Trump asks supreme court to allow Elon Musk’s Doge access to social security data – live
Trump asks supreme court to allow Elon Musk’s Doge access to social security data
The Trump administration is looking to the supreme court to settle whether or not the so-called “department of government efficiency” can have access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database.
In a court filing on Friday, the government asked the supreme court to lift a federal judge’s order to block Doge from access to the data. The US district judge Ellen Lipton Hollander had issued an order in March that restricted Doge’s access to the SSA and required Doge representatives to “destroy and delete” any data they’d already gathered.
“The district court’s orders have already stopped the Executive Branch from carrying out key policy objectives in an important federal agency for more than a month,” the US solicitor general D John Sauer wrote in the court filing. “The government cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs.”
Doge had sought access to SSA data to try to find evidence of fraud, something Doge head Elon Musk has been preoccupied with for months, saying at one point that social security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time”.
The data Doge wants access to includes social security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, driver’s license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates and home and work addresses, according to Hollander.
“Defendants, with so called experts on the DOGE Team, never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government,” she said in her March order to block access.
Key events
Trump reportedly planning to eliminate thousands of CIA positions
The Central Intelligence Agency is getting a downsize. The Trump administration is looking to eliminate 1,200 positions at the CIA, along with thousands of other cuts in other US intelligence agencies, according to the Washington Post. Among those is the National Security Agency, which specializes in online espionage.
The move comes as Donald Trump has promised to reduce the size of the federal government, but this reduction in staff is not part of the work of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, according to the Post.
The CIA did not immediately return request for comment.
Opponents to the downsizing of the CIA and other spy agencies say that the reduction in force could threaten national security and make the country less safe.
John Ratcliffe, CIA’s director, sent a memo to staff at the end of March saying the years of growing budgets and resources are a thing of the past, according to the New York Post. “Moving forward,” he said, “you will be part of a smaller, more elite and efficient workforce.”
Federal judge rules Trump’s executive order targeting law firm was unconstitutional
In a setback for the administration, a federal judge struck down Donald Trump’s executive order that targeted the law firm Perkins Coie on Friday. In a court order, Judge Beryl Howell wrote that the order violated free speech and due process.
The executive order “is unlawful because it violates the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution and is therefore null and void,” Howell wrote. She directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to immediately cease any investigations of Perkins Coie.
In a separate 102-page opinion, Howell said, “Settling personal vendettas by targeting a disliked business or individual for punitive government action is not a legitimate use of the powers of the US government or an American President,”
The White House and Perkins Coie did not immediately return requests for comment.
Trump signed the executive order in March, which sought to stop Perkins Coie’s lawyers from accessing government buildings and also threatened to withdraw its clients’ federal contracts. Perkins Coie sued the government less than a week later saying it violated the firms core constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
“At the heart of the order is an unlawful attack on the freedom of all Americans to select counsel of their choice without fear of retribution or punishment from the government,” Bill Malley, a managing partner for Perkins Coie, said at the time.
The Trump administration has gone after several high-powered law firms, which have worked on legal challenges against him or his actions. Nine of these firms have reached deals with Trump, but three firms also sued the government seeking to block the executive orders, according to Reuters. Howell’s decision on Friday was the first legal ruling in any of these cases.
NPR will challenge Trump’s executive order “using all means available”
National Public Radio is indicating it may sue the Trump administration over the executive order aimed at cutting funding for public broadcasters. NPR CEO Katherine Maher issued a statement on Friday saying the public radio broadcaster “will challenge this Executive Order using all means available”.
“We will vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public,” Maher said.
Donald Trump signed the executive order late Thursday night accusing both NPR and PBS of leftwing bias. The order directs the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds the two broadcasters, to “cease federal funding”. Both broadcasters have minimal funding from CPB but many local member stations heavily rely on CPB.
The order comes after Maher and Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS, were called to testify before a House oversight and government reform subcommittee in March in a hearing called “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable”. It was held by Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican congresswoman from Georgia.
Kerger said earlier on Friday that Trump’s executive order is “blatantly unlawful” and that PBS was “exploring all options” to continue serving all Americans.
In her statement, Maher said, “The President’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR… It is also an affront to the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information.”
She added that NPR’s mission is to inform the public and that an “informed public is essential to a functioning democracy”.
Marco Rubio is slated to keep his dual roles as secretary of state and national security adviser for at least six months and the positions could even become permanent, according to Politico. Rubio’s placement was not meant to be a temporary slot-in, reports Politico, which cites three senior White House officials.
The move is in contrast to earlier reports that Stephen Miller had been gathering momentum for the role.
According to Politico, Rubio did not raise his hand for the role but both Donald Trump and chief of staff Susie Wiles tapped him to take “more fulsome control” of the government’s foreign policy branches. They reportedly see the positions and being complimentary.
It’s highly unusual for one person to serve in both roles, one of which requires diplomacy and the other devising national security policy. The last, and only, appointee to do so was Henry Kissinger under the Nixon and Ford administrations.
Marco Rubio has designated two groups in Haiti as “foreign terrorist organizations” and “specially designated global terrorists”. The groups, Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif, have taken control of much of Haiti, including the capital Port-au-Prince. They’ve been known for carrying out human rights atrocities and massacres nationwide.
“They are a direct threat to US national security interests in our region,” Rubio said in a statement on Friday. “Their ultimate goal is creating a gang-controlled state where illicit trafficking and other criminal activities operate freely and terrorize Haitian citizens.”
The designation comes as the Trump administration is working on its mass deportation plan. Many of the immigrants the government says its deporting have gang affiliations, which has not been substantiated in most of the high-profile cases. In February, the US designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang and El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, as global terrorist organizations.
In his statement, Rubio said the terrorist designations for the Haitian groups shows the Trump administration’s commitment to fighting dangerous gangs. He added that “Individuals and entities providing material support or resources to Viv Ansanm or Gran Grif could face criminal charges and inadmissibility or removal from the United States”.
Trump asks supreme court to allow Elon Musk’s Doge access to social security data
The Trump administration is looking to the supreme court to settle whether or not the so-called “department of government efficiency” can have access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database.
In a court filing on Friday, the government asked the supreme court to lift a federal judge’s order to block Doge from access to the data. The US district judge Ellen Lipton Hollander had issued an order in March that restricted Doge’s access to the SSA and required Doge representatives to “destroy and delete” any data they’d already gathered.
“The district court’s orders have already stopped the Executive Branch from carrying out key policy objectives in an important federal agency for more than a month,” the US solicitor general D John Sauer wrote in the court filing. “The government cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs.”
Doge had sought access to SSA data to try to find evidence of fraud, something Doge head Elon Musk has been preoccupied with for months, saying at one point that social security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time”.
The data Doge wants access to includes social security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, driver’s license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates and home and work addresses, according to Hollander.
“Defendants, with so called experts on the DOGE Team, never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government,” she said in her March order to block access.
Veterans’ groups push back against effort to rename Veterans Day into Victory Day
Several veterans’ groups are pushing back on Donald Trump’s plan to rename Veterans Day. The president announced late Thursday that the holiday, which is on 11 November, will now be called “Victory Day for World War I”.
“Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, honoring the end of World War I – then it was changed to honor ALL who served,” VoteVets, a left-leaning group that works to get veterans elected to office, wrote on X on Friday. “Veterans don’t need rewritten history. They need respect – and the benefits they earned.”
Another group, the Disabled American Veterans, simply posted “No” to its website.
The American Legion, which is one of the biggest veterans’ groups in the US, has not posted publicly about the name change and did not immediately return request for comment.
Veterans Day was first established in 1919 as “Armistice Day” to recognize the end of the first world war, and Congress made it a federal holiday in 1938. In 1954, Congress passed a law that formalized the holiday as Veterans Day to honor veterans who have served in all armed conflicts.
Dharna Noor
Puerto Rico has voluntarily dismissed its 2024 climate lawsuit against big oil, a Friday legal filing shows.
The move came just two days after the US justice department sued two states over planned litigation against oil companies for their role in the climate crisis.
Puerto Rico’s lawsuit, filed in July, alleged that the oil and gas giants had misled the public about the climate dangers associated with their products. It came as part of a wave of litigation filed by dozens of US states, cities and municipalities in recent years.
Donald Trump’s administration has pledged to put an end to these cases, which he has called “frivolous” and claimed are unconstitutional. In court filings on Wednesday, his justice department claimed the Clean Air Act “displaces” states’ ability to regulate greenhouse gas outside their borders.
The agency specifically targeted Michigan, whose Democratic attorney general last year tapped private law firms to work on such a case, and Hawaii, whose Democratic governor filed its suit on Thursday. Officials from both states condemned the justice department’s filings.
Friday’s filing from Puerto Rico did not list a reason for the lawsuit’s dismissal. The Guardian has asked officials whether it came in response to the Trump administration’s moves on Wednesday.
Climate-accountability litigation has also faced recent attacks in the media. Last month, an oilfield services executive published an op-ed in Forbes saying the Puerto Rico lawsuit “may derail” efforts to improve grid reliability. Groups tied to far-right legal architect Leonard Leo have also campaigned against the lawsuits.
Puerto Rico in November elected Republican governor Jenniffer González-Colón, a Trump ally. In February, González-Colón tapped Janet Parra-Mercado as the territory’s new attorney general.
In December, a California-based trade association of commercial fishers voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit accusing big oil of climate deception.
In two earlier lawsuits, thirty-seven Puerto Rico municipalities and the capital city of San Juan accused fossil fuel companies of conspiring to deceive the public about the climate crisis, seeking to hold them accountable for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria.
The day so far
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Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, is gathering momentum inside the White House as a top candidate to be the next national security adviser, five sources familiar with the situation have told Axios. The White House deputy chief of staff and architect of Trump’s intense and highly contested immigration crackdown, is one of the president’s longest-serving and most trusted aides.
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Trump is proposing huge cuts to social programmes like health and education while planning substantial spending increases on defence and the Department of Homeland Security, in a White House budget blueprint that starkly illustrates his preoccupation with projecting military strength and deterring migration. The – largely symbolic – “skinny budget” suggests a whopping $163bn cut to non-defense spending. Now Congress must haggle over which of these cuts to include in its budget.
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Wisconsin’s governor Tony Evers said on Friday that every American should be concerned about “chilling” suggestions from Donald Trump’s top border adviser that he could be arrested over guidance he issued to state employees about what to do if confronted by federal immigration agents. Asked about Evers’s memo, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, said: “Wait to see what’s coming.” “I’m not afraid,” Evers, a Democrat, said in response in an extraordinary video posted on YouTube. “I’ve never once been discouraged from doing the right thing and I will not start today.”
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A mother deported to Cuba reportedly had to hand over her 17-month-old daughter to a lawyer while her husband, a US citizen, stood outside unable to say goodbye. Heidy Sánchez was told she was being detained for deportation to Cuba when she turned up at her scheduled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) check-in appointment in Tampa, Florida, last week.
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Trump’s administration is exploring whether it can label some suspected cartel and gang members inside the US as “enemy combatants” as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment, multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations told CNN.
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The top Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell, who defended Hunter Biden against criminal charges, has created a new law firm to represent former government officials and others targeted by the Trump administration.
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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting said Trump’s executive order instructing it to cease funding to NPR and PBS is “unlawful” as it is not subject to the president’s authority and is “exploring all options”. Trump signed the order late on Thursday, alleging “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting, his latest move to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with.
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Trump said the US economy is in a “transition stage”, citing strong employment and his tariff plan while reiterating his call for the US Federal Reserve to lower its interest rate. It followed the release of data that showed US job growth slowed marginally for April.
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Trump said again that he would be “taking away” Harvard’s tax-exempt status as a non-profit in a legally questionable move that escalates his ongoing feud with the elite university. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in a more direct message than a post in April when he said “perhaps” the college should lose its tax-exempt status. Federal law prohibits the president from directing or influencing the Internal Revenue Service to investigate or audit an organization. The White House previously said that the IRS would “independently” decide whether to investigate or act on the university’s status.
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Canada’s newly elected prime minister, Mark Carney, confirmed he will be meeting with Donald Trump at the White House next week. The Canadian leader said he had a “very constructive” call with Trump this week where they agreed to meet next week. “My government will fight to get the best deal for Canada,” he said.
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Trump said he wanted to rename 11 November – Veterans Day – as “Victory Day for World War I” and name 8 May “Victory Day for World War II”. The 8 May date is an interesting choice for a US president to mark victory in the second world war as American soldiers famously continued fighting Japan in the Pacific theatre for another three months after the war in Europe against Nazi Germany had been declared over. Japan did not surrender until 2 September 1945.
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And Fox News confirmed an earlier report from the Associated Press that Trump will host a military parade in June to honor military veterans and active-duty service members and commemorate the US Army’s 250th birthday. The date, 14 June, is also Trump’s 79th birthday. Trump has long wanted a military parade, and AP’s report details proposals for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple thousand civilians to take part. High costs halted Trump’s push for a parade in his first term and AP estimates it would likely cost tens of millions of dollars to put on a parade of that size.
Trump to host military parade to celebrate Army’s 250th birthday on 14 June – also his birthday
Fox News has confirmed an earlier report from the Associated Press that Trump will host a military parade on in June to honor military veterans and active-duty service members and commemorate the US Army’s 250th birthday. The date, 14 June, is also Trump’s birthday.
Wisconsin governor says he’s not afraid after Trump official’s ‘chilling’ suggestions of possible arrest
Wisconsin’s governor Tony Evers said on Friday that every American should be concerned about “chilling” suggestions from Donald Trump’s top border adviser that he could be arrested over guidance he issued to state employees about what to do if confronted by federal immigration agents.
“I’m not afraid,” Evers, a Democrat, said in the extraordinary video posted on YouTube. “I’ve never once been discouraged from doing the right thing and I will not start today.” He went on:
We now have a federal government that will threaten or arrest an elected official, or even everyday American citizens who have broken no laws, committed no crimes and done nothing wrong. And as disgusted as I am about the continued actions of the Trump administration, I’m not afraid.
At issue is guidance Evers’s administration issued last month in response to state workers who asked what they should do if agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) showed up at their offices.
Evers’s guidance advised them to contact an attorney immediately and to ask the officers to return if an attorney is unavailable. It also advises state workers not to turn over paper files or give Ice officers access to computers without first consulting the state agency’s attorney, not to answer questions from the agents, and not to allow Ice officers to access non-public areas.
The recommendations are similar to guidance that Connecticut’s Democratic governor issued in January. The guidelines also mirror what the National Immigration Law Center and other advocacy groups have said should be done when immigration officials show up at a workplace.
Republican critics argued that the guidance was an order from Evers not to cooperate with Ice agents, an accusation the governor denied in Friday’s video. The goal was to give state employees “clear, consistent instructions” to ensure they have a lawyer present to help them comply with all applicable laws, he said:
I haven’t broken the law, I haven’t committed a crime, and I’ve never encouraged or directed anyone to break any laws or commit any crimes.
Tom Homan, Trump’s top border czar, was asked about the Evers memo by reporters outside the White House on Thursday. Homan said: “Wait to see what’s coming.”
Some Republicans embraced the possibility of Evers being arrested. On X, the Republican Wisconsin state representative Calvin Callahan reposted a clip of Homan’s warning, adding the caption: “Arrest, Arrest, Arrest!”
It comes a week after the Milwaukee county circuit judge Hannah Dugan was arrested at the courthouse on two felony charges. She is accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities by escorting him and his attorney out of her courtroom through the jury door as federal officers sought his arrest.
Robert Tait
Here is some more detail on Donald Trump’s budget blueprint from my colleague Robert Tait.
Cuts of $163bn on discretionary non-defense spending would see financial outlays slashed for environmental and non-renewable energy schemes, as well as for the FBI, an agency Trump has claimed was weaponised against him during Joe Biden’s presidency. Spending reductions are also being projected for the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
It also includes massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health – which undertakes extensive research on cures for diseases like cancer – as well as for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but provides funding of $500m for the Make America Healthy Again initiative spearheaded by Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
By contrast, the Department of Homeland Security – which oversees border security – would see its spending boosted by 65% in a graphic illustration of Trump’s intense focus on stemming the flow of immigrants into the US. It also plans a 13% rise – to more than $1tn – in the Pentagon budget, a commitment at odds with Trump’s frequent vows to end the US’s involvement in “forever war” in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The figures for the White House’s so-called “skinny budget” for 2026 represent a 22.6% cut in spending from that projected for the current fiscal year, which ends on 30 September.
Woman in Florida deported to Cuba says she was forced to leave baby daughter
Joanna Walters
A mother deported to Cuba reportedly had to hand over her 17-month-old daughter to a lawyer while her husband, a US citizen, stood outside unable to say goodbye.
Heidy Sánchez was told she was being detained for deportation to Cuba when she turned up at her scheduled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) check-in appointment in Tampa, Florida, last week.
She was told her child, who has health problems and is still breastfeeding, had to stay in the US but could visit her in Cuba, NBC reported.
The Trump administration is embroiled in controversy for removing children who are US citizens from the United States with a parent when the adult is deported. In this case, the child was reportedly not allowed to leave with her mother even though it was what both parents said they wanted.
The administration’s anti-immigration crackdown has put many people in a difficult position because they risk being summarily detained and deported when turning up for routine Ice check-ins. Many people have followed this process without issue for years, and do not have a criminal record – but failing to turn up can bring an order for forcible removal from the US.
“They never gave me the option to take my daughter,” Sánchez told NBC.
Trump administration considering labeling some suspected cartel and gang members inside the US as ‘enemy combatants’ – report
The Trump administration is exploring whether it can label some suspected cartel and gang members inside the US as “enemy combatants” as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment, multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations have told CNN.
One of the sources told CNN the administration was only considering ways to use the label against suspected members of the eight groups Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, including Tren de Aragua and MS-13.
“This hinges on the idea that they are designated terrorists,” this person said.
Legal experts told CNN that applying the enemy combatant label to immigrants deemed terrorists would not be the easy solution some Trump officials think it could be. There would be no legal basis for it in the first place, they said, because the “enemy combatant” designation has only ever applied to the Taliban, al-Qaida and associated forces.
Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and CNN legal analyst, said:
It’s taking two distinct topics in national security law and hoping no one knows they are distinct. You can’t just bend them together without recognizing their myriad substantive differences … there is no good-faith legal argument here.
Stephen Miller emerges as top contender for Trump’s next national security adviser – report
Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, is gathering momentum inside the White House as a top candidate to be the next national security adviser, five sources familiar with the situation have told Axios.
The White House deputy chief of staff and architect of Trump’s intense and highly controversial immigration crackdown, is one of the president’s longest-serving and most trusted aides.
He is also already the administration’s homeland security adviser and is an aggressive defender of the administration’s legal push for immediate deportations of unauthorized immigrants without court hearings.
One source told Axios that Miller might not want the job “if it takes him away from his true love: immigration policy”. Another said: “If Stephen wants the job, it’s hard to see why Trump wouldn’t say yes.” Axios couldn’t reach Miller for comment.
‘In tatters’: major cuts have left US weather forecasting more damaged than previously known as hurricane season nears
The National Weather Service (NWS) is in worse shape than previously known due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements and preexisting vacancies, CNN reports.
As what could be a destructive hurricane season approaches, several current and former agency meteorologists told CNN they are concerned forecasts and life-saving warnings are not going to be issued in time.
Responsible for protecting life and property from severe weather impacts, the NWS is headed into hurricane season with 30 of its 122 weather forecast offices lacking their most experienced official, known as the meteorologist-in-charge. These include offices that cover major population centers such as New York City, Cleveland, Houston and Tampa.
One area highlighted in CNN’s report is Houston, where it found there is not a single manager in place at the hurricane-prone Houston-Galveston forecast office, according to a Noaa staff member who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. That office was the main source of information during Hurricane Harvey, which killed at least 68 people and flooded large parts of the Houston metro area in 2017.
Trump’s budget proposal includes $3.2 bn for World Bank’s fund for poorest countries but slashes foreign aid by $49bn
In his skinny budget released earlier Donald Trump asked Congress to approve $3.2bn in contributions to the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides low- or zero-interest loans to the world’s poorest countries, per Reuters.
International finance experts hailed the sum, to be paid over three years, as a welcome surprise, given recent worries that Trump could skip making any contribution to IDA.
Former president Joe Biden had pledged to contribute $4bn, but that money has not yet been transferred. The new amount is lower, but will still help the World Bank get close to its goal of raising $100bn for IDA by leveraging countries’ contributions, sources familiar with the process told Reuters. The final decision rests with Congress.
Asked if the Trump administration would stick to the $4bn pledge, treasury secretary Scott Bessent had indicated that the sum would be decided in the budget, and that much depended on World Bank president Ajay Banga and the head of the International Monetary Fund getting back to basics.
However, the bigger picture reveals the budget proposal unveiled by Trump on Friday cuts foreign aid by $49bn, a senior official with the office of management and budget told reporters.
Documents released by the White House showed a cut of $555m in funds for the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund, which was “not currently aligned to Administration priorities”.
On the inclusion of the $3.2bn for IDA, the document said: “This fulfills the President’s promise to no longer dole out foreign aid dollars with no return on investment for the American people.” It added that other donors and institutions should take on more of the costs.
Top Washington lawyer launches new firm to defend officials targeted by Trump
A prominent lawyer in Washington who defended Hunter Biden against criminal charges has created a new law firm to represent former government officials and others targeted by the Trump administration, Reuters reports.
Abbe Lowell left his large law firm Winston & Strawn to launch Lowell & Associates, which will defend clients including individuals, institutions and others that are “facing politicized investigations, civil and administrative actions”, the firm said in a Friday statement.
The new firm also includes two former lawyers at Skadden Arps who quit over its response to Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the legal profession.
Skadden is one of nine firms that cut deals with the administration to avoid the president’s crackdown on the legal industry. Four other firms have sued to block Trump’s orders, which restricted their business over the president’s claims that they had “weaponized” the legal system against him or his allies.
One of the ex-Skadden lawyers, Rachel Cohen, said there is a need for attorneys “willing to stand up to the government when it oversteps”. Two other lawyers are also joining the new firm from Winston & Strawn.
Lowell is representing New York attorney general Letitia James after the Trump administration referred her to the Justice Department for allegedly falsifying real estate records. James has denied the allegations.
The new firm said it is also representing clients fighting the cancellation of grant funding by the so-called “department of government efficiency” and the federal government.
Lowell represented Hunter Biden, former president Joe Biden’s son, against criminal gun and tax changes before he was pardoned in December. His clients have also included former US senator Bob Menendez, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
The new firm comes amid a broader effort to mount and sustain legal challenges to the Trump administration. There are more than 200 lawsuits opposing key Trump policy initiatives, including efforts to curtail transgender and immigrant rights, and eliminating agency and grant funding.
Four Senate Democrats have asked an inspector general to investigate whether Donald Trump pressured the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke Harvard’s non-profit status.
A letter to Heather Hill, the acting treasury inspector general for tax administration, reads:
It is both illegal and unconstitutional for the IRS to take direction from the President to target schools, hospitals, churches, or any other tax-exempt entities as retribution for using their free speech rights.
The letter was signed by Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and senators Ron Wyden, Edward J Markey and Elizabeth Warren. It continues:
It is further unconscionable that the IRS would become a weapon of the Trump Administration to extort its perceived enemies, but the actions of the President and his operatives have now made this fear a reality.
