Closing summary
We are wrapping up our live coverage of US politics for the night, but will return on Wednesday to continue our chronicle of the second Trump administration. Here are some of the day’s developments:
The White House fired Paul Martin, the independent inspector general for the US Agency for International Development (USAid) on Tuesday, one day after he issued a damning report detailing the impact of the sudden dismantling of the agency.
Elon Musk joined Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as the president put his signature on an executive order that requires federal agencies to coordinate with the billionaire Tesla chief’s “department of government efficiency”. Musk defended his outsized role in the gutting of federal agencies.
The text of the executive order “to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce”, gives a central role to Musk’s “department of government efficiency” team, by requiring federal agencies to seek approval from embedded members of Musk’s team for all hiring decisions.
The Associated Press was not allowed in to the Oval office to report on the Musk-Trump news conference, the not-for-profit news cooperative says, because it has declined to abide by a White House directive to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Musk told reporters that his team had discovered “crazy things”, like social security payments still being made to people who were born 150 years ago. Musk cited no evidence, and the claim was likely based on a misreading of a 2015 inspector general report which found that 13 people who were then 112 or older at the time were still receiving payments, and the government had no death records on file for another 6.5 million people in the social security system system who were almost certainly dead.
Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director Kash Patel coordinated with the White House and justice department on the firing of top bureau officials, then lied about it at his confirmation hearing, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee said.
Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was serving a 14 year prison sentence in Russia after getting caught with medically-prescribed marijuana “will be on American soil” by tonight, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday.
Officials from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” are “actively dismantling” the department of education, a Democratic congresswoman told HuffPost.
Trump hit out at federal judges who have frustrated his efforts to transform the government, calling them “highly political” and arguing he is merely fighting fraud and waste. The president received an assist from his ally, House speaker Mike Johnson, who said he had met with Elon Musk and was “excited” about his work in the “department of government efficiency”.
An appeals court granted prosecutors’ request to drop charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case, marking the end of the aborted federal effort to convict the president prior to his re-election.
Steve Bannon pleaded guilty to a fraud charge connected to a fundraiser falsely billed as paying for a border wall, but will serve no jail time.
Two senior officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have resigned, after a top White House official who also played a major role in Project 2025 ordered the watchdog to stop work.
Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, will go to Ukraine to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced Trump, who also predicted the war with Russia would end “soon”.
Updated
Millions hear Musk claim, without proof, that social security payments are being made to people who would be 150 years old
In the Oval office on Tuesday, Elon Musk told reporters that his so-called “department of government efficiency” had already uncovered obvious fraud in federal spending.
As an example, he cited a finding first presented to House Republicans at a White House meeting with Donald Trump last week: that a dozen people had allegedly received social security payments through what would have been their 150th birthdays.
“There’s crazy things, like, just a cursory examination of social security, we’ve got people in there that are 150 years old,” Musk said. “Now, do you know anyone’s who’s 150? I don’t, okay? They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. They’re missing out. So you know that’s a case where like I think they’re probably dead. That’s my guess. Or, they should be very famous. One of the two”.
Musk was not asked by any of the reporters in the room on Tuesday to provide evidence for his claim that social security payments had been made to anyone claiming to be 150 years old.
The White House did not respond to a request from the Guardian for proof that this is true.
Despite that, video of Musk’s claim was posted on his social network, X, by his pro-Trump political action committee America Pac, and uncritically echoed by influential Trump aides and supporters, including Donald Trump Jr, Dan Scavino, Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik, and the Russian state propaganda outlet Sputnik. As a result, millions of people watched Musk make the claim that the government is so poorly run that it is making monthly payments to people who died decades ago.
Given the lack of evidence, and Musk’s track record of citing internet rumors and made-up claims about government spending as fact, it seems possible that no such payments have been made, but someone told him about a real flaw in the social security system which could enable fraud: the fact that administrators do not have death records for everyone who once had a social security number and has passed away.
That flaw was revealed in a 2015 report by the independent inspector general for the social security administration who discovered that the agency did not have death records for millions of people who had passed away. As of 2015, the inspector general found, there were “approximately 6.5 million numberholders age 112 or older who did not have death information” on their files.
According to the report, social security payments were still being made to just 13 people who had reached the age of 112.
When the report was issued in 2015, the oldest person with a social security number and no death record on their file was born in 1869, but there was no record of payments still being made to that person, who would have been nearly 150.
In fact, the social security administration has in place a procedure to conduct interviews with anyone who reaches the age of 100, to verify that they are alive and their account is not being used by someone else to collect fraudulent payments.
That procedure mandates that, if a centenarian, fails to respond to two requests for an interview, a third, and final, letter is sent with the message: “We have tried to schedule an appointment with you twice. Each time we rescheduled, you were not available. It is very important that you keep this appointment. If you do not keep this appointment, we may suspend your benefits until we speak with you.”
Updated
White House fires USAid inspector general who issued damning report on funding freeze
The White House reportedly fired the independent inspector general for the US Agency for International Development (USAid) on Tuesday, one day after he issued a damning report detailing the impact of the sudden dismantling of the agency.
Paul Martin, who was appointed by Joe Biden in December 2023, was dismissed in an email from Trent Morse, deputy director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, seen by the Washington Post.
As the Guardian reported on Monday, Martin found that “widespread staffing reductions across the agency … coupled with uncertainty about the scope of foreign assistance waivers and permissible communications with implementers, has degraded USAid’s ability to distribute and safeguard taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance”.
Among the impacts Martin documented, the sudden halt in the agency’s work has put more than $489m of food assistance at ports, in transit, and in warehouses at risk of spoilage or loss.
The inspector general’s office posted a link to its report on Twitter/X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, who has led the dismantling of the agency, and promoted numerous false claims about its work including those found in a hoax news report smearing the agency apparently produced by Russia.
Read OIG's recently-issued advisory entitled "Oversight of USAID-Funded Humanitarian Assistance Programming Impacted by Staffing Reductions & Pause on Foreign Assistance" here:https://t.co/gSG1z4LDmv
— USAID Office of Inspector General (@USAID_OIG) February 10, 2025
Martin’s firing comes two weeks after Trump fired 18 inspectors general, violating a law that requires the administration to alert Congress 30 days before taking such an action.
Updated
Appeals court won't let Trump freeze federal spending
Donald Trump lost in federal court again on Tuesday when the first circuit court of appeals declined his administration’s request to lift a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge that bars Trump from freezing spending at federal agencies.
The order, requiring the government to continue delivering funds appropriated by Congress, was issued by US district judge John McConnell on 31 January. McConnell again ordered the spending to resume on Monday, after finding that the administration had defied his ruling by continuing to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding.
The first circuit said in a two-page opinion that it was confident the lower court would quickly clarify the concerns the government cited in its filing, including that the order bars the president from exercising his lawful authority.
Updated
Trump's executive order gives Musk's team veto power over hiring at federal agencies
The text of the executive order signed on Tuesday by Donald Trump “to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce”, gives a central role to Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” team, by requiring federal agencies to seek approval from embedded members of Musk’s team for all hiring decisions.
The order directs agencies to first “initiate large-scale reductions” in their workforces, and then “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart”.
The order makes clear that any such hiring must be approved by Musk’s team at every stage:
Each Agency Head shall develop a data-driven plan, in consultation with its DOGE Team Lead, to ensure new career appointment hires are in highest-need areas.
(i) This hiring plan shall include that new career appointment hiring decisions shall be made in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, consistent with applicable law.
(ii) The agency shall not fill any vacancies for career appointments that the DOGE Team Lead assesses should not be filled, unless the Agency Head determines the positions should be filled.
(iii) Each DOGE Team Lead shall provide the United States DOGE Service (USDS) Administrator with a monthly hiring report for the agency.
The order does not apply to military personnel and allows agency heads to make exceptions for “any position they deem necessary to meet national security, homeland security, or public safety responsibilities”.
Updated
Fema reportedly defies court order by freezing spending again despite federal judge’s ruling that the government must “immediately restore frozen funding”.
During his joint news conference on Tuesday with Elon Musk, who is leading a slash-and-burn effort to stop federal agencies from spending money appropriated by congress, Donald Trump said: “I always abide by the courts.”
But NBC News reports that a senior official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) quietly defied a court order on Monday when she “instructed subordinates to freeze funding for a wide array of grant programs Monday, just hours after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration – for the second time – to stop such pauses”.
After US district judge John McConnell ordered the federal government on Monday to “immediately end any federal funding pause” while he reviews the legality of funding already approved by Congress being stopped by a presidential appointee, Fema staff received an email from Stacey Street, the director of Fema’s Office of Grant Administration with the subject line “URGENT: Holds on awards”.
According to screenshot of the email provided to the broadcaster by a recipient, the email directed Fema staff to freeze funding for the past four years of grants awarded by the agency, even those paying for emergency preparedness, firefighting and to protect churches from terrorism.
Updated
Associated Press barred from Oval office for not using 'Gulf of America'
The Associated Press was not allowed in to the Oval office to report on the Musk-Trump news conference, the not-for-profit news cooperative says, because it has declined to abide by a White House directive to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
The AP’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said in a statement:
As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.
Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.
It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.
The AP issued this style guidance note on 23 January on the renaming:
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The body of water has shared borders between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change.
The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
Updated
Elon Musk defends government role and dismisses conflict of interest concerns
Speaking from the Oval Office, where he stood behind the Resolute Desk, but to the right of a seated Donald Trump, Elon Musk just defended his outsized role in the gutting of federal agencies, under the auspices of his “department of government efficiency”.
Asked about critics who call his effective control over multiple federal agencies, and the cutting of funding for congressionally approved programs federal judges have ordered to halt, Musk said: “The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get”.
“That’s what democracy is all about”.
He also dismissed concerns about his own clear conflicts of interest, since six of his businesses are dealing with investigations, complaints or regulatory actions from 11 of the federal agencies he has taken a leading role in drastically cutting back or reshaping.
Musk told reporters he is trying to be as transparent as possible, even though his own financial disclosures will not be made public. “Transparency is what builds trust” he said.
Trump backed Musk’s claim there was no problem with his role. Trump also claimed that he saw a lot of “kickbacks” with government contracts. The president said that he hoped the courts would allow him to pursue his agenda.
Trump claimed that his administration, with Musk’s help, had already found billions in “fraud and abuse”, despite the fact that multiple examples they have previously offered to the public have been false or misleading. Trump cited no new evidence, but told reporters “and you know what we’re talking about”. This appears to be his new shorthand for the debunked claim that Musk’s team had uncovered $50 million in funding to send condoms to the besieged Gaza Strip.
Here is photograph of the press availability in the Oval Office posted on Musk’s platform X by Katie Miller, the spokesperson for his “department of government efficiency”, which shows that Miller’s spouse, Stephen, was just out of the frame of wire photographs, to Trump and Musk’s right.
The head of @DOGE and @POTUS in the Oval. Restoring the power back to the American People. pic.twitter.com/qwFafFLRlb
— Katie Miller (@katierosemiller) February 11, 2025
Updated
Musk joins Trump in Oval Office for signing of order directing government cooperation with Doge
Elon Musk has joined Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as the president put his signature on an executive order that requires federal agencies to coordinate with the billionaire Tesla chief’s “department of government efficiency”.
In comments to the press, Musk called the federal bureaucracy an “unelected” fourth branch of government, and also said the US budget deficit must be addressed. Trump, meanwhile, talked about the need to root out “corruption”.
A coalition of labor unions yesterday filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) violated federal law by accessing secure systems in three government departments.
“Elon Musk and his minions are stealing Americans’ private personal and financial data in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
“I suspect no one who voted for Donald Trump thought he would allow Musk permission to invade their privacy. This is a breach of our fundamental freedoms. Right now, inside the Department of Education, the world’s richest man is rifling through 45 million people’s private student loan accounts and feeding the data into artificial intelligence.”
The suit singles out Doge’s access of secure systems in the departments of Treasury and education, and the office of personnel management. Last week, a judge temporarily stopped Musk’s officials from accessing the Treasury’s payment system:
Democratic senator accuses Kash Patel of perjury, directing firings of FBI officials
Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director Kash Patel coordinated with the White House and justice department on the firing of top bureau officials, then lied about it at his confirmation hearing, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee said.
Dick Durbin made the allegation in a letter to justice department inspector general Michael Horowitz, and requested an investigation.
“It is unacceptable for a nominee with no legal or current role in government to personally direct the unjustified and potentially illegal firings of dedicated, nonpartisan professionals at the FBI. If these allegations are true, then Mr. Patel may have committed perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Patel said.
The Senate judiciary committee is expected to on Thursday vote on advancing Patel, who Democrats consider a concerning pick to lead the bureau because of his vows to use its powers to retaliate against Trump’s enemies.
Shortly after Trump took office, a former personal lawyer to the president who is now a senior justice department official ordered the firing of several veteran FBI agents, and asked for the names of everyone at the bureau who worked on January 6-related cases. Here’s more on that:
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Doge officials 'dismantling' education department - report
Officials from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” are “actively dismantling” the department of education, a Democratic congresswoman told HuffPost.
Donald Trump recently signaled that he would like to see the department abolished, and congresswoman Melanie Stansbury said Musk’s employees “are in the building, on the sixth floor, canceling grants and contracts.”
She expects the department “to potentially be dissolved in the coming days.”
“It’s not legal. They know it’s not legal. But they’re doing it anyway,” said Stansbury. “The only recourse we have right now is to … go the courts.”
Here’s more on the Trump administration’s plans for the department:
Trump to order agency heads to cooperate with Elon Musk's Doge
Donald Trump plans to today sign an executive order that will require heads of US government departments and agencies to cooperate with the Elon Musk-chaired “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Reuters reports.
Citing a White House official, the president will also order agency heads to limit hiring to only essential staff. The order comes as Democrats warn that Trump is defying the law by allowing Musk and his staff to enter federal agencies and access secure systems, or shut them down altogether.
The White House says Trump will signs executive orders at 3pm. Here’s more about the concerns surrounding Doge:
Republican congressman Guy Reschenthaler has been an advocate for Marc Fogel during his detention, and had this to say about the news that he had been released:
Our prayers have been answered. Thanks to President Donald J. Trump’s leadership, Marc Fogel has been freed from Russia! Marc spent 1,255 days locked away in a Russian penal colony under the Biden Administration. President Trump freed Marc in just 22 days.
Notice the reference to the Biden administration. Donald Trump and his allies have sought to cast themselves as more effective than his Democratic predecessor at every turn, and do have some diplomatic successes to promote, such as when Venezuela earlier this month agreed to release six detained Americans.
Russia releases American hostage Marc Fogel
Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was serving a 14 year prison sentence in Russia after getting caught with medically-prescribed marijuana “will be on American soil” by tonight, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump and his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are able to announce that Mr. Witkoff is leaving Russian airspace with Marc Fogel, an American who was detained by Russia,” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said in a statement.
“President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the President’s advisors negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine. Since President Trump’s swearing-in, he has successfully secured the release of Americans detained around the world, and President Trump will continue until all Americans being held are returned to the United States.”
Updated
Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.
The Trump administration is pushing for the war with Russia to end, while Zelensky is hoping for more US military commitments, as well as NATO membership, the deployment of peacekeeping troops.
Trump said in a Fox interview on Monday that Ukraine “may be part of Russia someday.”
Updated
After Pope Francis rebuked mass deportation of migrants plan, US border czar Tom Homan has pushed back, saying Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.
“I’ve got harsh words for the Pope: Pope ought to fix the Catholic Church,” Homan, a Catholic, told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
“I’m saying this as a lifelong Catholic — I was baptized Catholic, my first Communion as a Catholic, confirmation as a Catholic. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us.”
The criticism was in response to the pope’s public letter condemning the Trump administration’s efforts sent earlier on Tuesday.
“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” Francis wrote in a letter sent on Tuesday. “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.”
Francis urged people “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”
Homan compared the wall surrounding the Vatican City to the US border wall.
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Trump administration ordered to restore websites of US health agencies taken down
Federal judge John Bates on Tuesday ordered US health agencies to restore websites that were suddenly and unexpectedly taken offline after Trump signed an executive order to scrub websites of “gender ideology extremism.”
The legal saga began after medical advocacy group Doctors for America sued US health agencies for taking down their websites.
"Prior to the sudden, unannounced removal, these Defendants had maintained these or similar webpages and datasets on their websites for years,” the lawsuit says. “The removal of the webpages and datasets creates a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, deprives physicians of resources that guide clinical practice, and takes away key resources for communicating and engaging with patients.”
The day so far
Donald Trump hit out at federal judges who have frustrated his efforts to transform the government, calling them “highly political” and arguing he is merely fighting fraud and waste. The president received an assist from his ally, House speaker Mike Johnson, who said he had met with Elon Musk and was “excited” about his work in the “department of government efficiency”. But the American Bar Association warned that the administration was flying in the face of the constitution, and that it “cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore”, while a Democratic senator said that if the White House begins ignoring court orders it does not like, it would be “maybe the greatest challenge to democracy in our lifetimes.” Meanwhile, an appeals court granted prosecutors’ request to drop charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case, marking the end of the aborted federal effort to convict the president prior to his re-election.
Here’s what else has been going on today:
Steve Bannon pleaded guilty to a fraud charge connected to a fundraiser falsely billed as paying for a border wall, but will serve no jail time.
Two senior officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have resigned, after a top White House official who also played a major role in Project 2025 ordered the watchdog to stop work.
Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, will go to Ukraine to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced Trump, who also predicted the war with Russia would end “soon”.
Trump meets Jordan's King Abdullah amid tensions over US Gaza 'takeover'
King Abdullah of Jordan has arrived at the White House to meet with Donald Trump, and the fate of the ceasefire in Gaza is expected to be high on their agenda.
The two leaders may also discuss Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the territory and for its population to be displaced to countries neighboring Israel – such as Jordan.
We have a separate live blog covering the meeting, and you can follow it here:
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Trump says Treasury secretary will meet with Ukraine's Zelenskyy, war 'will end soon'
Donald Trump announced he is dispatching Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to Ukraine to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while also predicting the war in the country would end “soon”.
The US president made the news on Truth Social:
I am sending Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to Ukraine to meet President Zelensky. This War MUST and WILL END SOON — Too much Death and Destruction. The U.S. has spent BILLIONS of Dollars Globally, with little to show. WHEN AMERICA IS STRONG, THE WORLD IS AT PEACE.
Trump’s announcement came after Zelenskyy, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian, warned that he does not think Europe could replace the United States as the country’s top security partner. Here’s more:
Two senior officials have resigned from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Reuters reports, after a Project 2025 architect who is now a top White House official ordered it to cease its activities.
Reuters reports that Eric Halperin, director of enforcement, and Lorelei Salas, director of supervision, said it would be impossible to stay at the CFPB after the order by Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Here’s more, from Reuters:
“As you know we have been ordered to cease all work. I don’t believe in these conditions I can effectively serve in my role, which is protecting American consumers,” said Halperin wrote. “Today I made the difficult decision to resign effective today.”
Salas said she believed the decision by Vought to halt all supervisory work was illegal.
“It has been an honor to be part of this team - I thank you and ask that you stay strong,” she wrote.
In an email, an OMB spokesperson said the agency had not received Salas’ resignation and said: “They did not resign. They were placed on administrative leave.”
The spokesperson also accused Halperin of insubordination, citing a Politico report according to which Halperin had told staff last week that the agency’s work stoppage did not apply to pending cases. Halperin could not be immediately reached for comment.
Democrats have decried the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the CFPB, which was created after the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers from misconduct by banks and financial institutions. Here’s more:
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Steve Bannon pleads guilty to fraud charge over border wall fundraiser, but will serve no jail time
Steve Bannon will serve no jail time after pleading guilty to a fraud charge connected to duping donors into thinking they were funding construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border, the Associated Press reports.
The plea deal resolves a long-running case against Bannon, a top ally of Donald Trump and an architect of his Maga political philosophy, which began at the federal level before being disrupted when Trump pardoned Bannon near the end of his first term, and was then taken up by prosecutors in New York. Here’s more on its resolution, from the AP:
Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to one scheme to defraud count as part of a plea agreement that spares him from jail time in the “We Build the Wall” scheme. He received a three-year conditional discharge, which requires that he stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment.
Asked how he was feeling as he left the courtroom, Bannon said, “Like a million bucks.”
Bannon spoke to reporters afterward and called on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin an immediate criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Leticia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Defense attorney Arthur Aidala called the case against Bannon flimsy, saying it was never about his client.
“Mr. Bannon deserves credit. He wants to fight. Everyone knows Steve Bannon, he always wants to put up a fight,” Aidala said.
The district attorney’s office said Bannon is barred from fundraising for or serving as “an officer, director, or in any other fiduciary position” for any charitable organization with assets in New York state, under the plea agreement. He’s also barred from using, selling or possessing any data gathered from donors to the border wall scheme.
“This resolution achieves our primary goal: to protect New York’s charities and New Yorkers’ charitable giving from fraud,” Bragg said in a statement.
“New York has an important interest in rooting out fraud in our markets, our corporations, and our charities, and we will continue to do just that,” he added.
Federal prosecutions of Trump officially end after court approves dropping charges against co-conspirators
A federal court has approved a request by prosecutors to drop charges against two co-defendants indicted alongside Donald Trump for allegedly hiding classified documents, marking the end of the unprecedented, and ultimately fruitless, effort to convict the president prior to his return to the White House.
After Trump won the November election, special counsel Jack Smith dropped charges against Trump over the documents, and in a separate case involving attempting to stop Joe Biden from entering the White House. However, Smith allowed the prosecutions of the co-defendants in the documents case, Carlos De Oliveira and Walt Nauta, to continue.
The 11th circuit court of appeals has now agreed to drop those charges. Here’s more, from Reuters:
The U.S. Court of the Appeals for the 11th Circuit approved dropping the case against Trump valet Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos De Oliveira, who were charged alongside Trump in a case accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and social club. All three pleaded not guilty.
A lawyer for Nauta, Richard Klugh, said the decision “closes out a prosecution that was misguided and which should never have been filed.”
The charges were brought by former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who also accused Trump in a separate case of conspiring to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the November election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
At the time, prosecutors said they would continue the case against Nauta and De Oliveira, who faced obstruction charges.
But after Trump took office, the acting U.S. attorney in south Florida, who had taken over the case from Smith, asked the appeals court to drop it.
Prosecutors asked the appeals court to intervene last year after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, dismissed the charges against Trump and his two co-defendants, ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel.
The court had not weighed in on that issue at the time prosecutors asked to drop the case.
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson praises Musk's work as 'exciting' after meeting
Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson said he met with Elon Musk about what he called his “exciting” efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government.
“I met with Elon yesterday about this, to get an update, and it’s to me, it’s very exciting what they’re able to do, because what Elon and the Doge effort is doing right now is what Congress has been unable to do in recent years,” Johnson said, referring to the Musk-chaired “department of government efficiency” that has been behind the attempts to dramatically cut the federal workforce and disrupt agencies such as USAid and the Consumer Financial Bureau.
Johnson said previous attempts by his lawmakers to audit the federal government’s operations have been blocked by agencies’ unwillingness to share information, and added that judges should not stop Doge’s efforts.
“That’s why this is so exciting. They’re uncovering things that we have known intuitively have been there, but we couldn’t prove it,” Johnson said.
“I think the courts should take a step back and allow these processes to play out. What we’re doing is good and right for the American people, what Doge is doing is making sure that your taxpayer dollars, all of us, are spent in the way that they’re intended to be spent.”
Trump decries 'highly political judges' as he defends effort to transform government
Reacting to his administration’s setbacks in courts across the country, Donald Trump has defended his efforts to upend the federal government by closing down agencies and attempting to remove large numbers of federal workers.
In a post on Truth Social, he also took a swipe at “highly political judges” that he blames for blocking his efforts. Here’s what he said:
Billions of Dollars of FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE, has already been found in the investigation of our incompetently run Government. Now certain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop. Losing this momentum will be very detrimental to finding the TRUTH, which is turning out to be a disaster for those involved in running our Government. Much left to find. No Excuses!!!
In an interview with CNN yesterday, Democratic senator Chris Murphy said the Trump administration had not quite yet tipped the United States into a constitutional crisis, but was certainly bringing it close.
“So far, they’ve been talking tough, but I think largely have complied with these court orders. I think there’s going to be a question as to how well they’ve complied with the orders, but if they were to outright ignore an order, as JD Vance … [is] suggesting, that is maybe the greatest challenge to democracy in our lifetimes,” Murphy said.
Concerns that the Trump administration would ignore court orders were heightened yesterday, when a federal judge said that the White House had ignored his ruling ordering an end to a freeze on federal funding. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Anna Betts:
A federal judge said on Monday that the Trump administration had defied his order to unfreeze billions in federal funding and issued a directive demanding that the government “immediately restore frozen funding”.
In the order, US district judge John J McConnell Jr in Rhode Island instructed Donald Trump’s administration to restore and resume federal funding in accordance with the temporary restraining order he issued in January, which halted the administration’s freeze of congressionally approved federal funds.
The ruling appeared to be the first instance of a judge finding the Trump administration had violated a court order pausing a new policy rollout. The Trump administration on Monday said it is appealing.
Last month, the Trump administration’s office of management and budget issued a memo halting federal grants and loans while it evaluated spending to ensure it was in alignment with Trump’s agenda and policies. The administration later withdrew the memo, which caused widespread confusion.
Bar association warns White House 'cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore'
The American Bar Association has hit back at Donald Trump’s efforts to pause federal spending and dismantle agencies created by Congress, saying that the administration must adhere to the rule of law and respect court decisions.
In a statement, the bar association’s president William Bay singled out Trump’s attempt to freeze federal loans and grants that Congress had authorized, calling it “a violation of the rule of law [that] suggests that the executive branch can overrule the other two co-equal branches of government.”
“The money appropriated by Congress must be spent in accordance with what Congress has said. It cannot be changed or paused because a newly elected administration desires it. Our elected representatives know this. The lawyers of this country know this. It must stop,” Bay said.
He then called for elected officials and attorneys to work to ensure that the Trump administration respects the courts:
We call upon our elected representatives to stand with us and to insist upon adherence to the rule of law and the legal processes and procedures that ensure orderly change. The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore. These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent. We must stand up for the values we hold dear.
Amid court losses, Trump administration talk of ignoring rulings fuels fears of constitutional crisis
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump’s efforts to upend the federal government have been given a dim reception by judges nationwide, who in recent days handed down rulings blocking his attempt to curtail birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants, allow Elon Musk and his cohort access to the Treasury’s payment systems, coax government workers to resign en masse and freeze federal funding, among others. But as the decisions have come down talk among Trump administration officials of ignoring decisions they disagree with has increased. JD Vance was the most prominent of those who have floated these ideas, musing over the weekend that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Such statements have sparked worries among Democrats and legal scholars that the Trump administration will create a constitutional crisis by defying the courts. You can expect to hear plenty more about that today, as the president’s campaign, and the legal battle it has created, continues.
Here’s what else we are watching for:
Trump will host King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House beginning at 11.30am, then sign unspecified executive orders at 3pm. Yesterday’s orders included new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and regulations to hold off on enforcing an anti-bribery law.
Today may be the day that House Republicans release details of their big bill that is expected to cut taxes and government spending and pay for Trump administration priorities such as mass deportations. Mike Johnson and his team have a press conference scheduled for 10am.
Hamas said they are holding off on the release of future Israeli hostages over breaches of the ceasefire deal, prompting Trump to say “let hell break out” if more aren’t freed by Saturday. We have a separate live blog covering the crisis in the Middle East, and you can read it here.
