were made in the name of US district judge Esther Salas’s son, Daniel Anderl, who was fatally shot in 2020 by a lawyer who pretended to be a delivery person, according to an April missive from Salas and attorney Paul Kiesel.Elsewhere, Jones and more than two dozen other ex-judges issued a strong statement on Law Day this month announcing a new Article III Coalition linked to the non-partisan group Keep Our Republic to back judicial independence and warn of the dangers to judges posed by the Trump administration’s vitriolic attacks.On a related track more than 150 ex-federal and state judges from both parties in early May signed a letter to Bondi and Patel denouncing the administration’s rising attacks on the judiciary and the unusual arrest of a Milwaukee judge charged with impeding federal agents from arresting an allegedly undocumented migrant in Wisconsin.A federal grand jury on 13 May indicted the judge on charges of obstructing a proceeding and concealing a person from arrest.“The circumstances of the arrest of the Milwaukee judge – her arrest, the perp walk, the picture of her handcuffs, the comments of the FBI director and the attorney general – was so far out of line with accepted practice and rules,” said Nancy Gertner, a former judge who now teaches at Harvard law school.“It clearly was intended to intimidate other judges; there was no justification for it whatsoever,” added Gertner, who helped to coordinate the letter to Bondi and Patel with J Michael Luttig, a former assistant attorney general and ex-judge.Gertner’s concerns were underscored when Bondi soon after the judge’s arrest threatened other judges who may balk at their legal agenda. “They’re deranged,” Bondi told Fox News. “ I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law, and they are not. We will come after you and we will prosecute you.”Gertner stressed: “I’m hearing everywhere that judges are worried about their own safety. There are people who are inflamed by the incendiary comments of our president and members of Congress about judges. Public officials have legitimized attacks on judges with whom they disagree.”Some Trump judicial appointees and other judges appointed by presidents of both parties have irked the administration with their rulings and incurred Trump’s wrath.Trump in March urged the impeachment of the DC federal judge James Boasberg and falsely branded him a “radical left lunatic” after he issued a ruling to halt the deportation to El Salvador of scores of Venezuelan immigrants with alleged gang ties.Although he didn’t mention Trump’s attack on Boasberg, Chief Justice John Roberts hours later criticized political attacks on the judiciary and warned against calls to impeach judges for their decisions.Roberts in a year-end report in December warned pointedly about threats aimed at judges, noting there had been a sizable rise in threats of violence, defiance of court rulings and disinformation.In another legal dustup, in May the US district judge Beryl Howell issued a blistering decision that an executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, which had represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016, violated the first, fifth and sixth amendments.Howell labeled the Trump order a “blunt exercise of power” that “is not a legitimate use of the powers of the US government or an American president”.One Trump appointee, the Texas judge Fernando Rodriguez, this month echoed two other rulings to bar the Trump administration from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – which had only been used three times before – to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang, spurring a Trump attack on social media.“Can it be so that Judges aren’t allowing the USA to Deport Criminals, including Murderers, out of our Country and back to where they came from? If this is so, our Country, as we know it, is finished!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.Despite the uptick in adverse rulings, the Trump administration is getting some court rulings backing at least part of its arguments.A federal judge in Pennsylvania on 13 May ruled for the first time that Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act to accelerate deporting accused gang Venezuelan gang members, but stipulated significantly that targeted migrants have to be given at least three weeks’ notice and a chance to challenge their removals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStill, legal scholars and ex-judges warn the Trump administration has created a hostile climate with many judges by pushing factually and legally dubious cases, and trying to smear judges who ruled against them.“Federal courts have always been ready to rebuke a justice department lawyer for concealing or misstating the facts or the law,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Columbia. “Now judges are increasingly presented with Trump administration emissaries who are poorly prepared to assist courts and who stand by when their leaders respond to adverse decisions by personally attacking judges. The credibility the government has with judges has long been a priceless asset. It’s disappearing fast.”The former Republican congressman Charlie Dent from Pennsylvania said the Trump administration’s court setbacks were linked to their legally flawed cases.“It appears the president is being beaten in court on a regular basis because many of his executive orders are legally and constitutionally questionable,” Dent said. “His lawyers are trying to argue weak cases and that’s why they’re losing.”Dent added that Trump was “throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks. If it doesn’t stick he blames the courts.”Gertner stressed: “Trump has pushed constitutional and statutory limits beyond recognition especially with regard to the Alien Enemies Act … Anyone on US soil has due process rights under the constitution, which means at the minimum a hearing.”Some judges who have tangled with Trump and federal prosecutors over the administration’s radical deportation policies have been ensnared in extended court battles to get straight answers and facts from government lawyers.Boasberg, who has been appointed at different times by presidents of both parties, opened a contempt hearing against the administration after it flouted an injunction to block Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport dozens of suspected Venezuelan gang members.In response, the Trump administration invoked the State Secrets Act to block his inquiry into whether it defied a Boasberg order to turn around planes deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador.Another high-profile deportation ruling that angered the Trump administration and led to lengthy court battles involves a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a dangerous prison in El Salvador which Ice has acknowledged was a mistake.Despite court orders, including from the supreme court to “facilitate” the man’s return, the administration has failed to do so while offering dubious excuses.The dangerous fallout from the administration’s flouting of court rulings and attacks on judges seems to have led to the anonymous pizza deliveries to the homes of judges.Durbin’s letter to Bondi and Patel requested a full accounting of how many anonymous or pseudonymous pizza deliveries have been made to judges or their families since the Trump administration took office, the number of judges who have been affected and the districts or circuits where these judges are based.The pizza deliveries started towards the end of February, as government lawyers sought to thwart rising legal challenges to Trump’s policies, and as Trump and Maga allies began frequent attacks against judges whose rulings they disdained.The US Marshals Service, which provides security for federal judges and courthouses, has been investigating the deliveries, but it is unclear what role, if any, the justice department headquarters and the FBI have played to date.Many of the pizzas were reportedly sent to the residences of judges presiding over cases the administration has been defending.The Durbin letter to Bondi and Patel asked them to report by 20 May whether they had identified suspects, initiated prosecutions, or found evidence that the deliveries were coordinated, and describe what steps their agencies have taken to protect judges and their families.To ex-judge Jones, the reports of pizza deliveries that seem aimed at scaring judges are “disgusting. They’re a direct result of the toxic comments about the federal judiciary by Trump and members of the executive branch and some DoJ officials including AG Pam Bondi.”More broadly, some ex-prosecutors too voice alarms over the rising political attacks on judges. Ex-prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig blasted intimidation efforts against judges as “shameful expressions of authoritarian attacks on the rule of law”. More

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      Judges thwart Trump effort to deport pro-Palestinian students – but their fight isn’t over

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      The Trump administration suffered yet another blow this past week to its efforts to deport international students over their pro-Palestinian speech, when a third federal judge threw a wrench into a government campaign widely criticized as a political witch hunt with little historical precedent.On Wednesday, a federal judge in Virginia ordered immigration authorities to release Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri from custody. The Indian scholar’s release followed that of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, and Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian permanent resident and Columbia University student. The administration is seeking to deport all of them on the grounds that their presence in the US is harmful to the country’s foreign policy, part of a crackdown on political dissent that has sent shockwaves through US campuses.Only the first foreign student to be detained by the administration over his activism, Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident of Palestinian descent, remains in detention more than two months after being taken from his Columbia University residential building. Yunseo Chung, another Columbia student and green card holder, went into hiding and sued the administration in March before authorities could detain her; others have left the country rather than risk detention.A federal judge in New Jersey is expected to rule soon on a request to release Khalil pending further resolution of his case – but his attorneys are hopeful the other releases are a good sign. The green card holder, who is married to a US citizen, was known on Columbia’s campus as a steady mediator between the university administration and student protesters. He was recently denied a request to attend the birth of his son.“These decisions reflect a simple truth – the constitution forbids the government from locking up anyone, including noncitizens, just because it doesn’t like what they have to say,” said Brian Hauss, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups representing Khalil and the others. “We will not rest until Mahmoud Khalil is free, along with everyone else in detention for their political beliefs.”Diala Shamas, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is also involved in Khalil’s defense, said that “we’re seeing wins in all of these cases”, but added that “every single day that Mahmoud Khalil spends in detention is a day too long and adds to the chilling effect that his continued detention has on other people”.The arrests have prompted widespread anxiety among international students and scholars and significantly contributed to a climate of fear and repression on US campuses. Despite occasional efforts to revive it, last year’s mass campus protest movement has been significantly dampened, even as Israel’s war in Gaza – the focus of the protests – is only escalating.But while the Trump administration seems to be getting clobbered in court, the fundamental question at the heart of the cases – whether the government has the authority to detain and deport noncitizens over their political speech – is far from settled.‘Times of excess’Khan Suri, Öztürk and Mahdawi have all been released pending a resolution to federal court cases over the government’s authority to detain them. Separately, the government’s effort to deport them is moving through the immigration court system, a different process.Advocates warn of a long legal battle that is likely to end up before the US supreme court. But they are hopeful. The releases, which required clearing substantial legal thresholds, are a welcome sign, they say, that the courts are skeptical of the government’s broader case: that it has the authority to use an obscure immigration provision to deport anyone the secretary of state deems a foreign policy problem.The government hasn’t clearly defended its position. In an appeal hearing this month in Öztürk and Mahdawi’s cases, one of the judges on the panel asked the government’s lawyers whether the administration believed the students’ speech to be protected by the first amendment’s guarantees of free speech and expression“We have not taken a position on that,” one of the attorneys, Drew Ensign, responded. “I don’t have the authority to take a position on that.”Instead, the legal proceedings thus far have largely focused on jurisdictional and other technical arguments. In Khalil’s case, for example, a New Jersey judge recently issued a 108-page decision dealing exclusively with his authority to hear the case. The judge hasn’t yet signaled his position on the constitutional questions.US district court judge Geoffrey Crawford, who ordered Mahdawi’s release, compared the current political moment with the red scare and Palmer raids of the early 20th century, when US officials detained and deported hundreds of foreign nationals suspected of holding leftist views, as well as the McCarthyism of the 1950s.“The wheel of history has come around again,” Crawford wrote, “but as before these times of excess will pass.”In her ruling in Khan Suri’s case this week, US district judge Patricia Giles said that his release was “in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech”, and that she believed the broader challenge against the government had a substantial likelihood of success.Chip Gibbons, the policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent, a civil rights group, noted that while challenging immigration detention is often an “uphill battle” given the deference typically shown by judges to the government, the rulings might suggest otherwise.“Three separate federal judges, in three separate cases, have found that victims of the Trump-Rubio campaign of politically motivated immigration enforcement raise substantial constitutional claims challenging their detention,” he added. “Even a federal judiciary all too often deferential to executive claims of national security or foreign policy powers has clearly seen that the administration’s actions are likely retaliatory against political speech.”But even if the government ultimately loses its bid to deport students whose views it does not like, the free speech climate in the US has changed. The administration continues to pursue coercive investigations into universities under the guise of fighting antisemitism, dangling billions of dollars in funding as a threat, and universities have been surprisingly compliant in order to prevent a revival of last year’s protests.But some voices remain defiant. “We will not fear anyone because our fight is a fight for love, is a fight for democracy, is a fight for humanity,” Mahdawi said at a press conference upon his release. “This system of democracy [has] checks and balances, and discord is part of it.” More

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      ‘Very disturbing’: Trump receipt of overseas gifts unprecedented, experts warn

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      Former White House lawyers, diplomatic protocol officers and foreign affairs experts have told the Guardian that Donald Trump’s receipt of overseas gifts and targeted investments are “unprecedented”, as the White House remakes US foreign policy under a pay-for-access code that eclipses past administrations with characteristic Trumpian excess.The openness to foreign largesse was on full display this week as the US president was feted in the Gulf states during his first major diplomatic trip abroad this term, inking deals he claimed were worth trillions of dollars and pumping local leaders for investments as he says he remakes US foreign policy to prioritise “America first” – putting aside concerns of human rights or international law for the bottom line of American businesses and taxpayers.But quite often, the bottom line also has benefited Trump himself. His family’s wealth has ballooned by more than $3bn, according to press estimates, and the reported benefits from cryptocurrencies and other investment deals such as plans for new Trump-branded family properties may be far larger. Deals for billions more have been inked by business associates close to Trump, meaning that their political support for the White House can translate into lucrative contracts abroad.“When we’re negotiating with other countries, the concern is that our negotiating position will change if someone does a favor or delivers a gift to the president of the United States,” Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the administration of George W Bush, said.“Whether it’s trying to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war, or the Middle East or anything else. You know the the impression is given that the position of the United States can be swayed and even bought.”Others argue that the message being sent by the White House is that American foreign policy is being sold to the highest bidder.View image in fullscreen“Trump has put a for-sale sign out front of the White House,” said Norm Eisen, the executive director of the legal advocacy group State Democracy Defenders Fund and a White House “ethics czar” and ambassador to the Czech Republic under Barack Obama. “Of course you’re going to see Qatar and UAE as like a bidding war. Qatar says: ‘I’ll give you a $400m plane,’ and the UAE says: ‘Hold my beer, I’ll give your crypto company $2bn.’”In a particularly eye-catching incident this week, Qatar offered to give the US Department of Defense a $400m Boeing 747-8 that Trump had suggested could be used as Air Force One and then passed on to his presidential library after he leaves office.The plane has become a lightning rod among US Democrats, and critics have argued it violates the emoluments clause of the constitution that prohibits the president from receiving gifts from foreign entities.Trump had called the plane a “great gesture” from Qatar and said that it would be “stupid” for him not to accept the gift. A Democratic lawmaker had called the plane a “flying palace”, and even diehard Maga supporters such as the commentators Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro have criticised it publicly.Painter suggested that it would be similar to King George III gifting George Washington a copy of the royal stagecoach for his use in office. “You think the founders wouldn’t have considered that a bribe?” he said.But Gulf states have offered other incentives, including a $2bn investment from a UAE-controlled funds into a Trump-linked stablecoin that could incentivise the president to shape foreign policy in favour of Abu Dhabi.An advisory sent to congressional Democrats this week and seen by the Guardian said: “President Trump and the Trump family have moved at breakneck speed to profit from a massive crypto scam on the American people.”The gifts, and in particular the potential gift of a jet, have led to a series of denunciations on Capitol Hill as they seek to build momentum for a legislative push.“This isn’t America first. This is not what he promised the American people. This is Trump first,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut. “He is willing to put our nation’s security at risk, take unconstitutional bribes, just so he can fly himself and his Mar-a-Lago golf buddies around the world in gold-plated luxury planes gifted to him by foreign governments.”But is it illegal? As Qatar would give the jet to the Department of Defense, some experts have said that it may not directly violate the emoluments clause or other laws, even if Trump were to make use of the plane while in office.“Never seen it before,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel of the Project On Government Oversight, a non-profit government watchdog group based in Washington. “Is it allowed? I’m still uncertain.”Past administrations would have run from the perceived conflicts of interest being welcomed by Trump. The former White House ethics advisers described crises such as when a Gulf state tried to present a Rolex to a national security adviser, or when the Boston Red Sox tried to gift the White House chief of staff a baseball bat signed by all the players (the addressee was forced to pay its estimated market value, said Painter). Eisen said that he forbade Obama from even refinancing the mortgage on his house in Chicago because of his capacities to influence the market.“The status quo has been saying no, because it’s an actual and apparent conflict of interest, and it could jeopardize our domestic and foreign policies,” said Amey. ”It certainly doesn’t pass the sniff test for a lot of Americans.”The lavish gifts and other investments come as Trump is reshaping America’s policy in the Middle East, skipping Israel and turning toward the Gulf states in a flurry of deal-making that could benefit both sides handsomely. And Trump’s family and other advisers, such as Steve Witkoff, with interests in the Gulf states are closely involved.View image in fullscreen“When the first Trump administration came in, I saw that people in the Gulf said, ‘Finally, an American administration we understand. He sends us his son-in-law to talk to us,’” said Dr F Gregory Gause III of the Middle East Institute, a former professor of international affairs at the Bush School. “It’s a startling change in American norms … the notion that Trump family private business and US government business walk hand in hand is remarkable.”While potential gifts like a jet cannot be hidden, the potential to move billions of dollars in cryptocurrency secretly has watchdogs, the political opposition and other foreign observers deeply concerned. “We’re talking about billions of dollars, almost infinite money, that can be paid by anyone,” said one senior European diplomat. One little-known China-linked firm with no revenue last year bought $300m of a Trump meme coin this week, raising further concerns of dark foreign money moving into US politics.Senate Democrats have called for rewriting the Genius Act, Trump-backed legislation that they say would provide for far-too-lax regulation of so-called stablecoins, in order to ban him from benefiting. “If Congress is going to supercharge the use of stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies, it must include safeguards that make it harder for criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries to exploit the financial system and put our national security at risk,” said the memo.The flood of foreign money has left former officials who used to carefully track the giving of gifts and other goods from foreign government infuriated.The rules can be “annoying and sort of stupid, but it is what separates the good guys from the bad guys, as it relates to corruption and good governance”, said Rufus Gifford, a former head of protocol for the state department, which also tracks gifts to US officials from foreign governments. “And I think that Trump just has no respect for those institutions that have been set up for a very specific purpose, which is to root out corruption.“It is very, very disturbing that a president of the United States could be in a position to profit off the office in which he holds,” he continued. “And that is, again, something that is never supposed to be able to happen. And it’s really quite extraordinary.” More