Bill Clinton

Nov. 5 (UPI) — A federal district judge on Wednesday ordered authorities to improve conditions inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near Chicago.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, calling the conditions “unnecessarily cruel,” acted on a class action lawsuit Wednesday after hearing several hours of testimony from five people detained at the Broadview immigration detention site west of Chicago.

“People shouldn’t be sleeping next to overflowing toilets,” Gettleman, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, said. “They should not be sleeping on top of each other.”

The four-page order also mandates detainees to be able to contact their attorneys. The order on the class action lawsuit will run from Nov. 19, when he will have another hearing though the Trump administration was told to give him a status by Friday on complying with the order.

“The court finds that plaintiffs and members of the punitive class have suffered, and are likely to suffer, irreparable harm absent the temporary relief granted herein, that they are likely to prevail on the merits of the claims, that the balance of the equities tips in their favor,” he said.

They also must be provided with a shower at least every other day; clean toilet facilities; three full meals per day; a bottle of water with each meal; adequate supplies of soap, toilet paper, and other hygiene products; and menstrual products and prescribed medications.

Holding cells also must be cleaned at least twice a day.

Regarding legal defense, detainees must have free and private phone calls with their attorneys and a list of pro bono attorneys in English and Spanish.

And they must be listed in ICE’s online detainee locator system as soon as they arrive at the Broadview facility.

The judge heard several hours of testimony about conditions at the building, which is intended to hold detainees for a few hours.

They described the inadequate food, sleeping conditions, medical care and bathrooms near where they slept. They said they slept on the floor or on plastic chairs.

The lawsuit claimed the facility “cut off detainees from the outside world,” which the government has denied.

The judge didn’t act on the plaintiff’s request to limit how many people would be kept in holding cells and limit them to not more than 12 hours if the changes aren’t enacted.

The U.S. government said the restrictions would “halt the government’s ability to enforce immigration law in Illinois.”

Oct. 18 (UPI) — Senate Democrats and Republicans are not budging on their demands to temporarily fund the federal government and end the shutdown as key dates approach.

The shutdown is the federal government’s third-longest and entered its 18th day on Saturday after the Senate failed to approve a temporary funding measure for the 10th time on Thursday and adjourned for the weekend.

More votes are expected to be held next week, but if the Senate stalemate continues, active federal workers won’t receive their full paychecks on Friday for the first time during the current shutdown, according to The Hill.

Those federal workers who are still on the job also received only partial pay on Oct. 10, which affected an estimated 2 million employees and their families.

Federal workers are guaranteed back pay when the shutdown eventually ends and the government is funded, in accordance with a 2019 federal law.

While active federal workers could miss their first full paychecks on Friday, military personnel are slated to be paid a week later on Oct. 31.

President Donald Trump earlier announced his administration has located $8 billion in unused research-and-development allocations from the 2025 fiscal year that ended on Sept 30.

He used that money to pay 1.2 million military personnel on Wednesday, but several congressional lawmakers question the legality of doing so.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., intends to hold a vote to pay military personnel and other “excepted” federal workers.

“We’re going to give [senators] a chance to pay the military next week,” Thune told media.

Senate staffers also are slated to be paid on Monday and House staffers on Oct. 31, but the funds are not available.

Another pressing issue is the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment period starting on Nov. 1.

A House-approved continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21 does not include an extension of ACA tax credits, which expire at the end of the year.

The 18-day shutdown will last at least into Monday and only has been surpassed by a 21-day shutdown from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, and a 35-day shutdown that started on Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted until Jan. 25, 2019.

Senate Democrats mostly have refused to approve the continuing resolution and instead offered an alternative funding measure that would fund the federal government through Oct. 31 and would include an extension of the ACA tax credits and Medicaid eligibility.

Senate Republicans mostly prefer to negotiate such things in the 2026 fiscal year budget, though.

Another pressing date is Nov. 21, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel weekends in the United States.

If the shutdown extends into the Thanksgiving weekend, a shortage of air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers would greatly affect air travel.

The president has cited the shutdown when laying off federal workers, but U.S. District of Northern California Judge Susan Illston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from continuing to lay off federal workers who are represented by two public sector unions.

On Friday, Illston said she might expand the injunction to include members of three more labor unions, Roll Call reported.

Former President Bill Clinton appointed Illston to the federal bench in 1995.

Oct. 15 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to halt firings of workers amid the shutdown, according to two labor unions that brought the lawsuit against the federal government.

The Trump administration on Friday announced that it has begun laying off 4,100 federal workers as the federal purse has run dry with Congress since Oct. 1, failing to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open.

On Sept. 30, ahead of the shutdown and amid Trump administration threats to institute mass firings if the government shuttered, the American Federation of Government Employees, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the layoffs.

Then on Oct. 4, the union filed a motion for a temporary restraining order.

On Wednesday, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the unions, issuing the temporary restraining order they sought, stating that the reduction-in-force notices issued to the more than 4,000 federal employees were likely illegal, exceeded the Trump administration’s authority and were capricious.

In her order, the appointee of President Bill Clinton described Trump’s mass firings amid a government shutdown as “unprecedented.”

Illston outlined how some employees could not even find out if they had been fired because the notices were sent to government email accounts, which they may not have access to because of the shutdown.

Those who do receive the notices are then unable to prepare for their terminations because human resources staff have been furloughed, she said, adding that in one case at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human resources staff were brought back into the office to issue the layoff notices only to then be directed to lay themselves off.

She then said, citing a social media post from the president on the second day of the shutdown, saying he had a meeting with Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, to determine which of the many “Democrat Agencies” to cut that Trump intended to make the cut as retribution over the Democrats opposing the funding measure.

“It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party,” Illston wrote. “But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing.”

Illston gave the administration two days to provide the court with more information on the issued notices.

“This decision affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out,” Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, said in a statement.

“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy.”

As the order was issued, Vought said that he expects thousands of federal workers to be fired in the coming days.

“Much of the reporting has been based on kind of court snapshots, which they have articulated as in the 4,000 number of people,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast. “But that’s just a snapshot, and I think it’ll get much higher. And we’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout the shutdown.”

Democrats said they will only support a stopgap bill that extends and restores Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, arguing that failing to do so would raise healthcare costs for some 20 million Americans.

Republicans — who control the House, Senate and the presidency — are seeking a so-called clean funding bill that includes no changes. They argue that the Democrats are fighting to provide undocumented migrants with taxpayer-funded healthcare, even though federal law does not permit them to receive Medicaid or ACA premium tax credits.

The parties continue to trade blame for the shutdown as it extends for more than two weeks, with some 750,000 federal workers furloughed.

Oct. 15 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to halt firings of workers amid the shutdown, according to two labor unions that brought the lawsuit against the federal government.

The Trump administration on Friday announced that it has begun laying off 4,100 federal workers as the federal purse has run dry with Congress since Oct. 1, failing to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open.

On Sept. 30, ahead of the shutdown and amid Trump administration threats to institute mass firings if the government shuttered, the American Federation of Government Employees, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the layoffs.

Then on Oct. 4, the union filed a motion for a temporary restraining order.

On Wednesday, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the unions, issuing the temporary restraining order they sought, stating that the reduction-in-force notices issued to the more than 4,000 federal employees were likely illegal, exceeded the Trump administration’s authority and were capricious.

In her scathing rebuke of the Trump administration, the appointee of President Bill Clinton described Trump’s mass firings amid a government shutdown as “unprecedented.”

In her order, she outlined how some employees could not even find out if they had been fired because the notices were sent to government email accounts, which they may not have access to because of the shutdown.

Those who do receive the notices are then unable to prepare for their terminations because human resources staff have been furloughed, she said, adding that in one case at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human resources staff were brought back into the office to issue the layoff notices only to then be directed to lay themselves off.

She then chastised the Trump administration for carrying out the layoffs to punish the Democratic Party, which it blames for the shutdown.

“But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing,” she said, pointing to a social media post from the president on the second day of the shutdown saying he had a meeting with Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, to determine which of the many “Democrat Agencies” to cut.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote in the Oct. 2 post, which was quoted in full in Illston’s order.

Illston gave the administration two days to provide the court with more information on the issued notices.

“This decision affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out,” Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, said in a statement.

“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy.”

As the order was issued, Vought said that he expects thousands of federal workers to be fired in the coming days.

“Much of the reporting has been based on kind of court snapshots, which they have articulated as in the 4,000 number of people,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast. “But that’s just a snapshot, and I think it’ll get much higher. And we’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout the shutdown.”

Democrats said they will only support a stopgap bill that extends and restores Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, arguing that failing to do so would raise healthcare costs for some 20 million Americans.

Republicans — who control the House, Senate and the presidency — are seeking a so-called clean funding bill that includes no changes. They argue that the Democrats are fighting to provide undocumented migrants with taxpayer-funded healthcare, even though federal law does not permit them to receive Medicaid or ACA premium tax credits.

The parties continue to trade blame for the shutdown as it extends for more than two weeks, with some 750,000 federal workers furloughed.

Oct. 8 (UPI) — Government shutdowns are the mark of some of the most tumultuous times on Capitol Hill in the United States, grinding government operations to a halt as lawmakers reach an impasse over funding.

Last week, the U.S. government was shut down after Congress failed to pass an appropriations bill or continuing resolution to continue funding employees and programs.

Republicans and Democrats stand apart on funding for Medicaid after the Republican majority and President Donald Trump passed a plan to cut access for an estimated 15 million people.

It is the third time the government has shut down during a Trump presidency.

In the last 50 years the government has come to at least a partial shutdown 11 times. Some have lasted a day or more. Others have stretched into weeks.

The Civiletti opinions

The U.S. government has faced a number of funding gaps that did not result in government shutdowns. Between 1976 and 1979, there were six funding gaps that lasted eight days or more. Government agencies continued to function.

In 1980 and 1981, everything changed. U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti penned a series of opinions that outlined how and why a government shutdown would happen.

Charged with interpreting the Antideficiency Act, a law passed by Congress in 1870, Civiletti determined that government agencies are not allowed to spend funds without approval under congressional appropriations unless “necessary for the safety of human life or the protection of property.”

Based on this interpretation, most federal employees would be furloughed during a funding gap.

Civiletti loosened his interpretation slightly in a third opinion, stating that agencies can do what is necessary to shut down in an orderly manner.

Since Civiletti’s opinions, funding gaps have resulted in government shutdowns.

Reagan administration

The federal government had funding gaps on eight occasions during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, leading to at least some government agencies shutting down. It is the most shutdowns under a single president.

Three times during Reagan’s presidency, federal employees were furloughed.

In November 1981, the government shut down for two days after Reagan vetoed an emergency resolution put forward by Congress because he sought deeper funding cuts to domestic spending while maintaining defense spending.

The House, under a Democratic majority, sought to cut defense spending, and protect spending on social safety-net programs domestically.

On Nov. 23, 1981, Congress passed a joint resolution with broad support to make continuing appropriations. Reagan signed the bill that in effect bought time for the two sides to work out a longer term funding strategy.

In 1984, Reagan and Congress sparred over a crime bill, the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. It resulted in a two-day shutdown with about 500,000 federal workers being furloughed.

Reagan wanted the bill to impose stricter penalties and limit the efficacy of the insanity defense. Democrats sought to reverse a U.S. Supreme Court decision that peeled back Title IX protections.

Democrats also wanted to approve funding for local clean water projects, which Reagan opposed.

Democrats ultimately did not get the provisions they wanted in the final bill. Reagan meanwhile achieved his goal of installing stricter sentencing guidelines such as mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes and no-bail detentions. The bill also raised the standard for defendants to prove insanity.

The third shutdown during Reagan’s presidency lasted about two days. On Oct. 16, 1986, a continuing resolution that averted a shutdown earlier expired.

Welfare was at the center of the disagreement between House Democrats and Reagan. Democrats again attempted to protect and enhance social safety nets with an expansion of welfare access for families with dependent children.

Reagan’s vision was starkly different. He framed welfare as a tool that made people dependent on government support.

Democrats yielded on their push to expand welfare access with a promise that it would be discussed again in the future.Congress passed an omnibus spending bill after two days of a shutdown.

The debate over welfare in 1986 set the stage for the Family Support Act of 1988, a bipartisan bill that established the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program and created a new framework for child support payments, including wage withholding.

The 1990s

The first government shutdown of the 1990s was under the watch of President George H.W. Bush. The president wanted a funding bill that included a plan to reduce the federal deficit.

Democrats had a majority in the House and Senate.

On Oct. 5, 1990, government operations halted as Bush threatened to veto any bill that did not include the federal deficit plan he wanted. He vetoed such a bill the day after the shutdown began.

Two days later, the House and Senate passed a continuing resolution that was effectively the same as the bill they proposed just days earlier. Congress had the votes to sustain Bush’s veto this time, passing a bill to open the government.

The first of two shutdowns under President Bill Clinton began on Nov. 13, 1995, but the battle at the center of it caused a second shutdown to follow just weeks later.

Clinton and the Republican majority in the U.S. House, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, were apart on spending cuts. Republicans were seeking cuts to Medicare as well as agenda items Clinton favored such as public health, public education and environmental programs.

Republicans put forward a spending proposal that included the cuts Clinton opposed. Gingrich said the House would not raise the debt limit either. After five days, the shutdown ended when Congress agreed to a stopgap funding bill.

On Dec. 15, the stopgap funding expired and a long-term agreement had not been made. The longest government shutdown to that point commenced through the holiday season, lasting 21 days.

Senate-majority leader Bob Dole, Clinton’s opponent in the 1996 election, urged his side to end the standstill and both sides agreed to a compromised budget bill. The bill included tax increases and restored funding to education, health and environmental programs.

Healthcare and immigration

The Affordable Care Act has been one of the more polarizing pieces of legislation on Capitol Hill in modern history. In 2013, House Republicans attempted to undercut the law by defunding it and delaying its implementation.

The Democratic majority in the Senate rejected attempts by the Republican-led House to strip funding from the ACA on multiple occasions throughout the budget negotiation process. The deadline to pass a budget bill came and went with no resolution and a 16-day shutdown began.

On Oct. 17, Congress passed the Continuing Appropriations Act to fund the government and suspend the debt limit in 2014. The bill did not include the Republican cuts to the ACA.

The first of three shutdowns under Trump began on Jan. 20, 2018. Congress failed to pass a government funding bill due to disputes between Trump’s Republican Party and Democrats over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.

The Trump administration attempted to end the Obama-era policy, calling on Congress to replace it within six months. A federal judge thwarted Trump’s plan and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled against the president but the policy remained central to budget negotiations in the months to come.

The shutdown lasted less than three days before Congress passed a continuing resolution. A replacement for DACA was not included and the courts rejected Trump’s attempt to end the program by the time the continuing resolution expired. No protections for dreamers were included either.

Immigration remained a key issue when the government shut down again in late 2018. Trump called for funding for a border wall across the southern border to be included in the next budget bill. He demanded more than $5 billion for the project, saying the shutdown would not end until that funding was approved.

The shutdown lasted 35 days, the longest of any government shutdown in U.S. history. It began on Dec. 21, 2018 and ended on Jan. 25, 2019.

About 800,000 federal workers were furloughed during those 35 days. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it costs the United States about $11 billion in gross domestic product lost.

Trump signed a continuing resolution to open the government back up without any border wall funding included. When the continuing resolution expired, Congress approved $1.375 billion for border fencing, more than $4 billion less than what Trump demanded.

Robert Barnett, a Washington attorney who represented powerful politicians and many of the biggest stars in TV news business, died Friday after a long, unspecified illness. He was 79.

Barnett’s death in a Washington hospital was confirmed by his wife, retired CBS News correspondent Rita Braver.

A longtime partner at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, Barnett was the go-to lawyer for politicians and public officials moving into private life. He helped procure multimillion-dollar book contracts for former Presidents Obama, Clinton and George W. Bush.

Barnett was a Democratic political insider as well. He would play opposing candidates in mock debates to help prepare the presidential tickets of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in 2000, John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Hillary Clinton when she first ran for president in 2008, and Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

“I baited [Ferraro] a lot and she got so angry with me that she frequently walked over to me and slugged me on the arm,” Barnett told CNN in 2008. “So I left the process black and blue.”

Barnett was also Bill Clinton’s debate sparring partner during the 1992 presidential campaign. He also advised the Clintons when White House aide and family friend Vince Foster killed himself in 1993 and when the world learned that Bill Clinton had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Barnett’s TV news client list included former NBC News anchor Brian Williams, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, Chris Wallace, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and Jesse Watters and Peter Doocy at Fox News. He also represented his wife, whom he married in 1972.

Barnett also navigated Ann Curry’s messy exit from NBC’s “Today” in 2012.

As an attorney, Barnett was known for his ability to come up with deals tailored to the needs of his clients.

“Many of these people who come out of government have an enormous number of offers,” Barnett told the Financial Times in 2008. “The first thing we do is sit down and say: ‘What are your goals? Do you want to live here or there? You wanna make money or have fun?’”

One reason many clients gravitated to Barnett is that, unlike agents, he did not take a commission. They paid a high hourly rate for his services, not the traditional agent fees of 10% to 15% of salaries or book advances.

Barnett’s clients believed he gave them 100% regardless of their stature.

“Bob represented me in my negotiations with ABC and made me feel just as important as his more celebrated clients,” retired correspondent Judy Muller wrote on Facebook. “A really decent, smart man.”

The sentiment was shared by CBS News Executive Editor Susan Zirinsky.

“Every person who worked with Bob knew their secrets were safe,” Zirinsky said in an interview. “He was the ultimate protector.”

Barnett also drew praise from the companies that paid the lucrative contracts for his TV clients.

“His pristine integrity, wise counsel and knowledge of our business were an invaluable resource to me over the course of our 30-year relationship,” Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, said in a statement.

Barnett also represented bestselling authors James Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark.

Barnett was born in Waukegan, Ill., where his father operated the local Social Security office and his mother worked part time in a department store. He majored in political science at the University of Wisconsin and received a law degree from the University of Chicago.

He moved to Washington in the early 1970s. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White and worked as an aide to then-Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota. He joined Williams & Connolly in 1975, and was made a partner three years later.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Meredith Barnett; a sister; and three grandchildren.

From the outside looking in, Gov. Gavin Newsom unofficially announced he was running for president on Thursday, March 30, 2023, the day he transferred $10 million from his state campaign funds to launch his PAC, Campaign for Democracy, along with a nationwide tour. Newsom unofficially suspended his campaign a month later, on April 25, the day President Biden announced he was seeking reelection.

This timeline is important when it comes to talking about Kamala Harris. Newsom, like Harris, has been in the wings for years as part of the next generation of Democratic national leaders — and, like Harris, he was ready for the spotlight when Biden decided to stick around instead.

The title of Harris’ upcoming book, “107 Days,” is in reference to the amount of time she had to launch a campaign, write policy, secure the nomination and fundraise after Biden bowed out in the summer of 2024. An excerpt from the memoir titled “The Constant Battle” was published this week in the Atlantic. In it, Harris suggests some of the foes she was battling during her time in the White House were Biden loyalists who did not want to see her succeed as vice president.

It’s a rather scathing critique given the stakes of the 2024 election. The excerpt in its entirety is an uncomfortable glimpse into one of the most chaotic moments in American politics. Unsurprisingly there have already been reports of pushback from former Biden aides with one being quoted as saying: “No one wants to hear your pity party.”

Which is why it is important to remember the timeline.

In March 2020, while campaigning in Detroit, a 77-year-old Biden stood next to Harris, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and told his party that he viewed himself “as a bridge, not as anything else,” adding: “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” Recognizing his age was a concern for voters back then, the message Biden sent that day suggested he was running for only one term.

And then more than three years later, Biden changed his mind and his message. In doing so, he did not just go back on a campaign promise, he prevented the future of his party — like Newsom, Whitmer, Booker and Harris — from making a case for themselves in a normal primary.

That’s why the book is called “107 Days.” That’s how much time he gave his would-be successor to win the presidency.

Biden was a tremendous public servant whose leadership steered this nation out of a dark time. He also was conspicuously old when he ran for president and considered a short-timer. The first woman to be elected vice president didn’t decide to run for the top job at the last minute. But Biden went back on his word in 2023 and drained all the energy out of his party. It was only after the disastrous debate performance of June 2024 that the whispers inside the Beltway about his ability to win finally became screams.

“Joe was already polling badly on the age issue, with roughly 75 percent of voters saying he was too old to be an effective president,” Harris writes. “Then he started taking on water for his perceived blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza.”

That’s not slander against Biden; that’s the timeline. It may not be what some progressives want to read, but that does not mean the message or messenger is wrong.

Legend has it James Carville, key strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run, once went to a white board at the campaign’s headquarters in Arkansas and wrote three key messaging points for staffers. The catchiness and humor of one, “the economy, stupid,” elevated it above the other two: “change vs. more of the same” and “don’t forget health care.” Clinton’s victory would later cement “the economy, stupid” as one of the Democratic Party’s most enduring political quips — which is really too bad.

Because the whole point of Carville going to the white board in the first place wasn’t to come up with a memorable zinger, it was to remind staffers to stay on the course. The Democrats’ 2024 chances were endangered the day Biden changed direction by running for reelection, not when he stepped aside and Harris stood in the gap.

That’s not to suggest her campaign did everything right or Biden staying in for as long as he did was totally wrong. But there’s a lot to learn right now. Democrats are extremely unpopular. Perhaps instead of dismissing the account of the party’s most recent nominee, former Biden aides and other progressives should take in as much information as they possibly can and consider it constructive feedback.

In 2020, Biden had one message. In 2023, it was the opposite. I’m sure there are things to blame Harris for. Losing the 2024 election isn’t one of them.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

Aug. 22 (UPI) — Former Jeffrey Epstein girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell told federal investigators that she never saw President Donald Trump do anything illegal or improper.

Federal investigators recently interviewed Maxwell for two days to learn more about what she might know regarding illegal activities related to Epstein.

She dismissed claims that the files contain condemning information about Trump.

“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell told the DOJ investigators, as reported by The New York Times.

“I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” she said.

“President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me,” Maxwell said. “I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now.”

Maxwell said she likes the president and always has, while she was being interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last month in Florida.

The Justice Department released a redacted transcript and audio files of the two-day interview on Friday.

Maxwell also denied that Epstein maintained a list of powerful individuals or engaged in a blackmail campaign to obtain money or favors from them.

She said Epstein likely had no association with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Maxwell also told Blanche she does not believe Epstein committed suicide but said he was not killed to protect powerful individuals.

Epstein was a controversial financier and convicted sex offender who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and child sex abuse charges in New York City.

Other files held by the Department of Justice and related to the federal investigations of Epstein and Maxwell also were released on Friday.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors over a 10-year period.

The DOJ was to begin sending some of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation files to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday.

The committee on Aug. 5 had subpoenaed the DOJ to gain access to the investigation files, which the DOJ agreed to begin sharing on Friday after redacting the names of alleged victims and child sex abuse materials, NPR reported.

Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., anticipated receipt of hundreds of Epstein file documents on Friday and has said at least some of them eventually will be made public.

“We’re going to be transparent,” Comer told media earlier this week. “We’re doing what we said we would do. We’re getting the documents.”

Comer submitted 11 subpoenas for federal investigation files regarding Epstein and his imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, plus testimony from well-known witnesses.

The list of subpoenaed witnesses’ testimonies includes those by former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller, and former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Merrick Garland.

Committee members are to consult with the DOJ to ensure any shared files will not affect ongoing investigations and criminal cases, Forbes reported.

Although the files have not been made public yet, at least one congressional Democrat claims the Trump administration employed a distraction tactic to divert attention away from the Epstein files.

The FBI on Friday raided the home of former Trump administration National Security Adviser John Bolton for unknown reasons.

“It looks political” and “an attempt to distract from the other big news of the day, which is the first production of the Epstein files,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., told CNN on Friday, as reported by The Daily Beast.

He accused the Trump administration of wanting to “change the conversation repeatedly” and said such events will “happen every day because they don’t want people talking about the Epstein files or about their mismanagement of the economy.”

Bolton was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 and has become a vocal critic of the president.

Trump said he was not briefed on the FBI’s raid, The Guardian reported.

Aug. 19 (UPI) — Some of the Jeffrey Epstein files will be made public after the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform receives them from the Justice Department.

The committee subpoenaed the Justice Department to obtain some of the files and will redact some information to protect alleged victims and other sensitive information, a committee spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday.

The panel anticipates receiving the first batch of Epstein files on Friday, but its members do not know when they might be made public.

“The committee intends to make the records public after a thorough review to ensure all victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted,” the unnamed committee spokesperson said.

“The committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Tenn., on Monday said the DOJ is cooperating with the committee’s subpoena, which came with an Aug. 19 deadline to comply, CBS News reported.

“There are many records in the DOJ’s custody,” Comer said in a prepared statement.

“It will take the department time to produce all of the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,” he added.

The Trump administration is committed to providing transparency regarding the Epstein files to inform the public, Comer said.

The committee also subpoenaed former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and several former attorneys general and FBI directors to obtain their testimonies.

Former Attorney General William Barr testified before the committee in a closed session on Monday.

Barr was the attorney general from 2018 to 2020 during Trump’s first term and from 1991 to 1993 during former President George H.W. Bush‘s administration.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — The Department of Justice asked New York judges to unseal more evidence in the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell criminal cases, but it still wants to shield “personal identifying information.”

This is an expansion of Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s earlier request to courts to unseal five days of grand jury testimony in relation to the cases.

In July, a Florida judge refused to unseal transcripts related to a criminal case brought against Epstein for sex charges in the early 2000s. That case was resolved in a controversial plea deal that saw the billionaire financier serve about a year in prison.

The latest request is about Epstein’s 2019 criminal case in New York, which was dropped after he died by suicide in his jail cell. It also asks to unseal grand jury evidence in Maxwell’s case, which ended in her conviction and sentence of 20 years in prison.

The request to shield personal identifying information could protect others from being tied to the case.

“Any effort to redact third party names smacks of a cover up,” victim Annie Farmer said through her lawyer in an Aug. 5 letter to the court. Farmer testified for the prosecution in Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial.

“To the extent any of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s enablers and co-conspirators who have thus far evaded accountability are implicated by the grand jury transcripts, their identities should not be shielded from the public,” Farmer’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, added. She added that victims’ identifications should be redacted.

The new request comes after the judges handling the requests — Richard Berman for the Epstein case and Paul Engelmayer for the Maxwell case — told the department to specify their positions.

The department requested to have until Aug. 14 to notify everyone who’s name appears on the evidence and update the judges.

Usually, grand jury proceedings and evidence are kept secret.

Meanwhile, advocacy group Democracy Forward filed suit Fridy against the Justice Department and the FBI for records on their handling of the Epstein investigation. It wants records about senior administration officials’ communication about Epstein documents and any correspondence between Epstein and President Donald Trump.

The group says it submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the records related to communications about the case in late July that have not yet been fulfilled.

“The court should intervene urgently to ensure the public has access to the information they need about this extraordinary situation,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the group, said in a statement. The federal government often shields records on criminal investigations from public view.

Maxwell earlier this week opposed the Justice Department effort to unseal the grand jury testimony. She said it would compromise her privacy and her potential to appeal.

Also earlier this week, the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed the Department of Justice, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several others for documents and testimony about Epstein.

Aug. 2 (UPI) — Smithsonian Institution staff temporarily have removed the mention of all presidential impeachment efforts, including President Donald Trump‘s two impeachments, from an exhibit on presidential power.

The impeachment mentions were part of an exhibit called “Limits on Presidential Power,” but they have been removed while the Smithsonian renovates the exhibit, which last was updated after its last review in 2008, ABC News reported.

“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in ‘The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden’ needed to be addressed,” a Smithsonian spokesperson told ABC News.

“The section of this exhibition covers Congress, the Supreme Court, impeachment and public opinion,” the spokesperson said.

A temporary label within the exhibit had described the two impeachments against Trump and those against former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

It also discussed the pending impeachment of former President Richard Nixon, who resigned before the House of Representatives could vote on articles of impeachment against him.

The label also told visitors that the exhibit’s case is being redesigned, which it now is undergoing.

Until the exhibit is updated, the Trump impeachment mentions and all others won’t be included.

“A future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments,” the Smithsonian staff said in a statement to The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the exhibit says, “Only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”

“The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden” exhibit opened at the Smithsonian in 2000.

The exhibit displays photos of Johnson’s impeachment prosecutors in 1868, the investigative report that led to Clinton’s 1999 impeachment and a filing cabinet that was damaged during the 1972 Watergate Hotel break-in that led to Nixon resigning two years later.

An online version of the exhibit still includes information on all five impeachment efforts.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2019 due to alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress regarding its so-called Russiagate investigation.

The House voted to impeach Trump again on Jan. 13, 2021, days after the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol as the U.S. Senate counted votes to confirm former President Joe Biden‘s 2020 election win.

Both impeachment efforts failed in the Senate.

July 25 (UPI) — Ghislaine Maxwell, associate of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche Friday to answer more questions about her knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and who may have associated with him.

The two met Thursday and spoke for six hours at a federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla. Friday’s meeting is a continuation of the questioning. Blanche is a former defense attorney of President Donald Trump.

Before leaving for Scotland Friday, Trump brushed off questions about Epstein.

“I have nothing to do with the guy,” Trump said of Epstein. He socialized with Epstein for years before falling out with him in the mid-2000s.

Trump said reporters should focus on those who allegedly spent time with Epstein, such as former President Bill Clinton and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who was also once the president of Harvard.

People “don’t talk about them. They talk about me,” he complained.

“You should focus on Clinton. You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard, you should focus on some of the hedge fund guys,” CNBC reported that Trump said.

“I’ll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein, I sure as hell didn’t.”

When asked if he would pardon Maxwell, who has served five years of a 20-year sentence for finding and grooming young girls for Epstein’s abuse, Trump said, “It’s something I haven’t thought about.”

“I’m allowed to do it,” he added.

Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus said Maxwell was “hoping for another productive day.”

“Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now,” he added.

“If you looked up scapegoat in the dictionary, her face would be next to the definition next to the dictionary definition of it,” he said. “So, you know, we’re grateful for this opportunity to finally be able to say what really happened, and that’s what we’re going to do yesterday and today.”

“We just ask that folks look at what she has to say with an open mind, and that’s what Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has promised us, and everything she says can be corroborated, and she’s telling the truth,” Markus said.

“She’s got no reason to lie at this point, and she’s going to keep telling the truth.”

Markus refused to comment on the nature of the questioning.

On social media, Blanche said he would reveal what he learned from Maxwell “at the appropriate time.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that a recent review of Epstein-related documents by the Justice Department and FBI allegedly found that Trump’s name appeared several times in the files.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., during a press conference on Wednesday, said making the Epstein files public needs to be done in a way that protects the victims mentioned, some of whom are minors.

July 23 (UPI) — The U.S. House Oversight Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed Ghislaine Maxwell as a subcommittee sought subpoenas for President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and the Justice Department.

A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee also approved subpoenas to obtain Department of Justice records related to the Epstein files and deposing former President Bill Clinton and other Democrats.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., introduced the motion to subpoena the DOJ’s “full, complete [and] unredacted” Epstein files, which passed with an 8-2 vote.

Republican Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Brian Jack of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania joined Democrats in voting in favor of the subpoena motion.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said he will sign the DOJ subpoena for the Epstein files, ABC News reported.

The subcommittee also seeks former President Clinton’s and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s depositions.

Others targeted for subpoenas include James Comey, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Robert Mueller, Alberto Gonzales and Jeff Sessions.

House speaker questions Maxwell’s credibility

The Oversight Committee wants to depose Maxwell on Aug. 11 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Fla.

Maxwell, 63, was an associate of former financier and convicted sex offender Epstein, who killed himself while jailed in New York City and awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges that included minors in 2019.

She also is the daughter of former British media mogul Robert Maxwell and is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Florida after a jury found her guilty of sex trafficking in 2021.

“The facts and circumstances surrounding both your and Mr. Epstein’s cases have received immense public interest and scrutiny,” Comer said in the subpoena.

Comer said the Justice Department also is undertaking “efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to your and Mr. Epstein’s cases.”

“It is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally,” he added, “and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of you and Mr. Epstein.”

Comer submitted the subpoena a day after a House Oversight subcommittee approved a motion that directed him to seek Maxwell’s testimony before the Oversight Committee.

The Justice Department on Tuesday also announced it will interview Maxwell soon to provide greater transparency in the case against Epstein.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday questioned the credibility of Maxwell’s testimony.

“Could she be counted on to tell the truth?” Johnson asked reporters. “Is she a credible witness?”

He called Maxwell “a person who’s been sentenced to many, many years in prison for terrible, unspeakable conspiratorial acts and acts against innocent young people.”

Federal judge denies Epstein grand jury files access

A federal judge on Wednesday denied one of three DOJ requests to release grand jury records from Epstein’s case there.

U.S. District of Southern Florida Judge Robin Rosenberg refused to unseal the grand jury testimony and records from cases against Epstein in 2005 and 2007.

Rosenberg said the Justice Department did not sufficiently outline arguments to unseal the court records.

She also denied a request to transfer the matter to the U.S. District Court for Southern New York.

Two federal judges there similarly are considering DOJ motions to unseal grand jury files from the former Epstein cases.

Bondi said Trump’s name is in the files

While those rulings are pending, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump his name appears in the Epstein files, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Bondi did not state the context in which Trump is mentioned, and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Trump did not engage in any wrongdoing.

Instead, Trump expelled Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club because the president thought Epstein was a “creep,” Cheung added.

Bondi earlier suggested she would release files related to the Epstein case, but recently said they don’t contain anything noteworthy.

Her announcement regarding the files triggered controversy, including among Republican congressional members.

Johnson canceled Thursday’s House session and said the chamber will recess until Sept. 2.

July 6 (UPI) — The 14th Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism, marked his 90th birthday Sunday with a celebration attended by thousands in the city of Dharamshala in India. The event included politically charged remarks subtly referencing China from U.S. and foreign officials.

The website for the Dalai Lama said in a statement that the celebration was organized by the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile, formed after the Dalai Lama fled the 1959 failed uprising against Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama did not lead the uprising, but rumors of Chinese plans to kidnap him fueled the resistance, and he was forced to flee to India for his safety — where he established the CTA. Tibet remains tightly controlled by Beijing despite its classification as an “autonomous region,” as does the majority of the population following Tibetan Buddhism.

Since his exile in 1959, the Dalai Lama’s relationship with China has been marked by decades of tension as Beijing condemned him as a separatist while he advocates for Tibetan autonomy through nonviolence and dialogue.

Last week, the aging Dalai Lama signaled that China should refrain from interfering in the process for his succession, while China has increasingly begun to warn off what it views as interference by India and reinforce its position that the succession of the spiritual leader should be held in accordance with Chinese law.

Bethany Nelson, Deputy Secretary of State for India and Bhutan, read a statement on behalf of Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the birthday festivities.

“The United States remains firmly committed to promoting respect for the human rights and the fundamental freedoms of the Tibetan people,” Nelson said. “We respect efforts to preserve their distinct linguistic, cultural and religious heritage, including their ability to freely choose and venerate their religious leaders without interference.”

Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama also delivered video messages that were shown during the celebrations, praising the Nobel Laureate as a voice for peace. The CTA particularly noted that Lai Ching-te, the president of Taiwan, which China views as a wayward province, had extended birthday wishes to the Dalai Lama.

The birthday celebration also comes days after the administration of President Donald Trump decided to walk back cuts to aid for Tibetans in exile. Penpa Tsering, the Sikyong or, political leader, of the CTA, addressed the cancellation of those cuts in a statement from the celebrations.

He mentioned that a “substantial delegation” from the U.S. State Department and staff from the U.S. Embassy in Delhi worked diligently with the CTA to restore some of the funds.

July 3 (UPI) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the family of the man accused of attacking a group of Jewish demonstrators in Colorado last month, ruling that despite confusion caused by the Trump administration, they are receiving their full rights under immigration law and their deportation proceedings are not being expedited.

Hayam El Gamal and her five children were detained by federal immigration agents on June 3, days after her husband, 45-year-old Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, allegedly wounded more than a dozen people attending a weekly Boulder, Colo., event in support of Jewish hostages held by Hamas using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails.

One of the wounded, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, died of her injuries, prosecutors announced Monday.

The family has been fighting deportation since their detention, believing their removal process was being expedited, which is not permitted under the Immigration and Nationality Act, as they have been in the country for more than two years.

They received temporary restraining orders preventing their removal as the judge reviewed the case.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia dismissed their lawsuit without prejudice, finding that despite the confusion over whether their deportation was being expedited, they were, in fact, placed into ordinary removal proceedings and would appear before an immigration judge where they could seek protection from removal.

“Accordingly, to the extent that petitioners seek to enjoin their removal on an expedited basis, this request is moot,” Garcia said in her ruling. “And to the extent that petitioners seek to enjoin their being subjected to ordinary, or ‘full,’ removal proceedings, such relief is not available to them.”

The confusion over their removal proceedings arose from Trump administration statements published the day they were detained.

The White House posted a statement to X claiming that “six one-way tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and five kids” had been arranged and that “final boarding call coming soon.” The tweet ended with an emoji of an airplane.

A second tweet from the White House said “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT.”

The statements prompted the family to file a lawsuit seeking to halt their expedited removal.

Garcia highlighted the confusion caused by the White House messaging in her ruling, but said the government has since clarified that this is not the case.

“The court hastens to remind petitioners that they still have an avenue for seeking their release from detention while their removal proceedings continue,” said Garcia, a President Bill Clinton appointee.

The Department of Homeland Security celebrated the ruling without acknowledging the confusion caused by the White House’s messaging.

“This is a proper end to an absurd legal effort on the plaintiff’s part,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin at the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE custody for removal as a result.”

DHS has previously argued that the Soliman family is in the United States illegally.

According to an earlier statement from DHS, Soliman, his wife and their five children first came to the United States on Aug. 27, 2022, and filed for asylum about a month later. They were granted entry until Feb. 26, 2023, and had apparently overstayed their visas since.

Soliman has pleaded not guilty to 12 federal hate crime counts.

As president, Ronald Reagan spoke movingly of the shock and horror he felt as part of a military film crew documenting firsthand the atrocities of the Nazi death camps.

The story wasn’t true.

Years later, an adamant, finger-wagging Bill Clinton looked straight into a live TV camera and told the American people he never had sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

He was lying.

Presidents of all stripes and both major political parties have bent, massaged or shaded the truth, elided uncomfortable facts or otherwise misled the public — unwittingly or, sometimes, very purposefully.

Trump and Congress may make it easier to get drugs approved — even if they don’t work »

“It’s not surprising,” said Charles Lewis, a journalism professor at American University who wrote a book chronicling presidential deceptions. “It’s as old as time itself.”

But White House scholars and other students of government agree there has never been a president like Donald Trump, whose volume of falsehoods, misstatements and serial exaggerations — on matters large and wincingly small — place him “in a class by himself,” as Texas A&M’s George Edwards put it.

“He is by far the most mendacious president in American history,” said Edwards, a political scientist who edits the scholarly journal Presidential Studies Quarterly. (His assessment takes in the whole of Trump’s hyperbolic history, as the former real estate developer and reality TV personality has only been in office since Jan. 20.)

Edwards then amended his assertion.

“I say ‘mendacious,’ which implies that he’s knowingly lying. That may be unfair,” Edwards said. “He tells more untruths than any president in American history.”

The caveat underscores the fraught use of the L-word, requiring, as it does, the certainty that someone is consciously presenting something as true that they know to be false. While there may be plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest a person is lying, short of crawling inside their head it is difficult to say with absolutely certainty.

When Trump incessantly talks of rampant voter fraud, boasts about the size of his inaugural audience or claims to have seen thousands of people on rooftops in New Jersey celebrating the Sept. 11 attacks, all are demonstrably false. “But who can say if he actually believes it,” asked Lewis, “or whether he’s gotten the information from some less-than-reliable news site?”

Reagan, who is now among the most beloved of former presidents, was famous for embroidering the truth, especially in the homespun anecdotes he loved to share.

In the case of the Nazi death camps, there was some basis for his claim to be an eyewitness to history: Serving stateside in Culver City during World War II, Reagan was among those who processed raw footage from the camps. In the sympathetic telling, the barbarity struck so deeply that Reagan years later assumed he had been present for the liberation.

Even when he admitted wrongdoing in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, which cast a dark stain on his administration, Reagan did so in a way that suggested he never meant to deceive.

“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages,” Reagan said in a prime-time address from the Oval Office. “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

Clinton, who famously parsed and tweezed the English language with surgical precision, offered a straight-up confession when admitting he lied about his extramarital affair with Lewinsky, which helped lead to his impeachment.

“I misled people, including even my wife,” Clinton said, a slight quaver in his voice as he delivered a nationwide address. “I deeply regret that.”

President Obama took his turn apologizing for promising “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it” under the Affordable Care Act; millions of Americans found that not to be true, and PolitiFact, the nonpartisan truth-squad organization, bestowed the dubious 2013 “Lie of the Year” honor for Obama’s repeated falsehood.

“We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place,” Obama said in an NBC interview. “I am sorry that so many are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”

Speaking at CIA headquarters, President Trump falsely accused the media of creating a feud between himself and the intelligence community.

(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

Trump, by contrast, has steadfastly refused to back down, much less apologize, for his copious misstatements. Rather, he typically repeats his claims, often more strenuously, and lashes out at those who point out contrary evidence.

“There’s a degree of shamelessness I’ve never seen before,” said Lewis, the American University professor, echoing a consensus among other presidential scholars. “There’s not a whole lot of contrition there.”

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, has suggested Trump is unfairly being held to a more skeptical standard by a hostile press corps. “I’ve never seen it like this,” he said at one of his earliest briefings. “The default narrative is always negative, and it’s demoralizing.”

Gil Troy, a historian at Montreal’s McGill University, agreed the relationship between the president and those taking down his words has changed from the days when a new occupant of the White House enjoyed a more lenient standard — at least at the start of an administration — which allowed for the benefit of the doubt.

That, Troy said, is both Trump’s fault — “he brings a shamelessness and blatancy” to his prevarications that is without precedent — and the result of a press corps “that feels much more emboldened, much more bruised, much angrier” after the antagonism of his presidential campaign.

Since taking office, there has been no less hostility from on high; rather, echoing his pugnacious political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, Trump has declared the media to be the “opposition party.”

“We’re watching the birth pangs of a new press corps and a new series of protocols for covering the president,” Troy said.

It is sure to be painful all around.

[email protected]

@markzbarabak

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June 13 (UPI) — The California National Guard will remain on the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Friday after an appeals court put an order from a federal judge to remove the soldiers on hold only hours after it was decreed.

The fifth night of a curfew in one square mile of downtown Los Angeles began Friday night. Mayor Karen Bass first imposed the curfew for most people beginning Tuesday night after protests against immigration enforcement operations became violent, including property damage.

President Donald Trump federalized thousands of National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom filed suit against the order, saying it was illegal.

“The court has received the government’s emergency motion for stay pending appeal,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote late Thursday after the Trump administration requested a delay.

“The request for an administrative stay is granted,” the circuit judges continued in a single-page, six-sentence order that stops a temporary restraining order that had President Donald Trump relinquishing control of the state’s National Guard away from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump posted to his Truth Social account Friday: “The appeals court ruled last night that I can use the National Guard to keep our cities, in this case Los Angeles, safe. If I didn’t send the military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now. We saved L.A. Thank you for the decision!!!”

Trump had been stopped, albeit briefly, from the deployment of those troops in the state’s largest city other than protecting federal buildings.

Newsom had filed suit against Trump, who federalized 4,000 members of the Guard and sent them to Los Angeles to stand against demonstrators protesting raids by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents that began last week.

Newsom, the rightful commander-in-chief of the California National Guard when it is under state control, was not informed or involved with Trump’s action, and filed that suit to strike it down.

U,S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled on the initial filing Thursday, and issued a temporary restraining order that stated Trump’s deployment of the Guard to police the city’s streets likely violated the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which bars federal overreach.

“It is well-established that the police power is one of the quintessential powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment,” Breyer wrote in his ruling.

Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, further added that the “citizens of Los Angeles face a greater harm from the continued unlawful militarization of their city, which not only inflames tensions with protesters, threatening increased hostilities and loss of life, but deprives the state for two months of its own use of thousands of National Guard members to fight fires, combat the fentanyl trade and perform other critical functions.”

The Trump administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which put a hold on Breyer’s order until at least Tuesday at noon, and allows the White House to keep the Guard on active patrol in Los Angeles.

Newsom has not publicly commented as of yet on the Ninth Circuit’s stay of Breyer’s order, but California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office issued a statement that called the administrative stay “unnecessary and unwarranted in light of the district court’s extensive reasoning.”

After the district judge’s decision, Newsom posted on X: “The court has ruled. @RealDonaldTrump you must relinquish your authority of the National Guard back to me and back to California.”

June 11 (UPI) — The second night of curfew took place in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, as local law enforcement, backed by several thousand members of the National Guard, attempted to restrain violent protests and prevent vandalism.

Meanwhile, a group of protesters were in a standoff with law enforcement officers outside a federal courthouse in Santa Ana, about 32 miles south of Los Angeles, in Orange County. Military-style vehicles and National Guards troops blocked a portion of a street in front of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse and in front of a federal building a couple blocks away.

And protests also are occurring in other major U.S. cities,, including New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The downtown Los Angeles curfew will remain in effect between 8 a.m. and 6 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Division. Ramps onto and off the 101 freeway also will continue to be closed, police said.

The curfew zone covers about 1 square mile and affects about 100,000 of Los Angeles’ 10 million residents.

Limited exceptions include law enforcement, emergency and medical personnel, residents, people traveling to and from work and credentialed news media representatives.

The White House confirmed Wednesday that 330 people were taken into custody by federal authorities since immigration sweeps by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began last week in Los Angeles.

Mayor Karen Bass said the number of people arrested from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning was “minor.”

About 225 were made, including 203 for failure to disperse. One person was arrested after an assault of a police officer with a weapon.

“If there are raids that continue, if there are soldiers marching up and down our street, I would imagine that the curfew will continue,” the mayor said.

During a news conference, Bass said she is trying to set up a call with President Donald Trump for him “to understand the significance of what is happening here.”

Court case

The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to reject California’s emergency court order request to limit how federal officials can use Marines and members of the state’s National Guard in and around Los Angeles.

The Guardsmen “are not performing law enforcement or any other functions,” Army Maj. General Niave F. Knell said in a declaration submitted to federal court Wednesday.

Justice Department lawyers responded to San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Wednesday seeking briefs.

The 32-page filing notes that it is entirely within Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief, and is not reviewable by the court.

Federal law generally bars the military from enforcing domestic laws, but Trump invoked a provision to protect federal property and personnel when there is a “rebellion” or “danger of rebellion.”

The brief suggests that Gov. Gavin Newsom broke the law by failing to pass on Trump’s order to activate the guard. They said he might be “unwilling” to put a stop to the violence.

The judge, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, initially rejected an immediate order and has scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

“The federal government is now turning the military against American citizens,” Newsom said in a news release Tuesday announcing the lawsuit. “Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy.

“Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President. We ask the court to immediately block these unlawful actions.”

The attempted order was filed as part of the governor’s lawsuit against Trump, Hegseth and the Department of Defense, “charging violations of the U.S. Constitution and the President’s Title 10 authority, not only because the takeover occurred without the consent or input of the Governor, as federal law requires, but also because it was unwarranted.”

According to the lawsuit: “ICE officers took actions that inflamed tensions — including the arrest and detainment of children, community advocates, and people without criminal history — and conducted military-style operations that sparked panic in the community.”

Community members then began protesting to express opposition to “these violent tactics, arrests of innocent people, and the President’s heavy-handed immigration agenda.”

Protests continued for two more days, “and although some violent and illegal incidents were reported — leading to justified arrests by state and local authorities — these protests were largely nonviolent and involved citizens exercising their First Amendment right to protest. The protests did not necessitate federal intervention, and local and state law enforcement have been able to control of the situation, as in other recent instances of unrest.

Federal response

Approximately 2,000 Guardsmen from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team are helping protect ICE Officers, Customs and Border Protection Officers and FBI Special Agents. Another 2,000 have been called up.

Army Maj. Gen. Scott M. Sherman, who is overseeing the National Guard, said about 500 of the National Guard troops have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations.

National Guard troops have temporarily detained civilians in the Los Angeles protests, but they quickly were turned them over to law enforcement, Sherman said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration “is not scared to go further” in expanding its legal authority to deploy troops in the city.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also has deployed 700 Marines near Los Angeles. Sherman said the Marines are still training outside Los Angeles.

“Marines get a two-day set training for civil unrest, very extensive. It’s all about civil disturbance and how to control crowds and protection of facilities,” Sherman said during a news briefing Wednesday.

Hegseth told senators at a hearing Wednesday that Trump’s order to federalize the National Guard in California could be applied in other states.

“Thankfully, in most of those states, you’d have a governor that recognizes the need for it, supports it and mobilizes it, him or herself,” he said. “In California, unfortunately, the governor wants to play politics with it.”

Trump said in an interview with the New York Post’s Pod Force One, said: “I’m able to do things now that I wouldn’t have been able to do because the previous president and presidency was so bad that anybody looks good.

“As an example, I can be stronger on an attack on Los Angeles,” Trump said. “I think bringing in the National Guard four years ago, or eight years ago, would have been more difficult.”

Newsom on Wednesday said: “President Trump has unnecessarily redirected 4,800 activated guards and Marines to Los Angeles – that’s more soldiers than are currently stationed in Iraq and Syria combined.”

Situation on the streets

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said his agency is investigating whether there’s “conspiracy” or organization behind crimes committed during protests.

“There is some evidence we’ve seen that I don’t want to share at this time,” Luna said at a Wednesday news conference with Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.

He said authorities are focused on arresting individuals in causing unrest at the protests.

Hochman said his office will review additional criminal cases brought by law enforcement in addition to the five he announced Wednesday.

Two people were charged with assault on a peace officer after they allegedly drove motorcycles into a line of officers. One officer was hurt and several others were knocked down, Hochman said.

“For any individual who is engaged in criminal conduct but did not get immediately arrested, let me provide some bad news for you,” Hochman warned. “There is a tremendous amount of video out there through social media, and otherwise. We will know who you are, who engaged in this conduct. We will track you down, we will arrest you, we will prosecute you, and we will punish you. So for people who’ve already engaged in this, in this illegal activity, we’re coming for you.”

Leticia Rhi Buckley, who lives and works just under a mile from the Los Angeles Federal Building, told CNN that the Trump administration’s narrative that Los Angeles is under siege is false. She said the vast majority of what she’s witnessed has been peaceful.

“I live less than a mile from here. I drive home and about five blocks down, there’s nothing. It’s like nothing is happening,” she said. “Living in downtown for 15 years, it’s gotten louder when the Dodgers won the World Series, or when the Lakers won.”

Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, said “the portrayal is that all of our cities are in chaos. Rioting is happening everywhere, and it is a lie,” she said, adding it is not an insurrection as Trump suggests.

“Given that I was there on January 6th and saw that insurrection take place, the idea that this, what is happening here is an insurrection is just false and I think it is deliberately false,” Bass, appearing with 30 other mayors in the region, said. “I don’t think they’re confused.”

Bill Essayli, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said authorities are collecting video, photos and body camera footage to identify anyone who committed acts of violence.

ICE agents conducted raids Wednesday morning in Downey, Calif., Councilman Mario Trijulli said. The city of more than 110,000 people located south of Los Angeles.

Fearful immigrants

Nannies are worried they could be profiled and detained by ICE agents while working, one of them told CNN.

“I’m a citizen of the United States, but my color, my skin color, makes me wonder…will they see me different?” Elsy Melara said. “I’m honestly not afraid to the point myself, but I’m afraid that if they don’t believe me, or if they choose not to believe me, what would happen to the kid?”

She said she knows two nannies are in ICE detention after they were handcuffed in a public park.

LA’s garment industry is on edge.

Federal agents were seen going into the manufacturer Ambience Apparel in Downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

“We’re hearing from our membership about a lot of fear and stress. People’s mental health is really being impacted,” Bo Metz, founder of LA-based manufacturer Bomme Studio, told Vogue Business. “People are afraid to leave their homes. Some people are opting to not go to work and others have no choice. We also need to continue to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. Workers are really feeling that pressure right now.”

More than one-third of the more than 300,000 workers producing clothing and shoes in the U.S. are immigrants, according to an analysis by Fwd.us, an immigration reform organization. That includes an estimated 30,000 undocumented.

June 10 (UPI) — Elon Musk‘s work in the government has ended after five months and former White House staff have serious doubts about the Department of Government Efficiency self-reported results.

To date, DOGE claims that it has saved the government about $180 billion by slashing the federal workforce, ending contracts, selling assets and cutting grant programs. However, its so-called “Wall of Receipts” is filled with questionable or inaccurate entries, according to Elaine Karmarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Karmarck led President Bill Clinton‘s Reinventing Government Initiative, a program that cut 426,000 civil servants from the federal payroll and cut federal and agency regulations.

There are three metrics Karmarck told UPI she uses to measure how effective DOGE is. Some of those metrics will not be available until the next administration takes office on Jan. 20, 2029.

The first metric is whether there are fewer people working in the federal government at the end of President Donald Trump‘s term. There are about 2.2 million federal employees, a number that — despite narratives claiming the government continues to grow — has been consistent for decades.

In the 1940s, there were as many as 3 million federal employees. In the 1950s, there were about 2.5 million. In the 1980s, the number of federal employees increased back to about 3 million. It has remained between 2 and 3 million since.

Federal judges have ruled that some federal employees DOGE advised to be fired must be rehired. Musk also said that it has made mistakes in some layoffs, including laying off employees with the National Nuclear Safety Administration who are responsible for the safekeeping of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

The second metric is whether there are fewer government contracts and fewer dollars spent on those contracts.

DOGE lists more than 11,000 contract terminations totaling $34 billion in savings. It says more than 15,000 grants have been terminated resulting in about $44 billion in savings.

Third is the government’s performance as measured by economic markers such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ unemployment reports as well as people’s own experiences receiving government services.

“That’s a biggie. In other words, you can cut the government but if you have airplanes crashing and you have massive mix ups in Social Security checks, nobody is going to be applauding you for this,” Karmarck said.

DOGE’s goal has been to cut about $2 trillion in federal spending.

UPI reached out to the White House Press Office and Tesla’s press office for interviews or comments. Neither responded to the requests.

About a quarter of the government’s budget is discretionary spending, meaning spending that is subject to appropriations by Congress. It amounts to less than $2 trillion. In fiscal year 2024, discretionary outlays totaled about $1.8 trillion.

The rest of the budget is mandatory spending, also known as direct spending. This funding goes toward programs like Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits and other programs.

Jenny Mattingly, vice president of government affairs for Partnership for Public Service, told UPI it would be difficult to reach DOGE’s goal without cutting into mandatory spending.

“Most of the U.S. budget is this mandatory, non-discretionary spending,” Mattingly told UPI. “Just a small portion, comparatively, goes to the federal workforce.”

While the number of federal employees has remained relatively consistent, Mattingly notes that there are fewer federal employees per capita as the population has grown.

“When you look at the U.S. population, that’s exploded,” she said. “So we actually have fewer federal employees per capita than in the past and they’re doing an enormously greater magnitude and scope of work than the federal government did, say 30, 40, 100 years ago. What Congress and administrations have authorized the government to do is far greater and far more complex than it was.”

Measuring DOGE’s progress five months in remains a challenge. The most recent date that DOGE updated its payment statistics or “receipts” was May 13. At that time, less than half of those receipts were itemized.

The most cost savings, indicated by DOGE’s “Agency Efficiency Leaderboard,” have come from the Department of Health and Human Services, followed by the General Services Administration, the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management.

“The list they put on the DOGE website turns out to be about 40% inaccurate,” Karmarck told UPI. “We can’t take their word for it. They were very sloppy. They made no effort at transparency other than a website which just has a list of things.”

An example of the inaccuracies shared by Karmarck is that DOGE has taken credit for ending contracts that ended before Trump was inaugurated.

Faith Williams, director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program for Project on Government Oversight, agrees that DOGE’s website cannot be trusted based on its inaccuracies and a lack of transparency.

Inaccuracies have been brought to DOGE’s attention on social media and it has made some corrections, though questions remain about its transparency.

“Transparency has been an issue since day one,” Williams told UPI. “This is an example of where DOGE has the power of a cabinet-level agency when it wants to but doesn’t have to recordkeep when it doesn’t want to. DOGE gets to be whatever is convenient in the moment.”

Musk’s initial role — as stated by him and Trump — was to lead DOGE in an effort to tackle waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government for the purpose of making it run more efficiently. The White House later downplayed his direct role with DOGE, referring to him as an adviser to the president.

The murkiness of Musk’s true role in DOGE underlines why Williams has concerns about its structure, mission and lack of transparency. She has been investigating the office since it began, looking into its structure, who works for DOGE and its potential conflicts of interest.

“One thing we learned fairly early on DOGE, its structure was very questionable. It was very opaque and it was opaque by design,” Williams said. “That opacity really helped shield it and its actors and its actions from any kind of accountability, whether that’s from members of the public or even congressional accountability or even in the courts.”

“Who led DOGE and worked at DOGE was one thing one day and a different thing on a different day depending on what was advantageous,” she continued.

Project on Government Oversight filed a lawsuit against DOGE over its lack of recordkeeping made available to the public and accessing sensitive records. DOGE faces lawsuits from other organizations related to its alleged lack of compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.

In March, U.S. District Court Judge Casey Cooper ruled that DOGE’s records are likely subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This was in response to a lawsuit by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

There are several more lawsuits against DOGE related to its handling of data, compliance with FOIA and methods of cutting federal workers.

In contrast, Karmarck’s Reinventing Government Initiative did not face any litigation.

“The reason we had no lawsuits is we followed the law,” she said. “We passed a buyout bill so we had the congressional authority for buying people out. We simply followed the law.”

Instead of recommending Congress take actions like laying off federal employees or rescinding funds it has approved, DOGE has taken unilateral actions resulting in lawsuits. Funding approved by Congress requires congressional action to end.

DOGE is not a congressionally approved agency, as a president cannot unilaterally create a new agency. He can create a new office, as past presidents have done. The authority of that office to take actions is limited, making it closer to an adviser than a federal agency.

Accessing federal data systems and making changes is among the actions DOGE has taken that have raised the greatest concerns.

Beth Noveck was the founding director of the White House’s Open Government Initiative, a program started under President Barack Obama‘s administration that focused on using technology and data to modernize and improve government operations. She is currently the director of the Governance Lab and its MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance at New York University.

Noveck told UPI oversight on DOGE is past overdue, due to reports of the data it has accessed or attempted to access, including Medicare and Medicaid payment data, Social Security records, student loan data and the Office of Personnel Management systems.

“Who has access and how it is being used is something we need an accounting of,” Noveck said. “It’s concerning and it seems that we’re giving access to the likes of Palantir [Technology] to combine data that will effectuate mass surveillance and control. The risk is not just a failed attempt at cost savings, it’s a successful attempt at authoritarian overthrow.”

The main tenets of DOGE are not new, evidenced by the work Noveck and Karmarck did for past administrations. There are nonpartisan government oversight entities that existed before Trump’s current term as well, including the Office of Government Ethics and the inspectors general. However, shortly after Trump returned to office he fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics and 18 inspectors general.

Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released a report on Musk’s 130 days working in the government. The report alleges that Musk used his position to direct lucrative government contracts toward himself and his companies SpaceX, Tesla, Boring Company and Starlink.

Amid an online feud with Musk following his departure as a White House Adviser, Trump has threatened to cancel all contracts with his companies.

Warren’s report also alleges that Musk and DOGE undercut agencies responsible for regulating his businesses and stopped enforcement actions against them.

May 31 (UPI) — An three-judge federal appeals panel has kept in place a lower court’s decision to pause the Trump administration’s plans to downsize the federal workforce through layoffs.

Late Friday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision denied an emergency motion by the federal government to stay U.S. District Judge Susan Illston‘s order on May 9 that halted terminations at 21 agencies.

The layoffs are called reductions in force, or RIFs.

In a 45-page ruling, the appeals court in California wrote the challengers likely will win the case on the merits.

The appeal panel said the Trump executive order on Feb. 13 “far exceeds the President’s supervisory powers under the Constitution.”

The Trump administration has also asked the Supreme Court to decide and has not acted.

“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told CNN in a statement. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda.”

Ruling for the plaintiffs were Senior Circuit Judge William Fletcher, an appointee of President Bill Clinton and Lucy Koh, selected by President Joe. Consuelo Maria Callahan, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in her dissent that “the President has the right to direct agencies, and OMB and OPM to guide them, to exercise their statutory authority to lawfully conduct RIFs.”

Fletcher wrote: “The kind of reorganization contemplated by the Order has long been subject to Congressional approval.”

Illston, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton and serves in San Francisco, had backed the lawsuit by labor unions and cities filed on April 28, including San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore and Harris County in Houston. She questioned whether Trump’s administration was acting lawfully in reducing the federal workforce and felt Congress should have a role.

“The President has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganizations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch,” Illston wrote after hearing arguments from both sides.

“Many presidents have sought this cooperation before; many iterations of Congress have provided it. Nothing prevents the President from requesting this cooperation — as he did in his prior term of office. Indeed, the Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime.”

The coalition of organizations suing told CNN said after the appeals decision: “We are gratified by the court’s decision today to allow the pause of these harmful actions to endure while our case proceeds.”

After Trump’s executive order, the Department of Government Efficiency submitted a Workforce Optimization Initiative and the Office of Personnel Management also issued a memo.

During Trump’s first 100 days in office, at least 121,000 workers have been laid off or targeted for layoffs, according to a CNN analysis. There are more than 3 million workers among civilian and military personnel.

Some of them have taken buyouts, “including those motivated to do so by the threat of upcoming RIFs,” according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

That includes 10,000 at the Department of Health and Human Services through RIF as part of a plan to cut 20,000 employees. That includes 20% of the workforce of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agencies, run by Cabinet-level personnel, sued were Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State and Treasury, Transportation, Veterans Affairs. The Education Department, which Trump wants to dismantle, was not listed, but 50% of the workforce has been let go.

Six additional agencies with statutory basis elsewhere in the United States Code were named: AmeriCorps, General Services Administration, National Labor Relations Board, National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

Elon Musk, who officially left Friday as special White House adviser, was named in the suit.