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      in US Politics

      ‘They’re hurting our children, our babies’: US schools on high alert amid Trump immigration raids

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      As immigration officers moved in on Chicago following Donald Trump’s inauguration, carrying out the president’s plans for “mass deportations”, the city’s schools began to notice waves of absences.Parents were picking up kids early, or parking a few blocks away – fearful immigration raids will target the pickup rush. In a city that has received thousands of new immigrant students in recent years, teachers made house calls to check in on families that were terrified of leaving their homes. At after-school programs for high-schoolers, educators passed out “know your rights” information for students to give to their undocumented parents.And all across the city, teachers and parents wondered how long the administration’s ramped-up raids would last before the pressure lifts.As the Trump administration moves forward with its immigration agenda, rescinding longstanding protections against immigration raids on school campuses and deploying hundreds of federal agents into residential neighborhoods and quiet suburban enclaves, educators across the US are scrambling to maintain safe spaces for students to learn.In some cities and states with hardline immigration policies, educators and civil rights groups are fighting to keep public education accessible to students regardless of immigration status. In Oklahoma, teachers and elected leaders are fighting the passage of a proposed rule requiring schools to ask for proof of US citizenship during enrollment.“Children – they can have the capacity to learn algebra only if they have a supportive environment,” said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, co-founder and director of the National Newcomer Network, a national coalition of educators and researchers working to support immigrant children and families. “And so every teacher is already an advocate.”Amid immigration raids, now teachers also have to grapple with their students’ difficult questions and fears about deportations. “Children don’t see immigration status. Children see friends,” she added. “What happens if students see their classmates plucked out of a classroom? So how do you explain these things to them?”In Chicago, educators had started preparing months ago for the impact of Trump’s deportation agenda on public school students. Teachers and school administrators coordinated safety plans, and brushed up on their legal rights.Even so, school staff found themselves rushing to support parents and children who were suddenly terrified to leave their homes, said Ashley Perez, a licensed clinical social worker at schools in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.As images of Ice agents ramming down the doors of undocumented immigrants circulated online and in the news, Perez – who is the director of clinical services at Brighton Park neighborhood council – said children began increasingly expressing worry that their parents would be taken away. She recently visited with a family that had not come to school for more than a week after inauguration day, and coaxed them to start sending the kids in by reviewing all the ways that teachers could protect them, and offering to help walk all the kids to and from campus.“And then we all sort of sat down, the parents and the kiddos, in their dining room to process some of their feelings,” Perez said. “Because there’s so much fear right now … and schools should be a place of stability, not fear.”In Chicago’s Pilsen – a largely Mexican American neighborhood – Chalkbeat Chicago reported that one high school principal told parents that though the school was doing the utmost to keep children safe, he would understand families’ decision to stay home.“Please know that while our school is safe and that our students will be protected while they are in school, I also understand that there is a lot of fear and anxiety among our families,” Juan Carlos Ocon, the principal, wrote in a message obtained by Chalkbeat.Roy, a second-grade teacher in Chicago’s south-west side, said he had already been fielding questions from his six- and seven-year-olds.View image in fullscreenMany of his students are new arrivals from Venezuela, who wound up in his classroom after a long, and often traumatic migration. “Last year, one of my students who came here from Venezuela would tell me stories about people not making it in the jungle, while crossing rivers,” he said. “ I was just not prepared for that type of conversation.”Now that the Trump administration has begun targeting Chicago for large-scale raids and moved to rescind the temporary legal status that has protected thousands of Venezuelans from deportation, Roy’s students are facing a fresh wave of uncertainty and trauma. The Guardian is not publishing his full name and the school where he teaches due to concerns his students and their families could be targeted by immigration enforcement.Many of his students too young to fully understand what is going on, or why the adults in their lives have been on edge – but others are keenly aware. Not long after Trump was elected, a student from Honduras explained to all his classmates what it means to get deported. “He said, ‘If you’re from Venezuela, you’re going back there. If you’re from El Salvador you’re going back there’ And he pointed to himself, ‘I’m from Honduras, so I’m going back there.’”Horrified, Roy tried to reassure the kids that he was going to make sure that everyone could stay right where they were, that the school had security that wouldn’t let Ice in. And he tried to joke around a bit. “I said, ‘You know, if they really do send you back, I’ll come too. We’re going to go to the beach,’” he said.For older children, some of whom are also worried about what they should be doing to support undocumented parents, Stephanie Garcia – the director of community schools for the Brighton Park neighborhood council (BPNC) – said she had emphasized the importance of staying focused on school, “so that their parents don’t have anything extra to worry about right now”.At after-school programs and community events, the BPNC has also encouraged older kids and young adults to get to know their own rights and make plans with their parents. “It’s difficult to tell a high school freshman, ‘Hey, encourage your parents to have a deportation plan just in case,’” she said. “Unfortunately, here we are.”It’s a scene playing out in many cities. In New York, teachers are using encrypted group chats to alert each other of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) sightings, and residents are volunteering to escort the children of undocumented immigrants to and from school. In Los Angeles on Monday, the school superintendent, Albert Carvalho, said that attendance across the school district, the second largest in the US, was down 20%, with about 80,000 students missing. He attributed the absences to both fear and activism, as students participated in nationwide protests against Trump’s immigration policies.“We have to figure this out,” said Emma Lozano, a pastor of Chicago’s Lincoln United Methodist church and a member of the city’s board of education. “It just gets me because they are hurting our children, our babies. It just isn’t right.”Parents, too, are struggling to explain the raids to their children. “They’re sad and they’re scared,’” said Lucy, who has an eight-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son, both enrolled in a public school in Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood. “And I have to explain racism, and how we are being profiled.”What has really helped, she said, is recruiting her kids to help her pass out “Know your rights” flyers to families after school. “They get really happy, like, ‘Mom we’re going to help so many people!’”Though Lucy, her husband and her children are all US citizens, several of their extended family members, cousins and close friends have been living in Chicago without documentation for years. The Guardian is not printing her surname to protect her family from immigration enforcement.As federal agents descended on the city’s immigrant neighborhoods last week, Lucy made grocery runs for loved ones without documents who were too nervous to leave their homes, and offered to do pickups and drop-offs for parents worried about being apprehended while taking their kids to school.“I’m nervous, we’re all a little nervous,” said Silvia, a mother of four children including two that are school-aged in Chicago. “But we have the confidence that if something bad should happen to us, we have the support of the community, of the organizations here.”The Guardian is not publishing Silvia’s surname because she is undocumented, and could be targeted by immigration enforcement. Silvia herself volunteers with the Resurrection Project, an immigrant advocacy organization distributing immigrants’ rights information at local businesses, and helping connect other immigrants to legal aid.Raids have always happened, she said – this isn’t all that new. “There’s a lot of bad information being passed around right now, and it’s creating panic,” she said. “But if we have good information, we don’t have to be afraid.”She has charged her eldest son, who is 26 and has a temporary authorization to stay in the US, with taking care of her eight- and 14-year-old children should she and her husband get arrested or deported. They have also prepared a folder with all of the family’s important documents, as well as a suitcase with essentials, that their son can bring or send them to Mexico.Other than that, she said, she keeps showing up to drop her kids off at school. Her husband is still going to work. “Sometimes if we’re afraid, we end up putting fear in our children, don’t we?” she said. “So we are calm … and we’re keeping the same routine.” More

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      in US Politics

      President Trump fired me. Now it will be easier for the government to spy on Americans | Travis LeBlanc

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      Donald Trump fired me on Monday from my job as a member of the bipartisan Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board – a job he nominated me for twice. Yes, I am a Democrat. He also fired every other board member who is not a registered Republican. While most Americans have never heard of our board, which oversees national security agencies such as the CIA, NSA and FBI, we should all be concerned about the undermining of an oversight agency designed by Congress to ensure that government surveillance does not infringe our privacy and civil liberties.The board I served on was created to make sure that independent bipartisan subject matter experts – such as myself and my fellow board members – could keep a close watch on the use of new national security powers presidents were given to surveil Americans after 9/11. Our job was to look for abuses that threatened Americans’ privacy and freedom.Congress designed the board as an “independent agency” to keep it insulated from day-to-day politics. Members of the board must be Senate confirmed and are appointed to six-year terms so that they serve by law and design across two administrations. At least two of the five members must not be from the president’s political party, and in selecting those members the law requires that the president consult with the opposition party. That design helps to ensure that potential surveillance abuses – abuses that might be targeted at the opposition and not otherwise be known to Congress, the courts or the American public – are more difficult to hide behind invocations of national security and executive privilege. Despite Congress’s attempt to insulate the board from politics, I and other board members were fired before the end of our terms with no explanation. Our firings were clearly partisan, but Americans should not be fooled into thinking that board members have partisan agendas. I was nominated for my seat two times by Trump in his first term and confirmed by a Republican Senate. At a time when Democrats and Republicans were fleeing the federal government, I dutifully took up Trump’s call to serve in his first administration.My top priority while at the board was oversight of the FBI – a concern that I am confident the president shares. And since taking office, I have been criticized by Joe Biden’s national security council and earned praise from Freedom caucus Republicans for proposing reforms to ensure that federal surveillance activities are not being abused to spy on American citizens.The result of these historically unprecedented firings at our agency is that a board intentionally designed by Congress to be staffed on a bipartisan basis across administrations is now exclusively staffed by a single Republican. That Republican has previously aligned herself with Merrick Garland and the Biden administration in defending warrantless surveillance by the FBI on average Americans – a practice that a federal court in New York ruled unconstitutional last week. And worse, the board (which requires a quorum of three members to do anything) will no longer engage in any oversight of presidential surveillance of American citizens. In other words, by firing us, the president has extinguished independent oversight of surveillance activities of the exact kind that plagued Trump and Carter Page in past years.The same story is being repeated throughout the executive branch. Trump has fired many of the inspectors general whose job is to prevent government waste, fraud and abuse. He’s fired the heads of other independent agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, with many others likely to follow. And he’s undertaking a swift purge of the civil service to get rid of anyone not perceived as sufficiently loyal.These partisan witch-hunts and firings need to stop. Congress creates independent agencies and insulates civil servants from partisan firings for a reason. They provide critical non-partisan expertise to Congress, the president and the American people on a wide range of critical issues from privacy, to securities regulation, to monetary policy, to transportation safety, to protecting American consumers from corporate abuses, to the storage of radioactive materials. If this week’s actions by the president become the new normal – and partisanship overrides Congress’s design and becomes the only criteria for holding a position in a federal agency – then our financial markets will be more volatile, our consumer products more hazardous, our skies and railroads more dangerous, and our civil liberties and constitutional rights less secure.

      Travis LeBlanc was a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board member from 2019 to January 2025. He is a partner at Cooley LLP, a global law firm, and an expert on data privacy, cybersecurity and the regulation of emerging technologies. He has held key roles at the Federal Communications Commission, Department of Justice and California attorney general’s office More

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      in US Politics

      Welcome to Trumpworld, where the developer-in-chief sees dollar signs in the rubble of Gaza

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      The venerable East Room, where Abraham Lincoln lay in state and Pablo Casals played cello, had turned into a mosh pit. Sweaty reporters, photographers and camera crews were crammed elbow to elbow. The Guardian shoehorned its way into a corner where a panel had fallen off the wall. Never used to happened in Joe Biden’s day.The big event, an hour and a half later than billed, was Donald Trump’s joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the first foreign leader to visit the White House in Trump’s second term. Two lecterns, two US flags and two Israeli flags were set up before a gold curtain between two elaborate crystal lamps.Netanyahu was afforded the honour of wearing the vintage Maga uniform of white shirt and red tie, while Trump went off-brand with a tie of sky blue. Perhaps he sees a kindred scoundrel in the Israeli leader.Netanyahu has bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges dating to 2019; Trump was convicted last year on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Netanyahu has been slapped with an arrest warrant by the international criminal court over alleged war crimes in Gaza. As would become clear, Trump seems determined to rival him on that score too.The US president began by boasting about how he got a “beautiful” US embassy built in Jerusalem, ranting about his predecessor and giving a shout out to his staff. So far, so Trump. But then things turned weird. Very weird.Gaza has been “an unlucky place” for a long time, Trump mused, as if discussing a haunted house. “Being in its presence has just not been good and it should not go through a process of building and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there.”As Netanyahu looked on, perhaps trying to restrain himself from bursting out laughing, Trump spoke of building “various domains” in other countries “with humanitarian hearts” where 1.8 million Palestinians could live instead. “This can be paid for by neighbouring countries of great wealth,” he slipped in.Was this a plan or the concept of a plan? The man who once aced a cognitive test by reciting “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,” rambled on: “It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, 12 – it could be numerous sites or one large site.”It would be “something really spectacular”, he promised, which is one way to describe ethnic cleansing.Then came the stunner. “The US will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump declared, “and we’ll do a job with it, too. We’ll own it.”What? Did he say own it? And the supposedly isolationist “America first” president did not rule out sending US troops to take control.It was the latest indication that Trump seems to be entering a new and dangerously expansionist phase. At this stage eight years ago Trump 1.0 was mired in petty concerns such as lying about the size of his inauguration crowd or trying to take away Americans’ healthcare. Trump 2.0 is playing on an altogether grander stage.He said Canada should become the 51st state, prompting nervous laughter from Canadians followed by horror as it dawned that he wasn’t joking. He rattled Denmark by saying it should sell Greenland and upset Panama by vowing to retake the canal. He renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and, in his inaugural address, spoke of “manifest destiny” launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.He is the new Julius Caesar – “I came, I saw, I conquered,” – and has no need to fear the Ides of March having already neutered the Senate.But when the press conference reached the question and answer stage, his true motivations became clear. He said of Gaza: “We’re going to take over the place and we’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf course. Ultimately he’s still that grasping property developer with a daddy complex who launched himself into Manhattan in the late 1970s with the renovation of the derelict Commodore Hotel, adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. Once again he spies dollar signs in rubble and despair.Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins who will live in this new Trumpy utopia, he said: “I envision world people living there – the world’s people. I think you’ll make that into an international unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable and I think the entire world – representatives from all over the world will be there.”Forget Westworld, welcome to Trumpworld: a fantasy theme park full of Trump Towers, Trump golf courses and Maga androids. He added: “I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East.”Ah, the master of branding. Who is going to tell the Palestinians that Trump’s property and casino businesses filed for bankruptcy several times, his university faced multiple lawsuits for fraud, his foundation was tarnished by scandal and his company was ordered to pay more than $350m in a New York civil fraud trial?One man who clearly doesn’t care is Netanyahu, who hailed Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House” and said his Gaza plan – adamantly opposed by Palestinians and neighbouring countries – is “worth paying attention to” and “could change history”.The normalisation continues. Netanyahu also offered this homage to Trump that will resonate with his ardent fans: “You cut to the chase. You see things others refuse to see. You say things others refuse to say. And after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads and they say, ‘You know, he’s right’.”That group does not include Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator who responded to Trump’s proposal on social media by observing: “He’s totally lost it.”And we are only two weeks in. Trump seems determined to make this The Empire Strikes Back, Godfather Part II or Terminator 2: Judgment Day of presidential terms: a sequel that outdoes the first go. Today Gaza, tomorrow the world. More

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      in US Politics

      How the world’s richest man laid waste the US government

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      Since declaring his support for Donald Trump in July of last year and subsequently spending more than $250m on his re-election effort, Elon Musk has rapidly accumulated political influence and positioned himself at the heart of the new administration. Now as prominent as the president himself, Musk has begun to make use of that power, making decisions that could affect the health of millions of people, gaining access to highly sensitive personal data, and attacking anyone who opposes him. Musk, the world’s richest man and an unelected official, has achieved an astonishing level of power over the federal government.Over the weekend, workers with Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) clashed with civil servants over demands for unfettered access to the computer systems of major US government agencies in a breakneck series of confrontations. When the dust settled, several top officials who opposed the takeover had been pushed out, and Musk’s allies had gained control.Musk, with the backing of Trump, is now working to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAid) – the world’s largest single supplier of humanitarian aid. He bragged on Sunday about “feeding USAid into the wood chipper”. He has also targeted several other agencies in an aggressive attempt to purge and remake the federal government along ideological lines, while avoiding congressional or judicial oversight.Many of Musk’s actions have taken place without forewarning or transparency, sowing chaos and confusion among the thousands of people employed at the agencies like USAid that he has gone after. Humanitarian organizations that rely on US funding have halted operations and laid off staff, while government workers have been locked out of their offices. He is operating Doge as an unofficial government department with no congressionally approved mandate while he technically holds the position of “special government employee”, which allows him to sidestep financial disclosures and a public vetting process.View image in fullscreenMusk has gleefully posted on X, the social media platform that he owns, throughout the chaos. He has accused USAid of corruption, and of being a “criminal organization” and “radical-left political psy op”, without any evidence. Why? He tweeted an explanation of simply doing Trump’s bidding: “All @DOGE did was check to see which federal organizations were violating the @POTUS executive orders the most. Turned out to be USAID, so that became our focus.” He said it was “time for it to die”.Musk also suggested that opposition to his team will be punished, reposting a letter sent to him from the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor for Washington DC, who vowed to “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people”.The New York Democratic senator Chuck Schumer wrote on Tuesday morning: “An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government. DOGE is not a real government agency. DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law.” Musk responded that the reaction was “hysterical”.As other Democrats and government oversight groups began to respond to the breakneck series of actions from Musk’s team, on Tuesday the Tesla and SpaceX CEO continued to plow ahead with his cuts and told his supporters: “We’re never going to get another chance like this.”Musk takes over federal agenciesImmediately following Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the president issued an executive order establishing Musk’s “department of government efficiency”. Rather than create an entirely new entity, the order renamed the US Digital Service, which was previously tasked with updating government IT systems, and brought the rechristened bureau into the executive office of the president.Government accountability groups instantly saw red flags with its creation, filing four separate lawsuits that alleged Doge violated federal transparency laws while warning that the initiative was “slated to dictate federal policy in ways that will affect millions of Americans”.The concerns from watchdog organizations have borne out. Musk and employees of Doge have gained access to sensitive government systems in the treasury department and USAid in recent days, as well as exerted control over the office of personnel management (OPM) and the General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, with the goal of ending office leases. Two federal workers additionally sued on Tuesday for a temporary restraining order against Doge for allegedly operating an illegal server in OPM.View image in fullscreenAttempts at blocking Musk’s team have resulted in several top agency officials being ousted. On Friday, the treasury department’s acting secretary, David Lebryk, resigned after refusing to grant Musk’s team access to highly secure systems that control about $6tn in annual payments to millions of Americans. The next day, two senior security officials at USAid attempted to stop Doge workers from gaining physical access to restricted areas at the agency – resulting in a standoff in which a deputy for Musk threatened to call the US marshals. Both security officials have subsequently been put on administrative leave, and on Sunday night staff at USAid received emails telling them to not come into work the next day.The events unfolded swiftly and took place mostly outside of working hours, creating uncertainty over the weekend as to who was in charge and what authority the Doge team possessed. Many of the Doge team tasked with carrying out the overhauls of government agencies appear to have little to no experience in government and are extremely young. One of the engineers is as young as 19, Wired reported, while a 25-year-old who previously worked at two of Musk’s companies gained access to treasury department payment systems.The Trump administration has maintained that all Musk’s actions have been legal and did not violate security protocols, although the details of what Doge employees are doing with access to government systems is still unclear. “No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Katie Miller, a Doge spokesperson and wife of the far-right Trump administration official Stephen Miller, wrote on X.Musk has claimed that his actions are cutting unnecessary costs and will allow for more efficient government, but he has also suggested his taskforce is ideologically opposed to liberal initiatives such as refugee services and the promotion of trans rights. He has routinely engaged with far-right and conspiracy theory-promoting accounts on X while touting his dismantling of USAid, an agency that has become a target in recent years among hardline conservatives. The far-right Heritage Foundation thinktank specifically called for reforming USAid in its controversial Project 2025 report, accusing it of spreading “climate extremism” and “gender radicalism”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMusk acting with Trump’s backingTrump has supported Musk’s aggressive approach to dismantling government agencies, confirming plans on Monday to shut down USAid and praising Musk as a “big cost cutter”. As backlash swelled and Democrats issued calls for action against Musk on Monday, Trump attempted to assuage some of the concerns and reassert that he was in charge.“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We’ll give him approval where appropriate and where not appropriate we won’t.”But there have been no public signs thus far that Trump has reined in Musk’s ambitions or prevented him from engaging in potential conflicts – he has many, as a number of his companies do extensive work with government agencies he now holds sway over. Several of Trump’s recent policy announcements also appeared to align with Musk’s worldview and personal grievances.View image in fullscreenTrump declared on Monday that he would shut down all aid to South Africa, Musk’s country of birth, over what he alleged was a “massive human rights violation” in the form of a new land rights law. Musk has repeatedly accused the South African government of racism against white people and falsely claimed that the government is allowing a “genocide” against white farmers.Another executive order from Trump on 31 January vowed to “unleash prosperity through deregulation” and declared that whenever a government agency issues a new regulation it must first remove 10 existing regulations. The order has echoed Musk’s longstanding calls for widespread deregulation of the federal government, which Musk reiterated in a livestream on Monday night on X, when he stated “regulations, basically, should be default gone”. He described the current administration as “our best shot” at this deregulation and “the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have”.Musk has made sweeping and aggressive declarations about what else must change about the US government, indicating where he might strike next. He stated on Monday: “Activist judges must be removed from the bench or there is no justice,” and praised the representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for issuing calls for NPR and PBS to testify at a hearing about their operations. Greene, who is head of a “delivering on government efficiency” group within the House oversight committee that aims to support Musk’s efforts, accused the public media organizations of ideological bias – citing a PBS report that Musk “gave what appeared to be a fascist salute” during a speech last month.It is uncertain what mechanisms may prevent further cuts by Musk. His immense influence coupled with his erratic behavior have made it difficult to quickly ascertain where the next axe may fall, such as on Monday when Musk claimed that a government agency that worked on a free IRS tax filing system was “deleted” while giving no further information. The agency’s program was still online as of Tuesday.What is clear from Musk’s public statements is the intent to barrel ahead with accumulating more power over government agencies, while framing his crusade as an existential fight for the future of the country.“It’s now or never,” the billionaire tweeted on Tuesday. “Your support is crucial to the success of the revolution of the people.” More

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      in Elections

      Trump justice department fires officials who worked for prosecutor Jack Smith

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      The acting attorney general, James McHenry, on Monday fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors who worked on the two criminal cases against Donald Trump, saying they could not be trusted to implement the president’s agenda for the justice department, two people familiar with the matter said.The precise extent of the firings were unclear because the department did not disclose names. At the time the cases were dismissed last year, after Trump won the election, special counsel Jack Smith had 18 prosecutors attached to his team.The purge was not unexpected given Trump had vowed, on the campaign trail, to fire Smith. But the abrupt firings were jarring as the acting attorney general took aim at career prosecutors who had served at the department who in theory had civil service protections for their jobs.Smith charged Trump in two criminal cases: in Florida, for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and defying a subpoena commanding their return; and in Washington, for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.In the termination notices transmitted to the prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team, McHenry wrote that they were being let go as a result of their “significant role in prosecuting President Trump” which meant they could not be trusted to “assist in faithfully implementing the president’s agenda”.The termination of Smith’s team comes as major personnel changes shook the deputy attorney general’s office, where the top career official, Brad Weinsheimer, was informed he could either be reassigned to a less powerful post or resign, according to a person familiar with the matter.Weinsheimer, a highly respected veteran of the justice department, was appointed to his current role on an interim basis by Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, which was made permanent by Trump’s final attorney general, Bill Barr.But Trump has since soured on Sessions and Barr, and their endorsements appear to have been of no help to Weinsheimer as the new Trump administration moves to clear the senior leadership of the justice department as they prepare to use it to enforce Trump’s personal and political agenda.The White House and a justice department spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on the personnel moves, which were earlier reported by Fox News.Shortly after Trump announced his presidential bid in November 2022, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Smith to serve as a special counsel overseeing the investigation of Trump. Smith resigned before Trump took office.In a report released this month, Smith concluded that the president engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election, but was thwarted in bringing the case to trial by Trump’s November election victory. Smith also investigated Trump’s retention of classified documents after he left the White House, filing a second federal lawsuit in Florida.Trump’s lawyers have called Smith’s report politically motivated. The president denies any wrongdoing in the cases, both of which Smith dropped shortly after Trump’s election win, citingThe two special counsel investigations resulted in indictments, but Smith dropped the cases against Trump after the election, citing a longstanding justice department policy that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president.In a separate development, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that a Trump-appointed prosecutor had opened an internal review of the justice department’s decision to charge hundreds of January 6 defendants with felony obstruction offenses in connection with the 2021 attack on the US Capitol. More

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      in Elections

      Giuliani says he has settled defamation dispute and will keep Florida condo

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      Rudy Giuliani’s trial over whether he must turn over his Florida condo and other prized possessions to former Georgia election workers whom he defamed was delayed on Thursday after the former New York mayor failed to show up in court.Giuliani later shared on X that he had “reached a resolution of the litigation with the plaintiffs that will result in a satisfaction of the plaintiffs’ judgment”.“This resolution does not involve an admission of liability or wrongdoing by any of the parties. I am satisfied with and have no grievances relating to the result we have reached,” he wrote.“I have been able to retain my New York co-op and Florida condominium and all of my personal belongings. No one deserves to be subjected to threats, harassment, or intimidation. This litigation has taken its toll on all parties. This whole episode was unfortunate. I and the plaintiffs have agreed not to ever talk about each other in any defamatory manner, and I urge others to do the same.”A jury ordered Giuliani to pay $148.1m to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss in 2023 after he falsely accused the women of attempting to steal the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.Giuliani, who has shown little remorse for his actions, later turned over multiple watches as well as a 1980 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 once owned by the movie star Lauren Bacall to Freeman and Moss.A federal judge in New York had been scheduled to weigh whether Giuliani must also turn over his condo in Palm Beach, which he claims to be his permanent residence. The non-jury civil trial was also set also determine whether Giuliani must hand over three New York Yankees World Series rings to the two women.Per Giuliani’s post on X, it appears that he was not forced to turn over his condo or World Series rings.Earlier this week, Judge Lewis Liman ordered that Giuliani’s son Andrew must hold on to the rings as the trial gets under way, saying, “The point was to ensure the security of the rings,” ABC reports.This month, Giuliani, who has been disbarred in New York and Washington DC, has so far been found in contempt of court twice.Last week, Liman issued his ruling after Giuliani failed to provide financial evidence surrounding his $148m judgment, saying: “The defendant has attempted to run the clock by stalling.” At the hearing, Giuliani acknowledged that he did not always comply with the requests for information, arguing that he regarded them as a “trap” set by lawyers.Later that week, Giuliani was once again found in contempt of court for continuing to spread false statements about Freeman and Moss. Federal judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC said Giuliani had violated court orders that prevented him from defaming the two women.Giuliani’s attorney, Ted Goodman, said in response: “This is an important point that many Americans still don’t realize due to biased coverage and a campaign to silence Mayor Giuliani. This contempt ruling is designed to prevent Mayor Giuliani from exercising his constitutional rights.”After the verdict in 2023, Freeman and Moss detailed their harrowing experiences as a result of Giuliani’s lies against them. Freeman said: “I want people to understand this: money will never solve all of my problems. I can never move back to the house I called home. I will always have to be careful about where I go, and who I choose to share my name with … I miss my home, I miss my neighbors, and I miss my name.” More