- Trump-era DOJ official Jeffrey Clark tries to move Georgia charges to federal court at Monday hearing CNN
- Judge will hold hearing on ex-DOJ official’s request to move Georgia election case to federal court The Associated Press
- Trump co-defendant Jeffrey Clark tries to move Georgia case to federal court NBC News
- Judge will hold hearing on ex-DOJ official’s request to move Georgia election case to federal court Yahoo News
- 900 prospective jurors to be called for first trial in Georgia election interference case FOX 5 Atlanta
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Tag Archives: Trumpera
Federal Reserve review pins blame for SVB failure on Donald Trump-era rule changes – Financial Times
- Federal Reserve review pins blame for SVB failure on Donald Trump-era rule changes Financial Times
- Fed report on Silicon Valley Bank collapse blames mismanagement, weak government oversight Fox Business
- Fed: Silicon Valley Bank failed to manage basic interest rate, liquidity risk CNBC Television
- Fed Slams Its Own Oversight of Silicon Valley Bank in Post-Mortem The New York Times
- McHenry Statement on Regulator, GAO Reports Regarding Recent Bank Failures | Financial Services Committee House Financial Services Committee
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Warren unveils bill to repeal Trump-era bank deregulation she says led to SVB, Signature collapses – CNBC
- Warren unveils bill to repeal Trump-era bank deregulation she says led to SVB, Signature collapses CNBC
- Elizabeth Warren says the millions in bonuses Silicon Valley Bank executives took home last year should be recovered by regulators: ‘We should claw all that back’ Yahoo Finance
- Silicon Valley Bank collapse would have been ‘prevented’ if not for Trump deregulation, Senate Democrat says Fox Business
- Opinion | Elizabeth Warren: We Can Prevent More Bank Failures The New York Times
- PAUL J DAVIES: Fed does not need new rules to stop the next SVB BusinessLIVE
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrats unveil bill to repeal Trump-era bank regulations – Seeking Alpha
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrats unveil bill to repeal Trump-era bank regulations Seeking Alpha
- Elizabeth Warren says the millions in bonuses Silicon Valley Bank executives took home last year should be recovered by regulators: ‘We should claw all that back’ Yahoo Finance
- Warren unveils bill to repeal Trump-era bank deregulation she says led to SVB, Signature collapses CNBC
- The Fed’s Easy Regulatory Fix to Avert Another SVB – Bloomberg Bloomberg
- PAUL J DAVIES: Fed does not need new rules to stop the next SVB BusinessLIVE
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Bernie Sanders says Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is the ‘direct result’ of a Trump-era bank regulation policy – Yahoo! Voices
- Bernie Sanders says Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is the ‘direct result’ of a Trump-era bank regulation policy Yahoo! Voices
- GOP presidential candidates react to Silicon Valley Bank collapse; Trump blames ‘out-of-control Democrats’ Fox News
- Mitt Romney Drops Truth Bomb on Silicon Valley Bank: Shareholders Should ‘Lose It All’ msnNOW
- Silicon Valley Bank collapse: GOP’s Vivek Ramaswamy says more regulation would encourage ‘crony capitalism’ Fox Business
- James Comer slams Silicon Valley Bank as ‘one of the most woke banks’ Business Insider
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Bernie Sanders Blames Trump-Era Policy for Silicon Valley Bank Run – Business Insider
- Bernie Sanders Blames Trump-Era Policy for Silicon Valley Bank Run Business Insider
- GOP presidential candidates react to Silicon Valley Bank collapse; Trump blames ‘out-of-control Democrats’ Fox News
- US, UK try to stem fallout from Silicon Valley Bank collapse; 2nd largest banking failure in US hist WUSA9
- Mitt Romney Drops Truth Bomb on Silicon Valley Bank: Shareholders Should ‘Lose It All’ msnNOW
- Silicon Valley Bank collapse: GOP’s Vivek Ramaswamy says more regulation would encourage ‘crony capitalism’ Fox Business
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Title 42: Appeals court rejects bid by GOP-led states to keep Trump-era border policy in force
CNN
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A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a bid by several Republican-led states to keep the so-called Title 42 rule in force, after a district court struck the controversial Trump-era border policy down.
The new ruling from the DC Circuit US Court of Appeals sets the stage for the case to go to the Supreme Court. The Biden administration is set to stop enforcing Title 42 – which allows for the expulsion of migrants at the US-Mexico border – on Wednesday.
The Republican-led states previously indicated that if the appeals court ruled against them, they’d seek the intervention of the Supreme Court.
In the new order, the DC Circuit denied the states’ request to intervene in the case and dismissed as moot the states’ request that it put the lower court’s ruling on hold.
The unsigned order was handed down by a circuit panel made up of an Obama appointee, a Trump appointee and a Biden appointee.
They wrote that the “inordinate and unexplained untimeliness” of the states’ request to get involved in the case “weighs decisively against intervention.”
The case is a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union, representing several migrants brought In January 2021 challenging the program. The appeals court noted on Friday that the Republican-led states had long known that their interest in keeping the policy in force would diverge from the Biden administration’s approach to the case.
The appeals court wrote that “more than eight months ago, the federal government issued an order terminating the Title 42 policy.”
“Yet these long-known-about differing interests in preserving Title 42—a decision of indisputable consequence—are the only reasons the States now provide for wanting to intervene for the first time on appeal,” the DC Circuit said. “Nowhere in their papers do they explain why they waited eight to fourteen months to move to intervene.”
The ACLU attorney representing the migrants praised the court’s decision.
“The states are clearly and wrongly trying to use Title 42 to restrict asylum and not for the law’s intended public health purposes,” the attorney, Lee Gelernt, told CNN in an email. “Many of these states were vigorously opposed to past COVID restrictions but suddenly believe there is a need for restrictions when it comes to migrants fleeing danger.”
White House spokesperson Abdullah Hasan said after the ruling that the administration has a “robust effort underway” for managing the border following the policy’s expected lifting next week.
“To be clear: the lifting of the Title 42 public health order does not mean the border is open. Anyone who suggests otherwise is doing the work of smugglers spreading misinformation to make a quick buck off of vulnerable migrants,” Hasan said in a statement. “We will continue to fully enforce our immigration laws and work to expand legal pathways for migration while discouraging disorderly and unsafe migration. We have a robust effort underway to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 lifts as required by court order.”
The White House also urged Republicans in Congress to agree to more border funding and work on comprehensive immigration reform. The Biden administration has asked Congress for more than $3 billion as it prepares for the end of Title 42 to help shore up resources for border management and technology.
The administration’s handling of Title 42, which the Trump administration put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic, has been the target of litigation from both supporters and opponents of the program.
Last month, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan struck down the program. But Sullivan put his ruling on hold for five weeks so that the Biden administration would have time to prepare for the policy’s wind down. The administration has also appealed the ruling, arguing that the program was lawful, even if federal public health authorities have determined it is no longer necessary.
As the December 21 deadline for Sullivan’s ruling to go into effect approaches, officials have been preparing for a surge of migrants. More than 1 million migrants have been expelled under the rule, which is a public health authority the Trump administration began using at start of the Covid-19 pandemic to expel migrants before they went through the asylum application process.
Republican-led states, in their attempts to intervene in the case, allege that allowing the policy to terminate would “cause an enormous disaster at the border.”
They have argued that the “greatly increased number of migrants that such a termination will occasion will necessarily increase the States’ law enforcement, education, and healthcare costs.”
The Biden administration opposed the states’ attempt to intervene and their request to keep the policy in place, calling the requests untimely and unjustified.
“The States could have sought to intervene after the CDC acted to terminate the Title 42 orders in April 2022,” the administration wrote.
The migrants who challenged the program in the case also opposed the states’ request, writing in a court filing that the states were “transparently interested in Title 42 as a restriction on immigration and asylum” rather than as a public health measure.
The Biden administration tried to wind down the Title 42 program in 2021, but a coalition of mostly GOP-led states – in a separate case filed in Louisiana – successfully sued to block the Department of Homeland Security from ending enforcement.
This story has been updated with additional details.
Federal judge says Biden can’t yet end Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration policy
CNN
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A federal judge in Texas has put on hold for now the Biden administration’s most recent attempt to end the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program.
US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is pausing the termination of the program that was outlined in an October 2021 policy memo while litigation around that memo continues.
The ruling marks a setback in President Joe Biden’s effort to end the controversial Trump-era policy, which sends certain non-Mexican citizens who entered the US back to Mexico – instead of detaining them or releasing them into the US – while their immigration proceedings played out.
The program, formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols, is separate from Title 42, which is set to end next week. That authority, which was heavily criticized by public health experts and immigrant advocates, has largely barred asylum at the US-Mexico border.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 the Biden administration had the discretion to end the program, rejecting arguments from Republican states that immigration law required the program to remain in effect and granting an initial victory for the Biden immigration agenda in its efforts to reverse Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
But the Supreme Court sent the case back to Kacsmaryk to consider whether the roll out of October 2021 memo complied with the Administrative Procedure Act – which requires that agencies take certain procedural steps when implementing policy – in how it went about unwinding Migrant Protection Protocols.
The program, which was first implemented in 2019 under then-President Donald Trump, has been criticized by immigrant-rights advocates, who argue that it’s inhumane and that it exposes asylum seekers with credible claims to dangerous and squalid conditions in Mexico.
Before the Trump administration put the “Remain in Mexico” program in place, no other administration had embraced such an approach toward non-Mexican asylum-seekers that required them to stay in Mexico over the course of their immigration court proceedings in the United States. Biden campaigned on ending the policy and has said it “goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants.”
Biden has grappled with a growing number of border crossings over the course of his administration amid mass migration in the Western Hemisphere. The Department of Homeland Security, though, has maintained that the “Remain in Mexico” policy comes at a steep human cost and is not an effective use of resources.
This story has been updated with additional details.
Biden administration to reverse Trump-era rules on landmines
Officials said the new policy reflected the Biden administration’s belief that human rights must be a significant factor when considering when to use weapons or provide them to other countries.
“The United States’ new policy on anti-personnel land mines is centered on people,” Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary for arms control and international security, told reporters by phone.
U.S. officials say anti-personnel mines used by various nations kill about 7,000 people a year, the vast majority of whom are noncombatants. At least half of the victims are believed to be children. In places such as Afghanistan and Yemen, land mines have remained a hidden peril following conflicts, sowing farmlands or mountain paths with invisible and long-lasting danger.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an advocacy group, welcomed the new policy but said the United States must take the steps needed to join the Ottawa Convention, a 1997 treaty that prohibits participating nations from using, transferring or stockpiling weapons categorized as anti-personnel mines.
“We are still out of step with most of the world,” Kimball said. “The administration needs to move more quickly to bring us in line.”
While the United States remains ineligible to join the Ottawa treaty because of its refusal to forswear land mine use entirely, U.S. officials say they hope to do so if alternate weapons can be developed to safeguard South Korea’s border with North Korea.
The new policy will bring the United States into compliance with most aspects of the treaty, prohibiting the production and purchase of the mines, and banning their export and transfer except when necessary for their destruction. The regulations also commit the United States to destroying U.S. mines that are not deemed necessary in South Korea.
The U.S. stockpile includes about 3 million anti-personnel mines, all of which have self-destruction or self-deactivation features. The United States has employed anti-personnel mines once since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in Afghanistan.
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to roll back what he characterized as President Donald Trump’s “reckless” stance on mines. Officials have framed the policy, which is identical to the Obama administration’s rules, as further proof of the Biden administration’s commitment to civilians’ welfare and to human rights. The United States is also the largest supporter of efforts to destroy conventional weapons including land mines and other unexploded munitions.
Critics say the Biden administration’s actions have failed to match its rhetoric in other areas related to human rights, including its support for leaders who have overseen widespread abuses. The new policy comes ahead of Biden’s expected meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) urged the Defense Department, where senior officials have voiced support for land mine use, to quickly implement the new policy.
“This is long overdue recognition that the grave humanitarian and political costs of using these weapons far exceed their limited military utility,” Leahy, who has long advocated for an end to land mine use, said in a statement.
Annie Shiel, an official at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), said the task ahead was now a full ban on the weapons” without exception.”
“Land mines are indiscriminate weapons that cause devastating harm to civilians for decades after they are used,” Shiel said.
The new rules strip the Pentagon of authority over the issue, giving control to the White House.
When the 2020 regulations were unveiled, the Pentagon characterized mines as valuable in protecting troops from being overrun or channeling enemy forces into areas where they can be attacked. That policy permitted military commanders to order the use of some land mines in combat as long as they had a self-destruct or self-deactivation feature.
“The United States will not sacrifice American servicemembers’ safety,” a senior Pentagon official said at the time.
Military leaders also have supported the use of mines since Biden took office. In April, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, characterized the mines as an important wartime tool.
“Antitank or antipersonnel mines are a very effective use in combat,” he said, noting the necessity of ensuring the weapons do not remain active after conflicts.
A State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the policy ahead of its release, said Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the review process “had the opportunity to raise the need that they feel that they had for land mines with the White House and talk about their operational effectiveness, but this was the decision.”
The Biden administration has highlighted the toll that land mines are taking in the war in Ukraine, where officials say Russia has planted mines indiscriminately. While Russia is not party to the Ottawa convention, Ukraine is a signatory.
Karen Chandler, an acting deputy assistant secretary of state, said there was “no credible evidence of Ukraine using [anti-personnel mines], currently or during Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.”
Michael Sussmann Is Acquitted in Case Brought by Trump-Era Prosecutor
WASHINGTON — Michael Sussmann, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Democrats, was acquitted on Tuesday of a felony charge that he lied to the F.B.I. about having no client in 2016 when he shared a tip about possible connections between Donald J. Trump and Russia.
The verdict was a blow to the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration three years ago to scour the Trump-Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.
The case centered on odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers discovered in 2016 after it became public that Russia had hacked Democrats and Mr. Trump had encouraged the country to target Hillary Clinton’s emails.
The researchers said the data might reflect a covert communications channel using servers for the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked bank. The F.B.I. briefly looked at the suspicions and dismissed them.
On Sept. 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann brought those suspicions to a senior F.B.I. official. Prosecutors accused him of falsely telling the official that he was not there on behalf of any client, concealing that he was in fact working for both Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and a technology executive who had brought him the tip.
Mr. Durham and his trial team used court filings and trial testimony to detail how Mr. Sussmann, while working for a Democratic-linked law firm and logging his time to the Clinton campaign, had been trying to get reporters to write about the Alfa Bank suspicions.
But trying to persuade reporters to write about such suspicions is not a crime. Mr. Sussmann’s guilt or innocence turned on a narrow issue: whether he made a false statement to a senior F.B.I. official at the 2016 meeting, by saying he was sharing those suspicions on behalf of no one but himself.
Mr. Durham used the case to put forward a larger conspiracy: that there was a joint enterprise to essentially frame Mr. Trump for collusion with Russia by getting the F.B.I. to investigate the suspicions so reporters would write about it — a scheme involving the Clinton campaign; its opposition research firm, Fusion GPS; Mr. Sussmann; and a cybersecurity expert who brought the odd data and analysis to him.
That insinuation thrilled supporters of Mr. Trump who share his view that the Russia investigation was a “hoax,” and have sought to conflate the actual inquiry with sometimes thin or dubious allegations. In reality, the Alfa Bank matter was a sideshow: The F.B.I. had already opened its inquiry on other grounds before Mr. Sussmann passed on the tip, and the final report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, made no mention of the Alfa Bank suspicions.
But the case Mr. Durham and his team used to float their broad insinuations was thin — one count of making a false statement in a meeting with no other witnesses or contemporaneous notes. The evidence and arguments the lead prosecutor, Andrew DeFilippis, and his colleagues marshaled fell flat with the 12 jurors, who voted unanimously to find Mr. Sussmann not guilty.
Some supporters of Mr. Trump had been bracing for that outcome, pointing to the District of Columbia’s reputation as a heavily Democratic area and putting forward the prospect that a jury might be politically biased against a Trump-era prosecutor trying to convict a defendant who was working for the Clinton campaign.
Mr. Durham expressed disappointment about the verdict but said he respected the decision by the jury, which deliberated for about six hours.
“I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case,” he said in a statement.
Shortly after the verdict, Mr. Sussmann read a brief statement to reporters outside the courthouse, expressing gratitude to the jury, his defense team and those who supported him and his family during what had been a difficult year. He did not take any questions.
“I told the truth to the F.B.I., and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today,” he said, adding: “Despite being falsely accused, I am relieved that justice ultimately prevailed in this case.”
The judge told the jury that they were not to take any of their own political views into account when deciding the facts.
The defense, which portrayed prosecutors’ insinuations as “political conspiracy theories,” had argued that Mr. Sussmann only brought the matter to the F.B.I. when he thought The New York Times was already on the cusp of writing an article about the matter, to give the bureau a heads-up so it would not be caught flat-footed.
Clinton campaign officials testified during the trial they had not told or authorized him to go to the F.B.I. — and that doing so was against their interests because they did not trust the bureau and it could slow down the publication of any article.
In a statement, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, two of Mr. Sussmann’s defense lawyers, criticized Mr. Durham for bringing the indictment.
“Michael Sussmann should never have been charged in the first place,” they said. “This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach. And we believe that today’s verdict sends an unmistakable message to anyone who cares to listen: Politics is no substitute for evidence, and politics has no place in our system of justice.”
This story is developing. Check back for updates.