Trump, Donald J

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      Justice Sonia Sotomayor Says Judges Must Be ‘Fearlessly Independent’

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      Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, said on Friday that judges must remain “fearlessly independent” if the rule of law is to survive.Her remarks, made in a packed auditorium at Georgetown University Law Center, were at once cautious and forceful. She did not address particular controversies arising from the Trump administration’s actions testing the conventional understanding of presidential power, many of which appear likely to land at the Supreme Court. But she made plain that her observations about the fragility of the justice system addressed current events.She bemoaned, for instance, “the fact that some of our public leaders are lawyers making statements challenging the rule of law.”She was interviewed by the law school’s dean, William M. Treanor, who interspersed his questions with ones that had been submitted by students. He started the conversation by characterizing those questions, alluding to recent efforts by the Trump administration to punish major law firms and its battles with courts over its blitz of executive orders.“As our students prepare to join the legal profession, they are confronting genuine unsettling questions about the durability of that profession and of the law itself,” he said. “The most commonly asked question was the role of courts in safeguarding the rule of law.”Justice Sotomayor answered in general terms, citing reference works and experts. She said she had consulted with Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella, a former member of the Supreme Court of Canada, about judges’ obligations, quoting her response: “They need to remain fearlessly independent, protective of rights and ensure that the state is respectful of both.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Appeals Court Allows Musk to Keep Pushing Steep Cuts at U.S.A.I.D.

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      A federal appeals court on Friday allowed Elon Musk and his team of analysts to resume their work in helping to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, clearing the way for them to continue while the government appeals the earlier ruling.The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came as the Trump administration was taking its final steps to effectively eliminate the agency after steadily chipping away at its staff and grant programs for weeks.The appeals court panel said that whatever influence Mr. Musk and his team in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency had over the process, it was ultimately agency officials who had signed off on the various moves to gut the agency and reconfigure it as a minor office under the control of the State Department.Earlier this month, Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland wrote that Mr. Musk, in his capacity as a special adviser to President Trump who was never confirmed by the Senate, lacked the authority to carry out what Mr. Musk himself described as a campaign to shut down the agency.Judge Chuang pointed to public statements by Mr. Musk in which he described directing the engineers and analysts on his team, known as DOGE, to do away with U.S.A.I.D., previewing his plans and announcing their progress along the way.On X, the social media platform he owns, Mr. Musk wrote in February that it was time for U.S.A.I.D. to “die,” that his team was in the process of shutting the agency down, and at one point that he had “spent the weekend feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What We Know About the Trump Administration’s Cuts to the Federal Work Force

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      <!–> [!–> <!–> [!–> Confirmed cuts* At least 49,110 Employees who took buyouts About 75,000 More planned reductions At least 171,080 <!–> –> <!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [!–> <!–> Confirmed reduction so far, by agency [–> U.S. Agency for International Development More than 99% Voice of America (U.S. Agency for Global Media) More […] More

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      Security Breaches Can Be Fixed. People Without Honor Can’t Be Trusted.

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      So now it’s clear: The Trump administration has not kept sensitive details of national security secure. Thanks to reporting by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, we have learned that officials at the highest levels, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed military operations via chat on the cellphone app Signal, a medium vulnerable to hostile intelligence services. And they accidentally included Mr. Goldberg in the chat. Which is funny, but also, from an operational security standpoint, not great.As the Trump administration has responded with a mixture of denials, brush-offs, lies and vitriolic attacks on Mr. Goldberg, I’ve found myself worrying less about the leak and more about the character of the people in charge of our nation’s defense. The breach is serious, but security breaches can be plugged. Men and women who have shown themselves to have no character, though, can never be trusted. Not with national security, not with anything.Perhaps it seems old-fashioned to talk of character. We’re cynical modern Americans, after all. When idealism feels exhausted and the old order seems insufficient to meet the challenges of the modern world, candid appeals to raw interest, however amoral, can feel like a breath of fresh air. That’s part of Donald Trump’s appeal.But there remains constant talk of character in the miliary — of integrity and accountability. This is not just for moral reasons but also for practical ones: You cannot ask men and women to go to war in a group bound by nothing stronger than self-interest. How could they trust their comrades and their leaders when their lives are on the line?This is why a military career starts not with training in lethality but with character formation. When I joined the Marine Corps two decades ago, I entered a decidedly archaic, premodern society for which virtue was of paramount importance. At Quantico, Va. — where Mr. Vance traveled on Wednesday to speak with Marines in training — they shaved my head and put me in a uniform, because my individuality was less important than our shared purpose. Before they taught me how to fire a rifle, they taught me about honor, courage and commitment. We weren’t supposed to be hired guns; we were supposed to be the first to fight for right and freedom.There’s a reason essentially every warrior society throughout history has had a code like this — and it’s not that every society has been enlightened. Soldiers don’t need to be saints. But to be good soldiers, to complete their missions and protect their comrades, they do need a bedrock of integrity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Deportation Fight Reaches Supreme Court

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      The Trump administration asked the justices to allow it to use a wartime law to continue deportations of Venezuelans with little or no due process.The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow it to use a rarely invoked wartime law to continue to deport Venezuelans with little to no due process.The emergency application arrived at the court after a federal appeals court kept in place a temporary block on the deportations. In its application to the Supreme Court, lawyers for the administration argued that the matter was too urgent to wait for the case to wind its way through the lower courts.In the government’s application, acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris said the case presented “fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country.”“The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the president,” Ms. Harris wrote. “The Republic cannot afford a different choice.”The case will offer a major early test for how the nation’s highest court will confront President Trump’s aggressive efforts to deport of millions of migrants and his hostile posture toward the courts. Mr. Trump has called for impeaching a lower-court judge who paused his deportations.The case hinges on the legality of an executive order signed by Mr. Trump that invokes the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The order uses the law to target people believed to be Venezuelan gang members in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk and DOGE Aides Try a Charm Offensive in Fox News Interview

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      Elon Musk tried a charm offensive in an interview that aired Thursday on Fox News.Mr. Musk and several top aides at the Department of Government Efficiency sat with Bret Baier, portraying themselves as public servants who just want to help improve America’s balance sheets.“At the end of the day, America is going to be in much better shape,” Mr. Musk said. “America will be solvent. The critical programs that people depend upon will work, and it’s going to be a fantastic future.”Democrats have repeatedly criticized Mr. Musk’s effort to shrink the federal government, warning that critical government services will be cut, and federal judges have struck down some of his team’s steps to fire thousands of federal workers. The interview seemed part of a public-relations campaign by Mr. Musk and his team to present their work on more friendly terms.“I’m blessed with four beautiful children, my wife and I,” said Tom Krause, the chief executive of Cloud Software Group who is leading the department’s efforts to review the Treasury Department’s payment systems. “But we have a real fiscal crisis, and this is not sustainable. And what’s worse, back to my children and everyone else’s children, we are burdening them with that debt. And it’s only going to grow.”Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, said his team was trying to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion, and to cut $4 billion every day. He said he expected to accomplish “most of the work” within the first 130 days, which aligns with the amount of time a “special government employee” is permitted to serve.Mr. Musk was joined by seven men on his team, a group that includes Steve Davis, a longtime loyalist of Mr. Musk’s who largely handles the daily operations of the department, and Joe Gebbia, a fellow billionaire and co-founder of Airbnb. Mr. Musk has been very visible, often appearing at President Trump’s side, but most of his aides have kept low profiles. Mr. Davis, who worked for Mr. Musk at SpaceX and his social media platform X, had not participated in any interviews since he started working in the government. More

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      Trump Targets WilmerHale, Citing Law Firm’s Connection to Robert Mueller

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      President Trump moved on Thursday to punish the law firm WilmerHale, where Robert S. Mueller III worked before and after he served as special counsel in the Trump-Russia investigation, expanding his widespread campaign of retribution.In an executive order, Mr. Trump hit the elite firm with many of the same penalties that he had applied to its competitors who had taken on cases or causes he did not like.He directed the cancellation of all government contracts with WilmerHale, and the suspension of any security clearances of its employees. The order also barred WilmerHale employees from federal buildings, banned them from communicating with government employees and prevented them from being hired at government agencies.Other elite law firms have been hit with similar sanctions, leaving them to choose whether to fight the orders or cut a deal with Mr. Trump to remove the restrictions, even as a judge has already blocked one of the orders because it is likely to be unlawful.The order said Mr. Trump was in part punishing WilmerHale for the firm’s connections to Mr. Mueller, who led an inquiry that the order described as “one of the most partisan investigations in American history.”In fact, Mr. Mueller was appointed as special counsel by Mr. Trump’s own deputy attorney general amid concerns about Mr. Trump’s desire to shut down the F.B.I. investigation of his campaign after he took office. Mr. Mueller, then working at WilmerHale, resigned from the firm to lead the investigation, and returned to WilmerHale after the investigation was closed. Mr. Mueller retired from WilmerHale in 2021.“WilmerHale rewarded Robert Mueller and his colleagues,” the order said, adding that “Mueller’s investigation epitomizes the weaponization of government, yet WilmerHale claimed he ‘embodies the highest value of our firm and profession.’”The order also attacked diversity efforts at WilmerHale, as well as its representation of clients who Mr. Trump disagreed with, asserting that the firm “backs the obstruction of efforts” against illegal immigrants and drug trafficking.In a statement, WilmerHale defended Mr. Mueller’s character and said the firm had “a longstanding tradition of representing a wide range of clients, including in matters against administrations of both parties.”The firm added, “We look forward to pursuing all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order.”Matthew Goldstein More

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      A Video From Tufts Captures the Fear and Aggression in Trump’s Crackdown

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      The tactics on display in the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk were not new — plainclothes officers, faces obscured — but as ICE actions ramp up, scrutiny may increase.Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen and a Muslim, was heading out to break her Ramadan fast with friends Tuesday night when she was detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security.The security video looked like a scene from an undercover sting operation against a 30-year-old Turkish graduate student in her white coat and backpack.Rumeysa Ozturk was walking down a street in Somerville, Mass., on Tuesday when she was surrounded by federal agents wearing dark sweatshirts, some of their faces obscured by black masks. As they pulled off her backpack and handcuffed her, the terrified student let out a cry. One officer explained, “We’re the police.”As the Trump administration ramps up its deportation efforts, critics say tourists, foreign students and other legal immigrants are being subjected to aggressive arrest tactics usually reserved for criminal suspects. They have been swarmed by teams of masked agents in masks, zip-tied and bundled into unmarked vehicles.The tactics are not particularly new. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to answer questions about tactics on Thursday, but former officials said federal immigration agents do wear street clothes to avoid giving away their presence before an arrest. They also can wear face coverings to avoid being singled out and doxxed online.Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE chief of staff under the Biden administration, said that plainclothes ICE agents have long been allowed to detain undocumented immigrants, though they are required to show their badges when making such arrests.What is shifting are the targets — immigrants with valid visas and legal status. In Ms. Ozturk’s case, supporters say she appears to have merely been a co-author of an editorial in a student newspaper criticizing Tufts’s support for Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More