DOJ

July 29 (UPI) — Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday evening announced that a misconduct complaint has been filed against District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg “for making improper public comments” about President Donald Trump, amid his administration’s targeting of the U.S. judicial system.

Boasberg, a President Barack Obama appointee, has rejected Trump’s attempt to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador to be interned in a notorious mega prison for terrorists, attracting the ire of the president, who has called for the judge’s impeachment.

The complaint, obtained by both Politico and Courthouse News, focuses on comments made by Boasberg to Chief Justice John Roberts and some two dozen other judges who attended a March 11 judicial conference.

According to the document, Boasberg said he believed that the Trump administration would “disregard rulings of federal courts,” which would trigger “a constitutional crisis.”

The Justice Department alleges that the comments deviated from the administrative matters generally discussed at the conference and were intended to influence Roberts and the other judges.

The conference was held amid litigation on Trump’s ability to summarily deport the Venezuelan migrants, and days before Boasberg ruled against the administration. He also ruled that Trump had deported the migrants to El Salvador in violation of his order — an order that was vacated in April by a divided Supreme Court.

The complaint states that within days of making the alleged comments, he “began acting on his preconceived belief that the Trump administration would not follow court orders.”

“These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will not stand for that,” Bondi said in a statement on X announcing the filing of the complaint.

The Trump administration has attracted staunch criticism from the legal profession over actions it has taken that have been described as targeting the independence of the U.S. judiciary system.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has threatened to impeach judges who rule against him, including Boasberg, described them as “rouge judges,” sanctioned law firms and lawyers linked to his political adversaries and has ignored or defied rulings he disagrees with.

His administration most recently fired newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Desiree Leigh Grace because the New Jersey judges did not select Trump’s pick for the position.

The complaint against Boasberg was signed by Chad Mizelle, chief of staff for Bondi, who alleged in a statement that Boasberg’s March comments violated the Canons of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges.

“Federal judges often complain about the decline of public trust in the judiciary,” he said on X. “But if the judiciary simply ignores improper conduct like Judge Boasberg’s, it will have itself to blame when the public stops trusting it.”

The Justice Department, in the complaint, is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to launch a special investigation to determine whether Boasberg’s conduct constitutes prejudice against the Trump administration. It also seeks “interim corrective measures,” including reassignment of the cases related to the deportation of the Venezuelan migrants to another judge.

The complaint is also the second that the Trump administration has filed against a judge. In February, Bondi filed a complaint — which is still under review — against Judge Ana Reyes for “hostile and egregious misconduct” against the Trump administration during litigation on the president’s executive order to ban transgender service members from the military.

July 25 (UPI) — The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against New York City, challenging its so-called sanctuary city policies, as the Trump administration continues to crack down on immigration.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York asking it to declare the city’s sanctuary policies in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the constitution, which states that federal laws take precedence over conflicting state laws.

“New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

“If New York City won’t stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will.”

So-called sanctuary cities are those that limit the cooperation of local and state law enforcement with federal immigration officers. The non-profit, nonpartisan American Immigration Council states such policies “promote a greater level of trust and cooperation” between local law enforcement and the communities they police, while opponents say they interfere with federal immigration enforcement and prevent immigration agents from doing their job.

“New York City has long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country’s immigration laws,” federal prosecutors said in the lawsuit Thursday. “It’s history as a sanctuary city dates back to 1989, and its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement have only intensified since.”

New York City Council balked at the lawsuit, calling it a distraction from the fact that “cities with sanctuary laws are safer than those without them.”

“When residents feel comfortable reporting crime and cooperating with local law enforcement, we are all safer, something both Republicans and Democratic mayors of New York City have recognized,” the council said in a statement online.

“It is the Trump administration indiscriminately targeting people at civil court hearings, detaining high school students and separating families that makes our city and nation less safe.”

Sanctuary cities have been a target of Republicans who view them as a hindrance to the rule of law while protecting undocumented migrants, while Democrats see them as protecting immigrant communities and public trust.

There are dozens of sanctuary cities and regions throughout the United States, And President Donald Trump has sought to reduce that number.

On April 28, he signed an executive order threatening federal funding to sanctuary cities and directing the Justice Department and Homeland Security to uncover which policies violate federal law.

The Justice Department has already brought several such lawsuit against so-called sanctuary states and cities, including Los Angeles and the states fo New York, Colorado and Illinois.

July 22 (UPI) — The Justice Department has dismissed a Biden-era lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s law banning gender-affirming care for minors, as the Trump administration continues to attack the rights and medical care of transgender Americans.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that her department’s Civil Rights Division dismissed the lawsuit in a statement Monday that said the Justice Department “does not believe challenging Tennessee’s law serves the public interest.”

Gender-affirming care includes a range of therapies, including psychological, behavioral and medical interventions, with surgeries for minors being exceedingly rare. According to a recent Harvard study, cisgender minors and adults were far more likely to undergo analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

Every major American medical association supports gender-affirming care for both adults and minors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, the largest national medical association.

Despite the support of the medical community and evidence of its efficacy, gender-affirming care and this marginalized community continue to be targeted by conservatives and Republicans with legislation.

Tennessee enacted Senate Bill 1 in March 2023 to prohibit healthcare professionals from prescribing puberty blockers or hormones to minors to treat gender dysphoria, which attracted a lawsuit from the Justice Department under President Joe Biden, arguing the law violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, as all other minors continued to have access to the same procedures and treatments.

The conservative movement targeting the healthcare of transgender minors has since gained a supporter in the White House with the re-election of President Donald Trump.

Since returning to power, Trump has implemented an agenda targeting transgender Americans, including directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes determined at “conception,” restricting gender-affirming care for youth and banning transgender Americans from the military.

Last month, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the Biden administration’s complaint to overturn the Tennessee law. The ruling fell along ideological lines, with the conservative justices voting for the law to stand. The liberal justices dissented.

“By retreating from meaningful review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent.

“Tennessee’s ban applies no matter what a minor’s parents and doctors think, with no regard for the severity of the minor’s mental health conditions or the extent to which treatment is medically necessary for an individual child.”

Bondi on Monday said the Supreme Court made “the right decision.” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said that by dismissing the lawsuit, they “undid one of the injustices the Biden administration inflicted upon the country.”

July 21 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Monday announced it has launched an investigation into George Mason University’s admissions process, marking the fourth federal probe the Trump administration has targeted the school with this month.

George Mason University was informed of the civil rights investigation in a letter stating that federal prosecutors will look into whether the school has denied equal treatment to students based on race or national origin, a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

No specific instances of violations or complaints were provided in the letter, but it suggests alleged racial segregation regarding access to programs and facilities, as well as preferential treatment based on race in its admissions process and in awarding student benefits and scholarships.

“Public educational institutions are contractually obligated to follow our nation’s federal civil rights laws when receiving federal funds,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“No one should be denied access to opportunity or resources because of their race, color or national origin, and the United States is committed to keeping our universities free of such invidious bias.”

It is the fourth federal investigation launched into the Fairfax, Va., university this month and the second in under a week amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion policies in both the private and public sectors.

Diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, is a conceptual framework that promotes fair treatment and full participation of all people. It has been a target of conservatives who claim it focuses on race and gender at the expense of merit.

President Donald Trump has sought to remove DEI from the federal government through executive orders and has threatened to revoke federal funding from several universities, including Harvard, over their alleged DEI programs.

Last week, the Justice Department launched an investigation into the school over alleged illegal hiring practices, which followed the Department of Education opening a civil rights investigation into the university on July 10 and another probe over allegations it failed to respond effectively to a “pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty” earlier this month.

George Mason University President Gregory Washington has yet to respond to the announcement of the latest Justice Department investigation but has repeatedly denied the accusations leveled at the school by the previous three.

“It is inaccurate to conclude that we created new university policies or procedures that discriminate against or exclude anyone,” he said last week in a statement.

“To the contrary, our systems were enhanced to improve on our ability to consistently include everyone for consideration of every employment opportunity. That is our ethos and it is core to our identity as a national leader in inclusive excellence in higher education.”

In a separate statement earlier this month that does not directly accuse the Justice Department of misusing Title VI, Washington said he has seen a “profound shift” in how it is now being applied to attack longstanding efforts to address inequality.

“Broad terms like ‘illegal DEI’ are now used without definition, allowing virtually any initiative that touches on identity or inclusion to be painted as discriminatory,” he said.

“This shift represents a stark departure from the spirit in which civil rights law was written: not to erase difference, but to protect individuals from exclusion and to enable equal opportunity for all.”

George Mason University has retained Torridon Law to engage with the federal government regarding the investigations.

July 19 (UPI) — The Obama administration should be investigated for abuse of power to smear President Donald Trump in 2016, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said on Friday.

Gabbard announced the release of files and a memo related to claims of Russia’s alleged attempt to disrupt the 2016 elections to help Trump win the presidency over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“There was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of government,” Gabbard said in a news release on Friday.

“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the president from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” Gabbard said.

She accused the Obama administration of an “egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution” that “threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic.”

President Barack Obama and his national security cabinet members “manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork” for falsifying claims that Russia acted to influence the election in Trump’s favor and to impeach the president, according to the DNI release.

Gabbard in 2019 was a member of the Democratic Party and a representative from Hawaii who said, “I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no,” during the Dec. 18, 2019, House vote to impeach Trump, according to Politico.

The DNI release says the U.S. intelligence community consistently concluded Russia likely was not trying to influence the 2016 election, and then-DNI Director James Clapper on Dec. 7, 2016, concluded “foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks” to alter the election results.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Gabbard says Obama and others tasked Clapper with creating a new intelligence community assessment that claimed Russia acted to influence the election.

Obama officials then leaked false statements claiming Russia tried to influence the election’s outcome and produced a new assessment on Jan. 6, 2017, that contradicted prior assessments on the matter, according to the DNI.

Gabbard said she is forwarding relevant materials to the Department of Justice for possible legal action.

Some congressional Democrats have challenged Gabbard’s announcement.

“The unanimous, bipartisan conclusion was that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told CNN on Friday.

“This is just another example of the DNI trying to cook the books, rewrite history and erode trust in the intelligence agencies she’s supposed to be leading,” Warner added.

Warner is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said “every legitimate investigation” into the matter affirmed the findings of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment, CNN reported.

July 11 (UPI) — The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Minnesota’s hiring practices, the third legal or administrative action the Trump administration has taken against the Democratic-led state in just over two weeks.

The Justice Department informed Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison of the investigation into the state’s hiring practices in a letter dated Thursday.

“Our investigation is based on information that Minnesota may be engaged in certain employment practices that discriminate against employees, job applicants and training program participants based on race and sex in violation of Title VII,” Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

“Specifically, we have reason to believe the Minnesota Department of Human Services is engaging in unlawful action through, among other things, the adoption and forthcoming implementation of its ‘hiring justification’ policy.”

Early this month, the Minnesota Department of Human Services announced a new hiring policy set to take effect Aug. 12. It directs hiring supervisors to “provide a hiring justification when seeking to hire a non-underrepresented candidate when hiring for a vacancy in a job category with underrepresentation.”

The purpose of the directive is to ensure the department meets its affirmative action responsibilities, comply with state laws and increase the diversity of its workforce.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has sought to roll back so-called progressive practices, including diversity, equity and inclusion policies. In an executive order issued on his second day in office titled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, he specifically ordered the federal government to cease demanding that contractors adopt affirmative action policies, describing it as illegal discrimination.

The Justice Department on Thursday described the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ new policy as part of a broader effort by the state to engage in race- and sex-based employment practices.

“Minnesotans deserve to have their state government employees hired based on merit, not based on illegal DEI,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been a critic of Trump and ran against his ticket as the vice presidential candidate with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Since then, the two have clashed.

After a man assassinated a state lawmaker and wounded another in Minnesota in mid-June, Trump declined to call Walz.

“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out — I’m not calling him. Why would I call? I could call him and say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So, I could be nice and call him, but why waste my time?” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Late last month, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit challenging Minnesota laws that provide some undocumented immigrants with higher-education tuition benefits not offered to all U.S. citizens.

The next day, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services opened a civil rights investigation into the Minnesota Department of Education over a transgender teenager competing on a girls’ softball team.

July 9 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Wednesday announced that it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics performing gender-affirming care for minors, as the Trump administration ramps up its attacks on this marginalized community.

No information about the doctors and clinics subpoenaed was provided by the Justice Department, though it suggested the subpoenas were part of investigations into “healthcare fraud, false statements and more.”

“Medical professionals and organizations that mutilate children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

On June 18, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law restricting access to gender-affirming care for minors.

The subpoenas come despite every major American medical association supporting gender-affirming care for both adults and youth, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Gender-affirming care includes a range of therapies, from psychological, behavioral and medical interventions, with surgeries for minors being exceedingly rare. According to a recent Harvard study, cisgender minors and adults were far more likely to undergo analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

Despite the support of the medical community and the evidence, conservatives, Republicans and the Trump administration have continued to target this community with legislation affecting their medical care and rights.

The subpoenas were announced the same day that the Federal Trade Commission hosted a day-long workshop titled “The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care for Minors,” during which Melissa Holyoak, an FTC commissioner, said that while they cannot make policy decisions limiting gender-affirming care, they can target the medical practice for deceptive statements.

“The FTC has previously enforced — and will continue to enforce — against deceptive representations made by medical practitioners, including claims in connection with treatments for transgender children,” she said, according to a copy of her remarks.

Also on Wednesday, the Department of Justice sued California over alleged Title IX violations concerning transgender athletes competing in women’s and girls’ sports.

The Democratic-led state has refused to comply with the Trump administration’s ban on transgender women and girls competing in sports that align with their gender identity.

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has signed several executive orders targeting transgender Americans, including one directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes determined at “conception,” another restricting gender-affirming care for youth and a third banning transgender Americans from the military.

June 23 (UPI) — The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Monday in support of a challenge to a new Washington State law mandating clergy to report child abuse, describing the rule as “anti-Catholic” and a violation of the Constitution.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Catholic, signed Senate Bill 5375 into law early last month. The new law, which goes into effect July 27, adds clergy members — including priests, ministers, rabbi and imam, among others — to the list of people required to report child abuse or neglect to the state or law enforcement under threat of being charged with a gross misdemeanor offense.

The law has received pushback from local Catholics, who have characterized it as forcing them to break the sacred seal of confession in order to avoid prison.

In the Justice Department’s lawsuit, federal prosecutors argue the new law puts Catholic priests at odds with the core tenets and beliefs of their religion and violates their First Amendment right to the freedom of religion “by forcing them to violate the sanctity and confidentiality of confessional communications.

“No other mandatory reporter is required to forego his or her fundamental rights under the Constitution in this manner,” the lawsuit states, while adding that the law will have a “chilling effect” on thousands of Catholic priests and parishioners who may be uncertain about whether adhering to the sacrament of penance will open them to criminal penalties, child welfare investigations, civil liability or excommunication.

“Laws that explicitly target religious practices such as the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church have no place in our society,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division said in a statement.

“Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges.”

The lawsuit is an intervention in a complaint filed early this month by Washington State Catholic bishops, who argue it discriminates against them as attorneys are exempt from inclusion as mandatory reporters.

“Washington State has no business intruding into the confessional — particularly when they give a free pass to lawyers who have legally protected confidential relationships with clients,” Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, a non-profit public interest religious liberty group that is representing the bishops, said in a statement.

“Punishing priests for following the Catholic Church’s millennia-old faith traditions isn’t just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”

The governor told KUOW in a statement that he wasn’t surprised by the Department of Justice’s intervention.

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, to see the DOJ seek to shield and protect child abusers.”

June 19 (UPI) — The Department of Justice has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize $225.3 million for victims involved in cryptocurrency scams.

The complaint, filed Wednesday, alleges that the cryptocurrency addresses that held over $225.3 million were part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network.

“Civil forfeiture complaint is the latest action taken by the Department to protect the American public from fraudsters specializing in cryptocurrency-based scams, and it will not be the last,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“These schemes harm American victims, costing them billions of dollars every year, and undermine faith in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Our investigators and prosecutors are relentlessly pursuing these scammers and their ill-gotten gains, and we will relentlessly pursue recovery of victim funds.”

Last week, the DOJ found five men guilty who laundered over $36 million from victims. They operated out of Cambodia and face maximum penalties of between five and 20 years in prison.

Assistant Director of the FBI Criminal Division Jose A. Perez, said his agency will not allow the criminals targeting unsuspecting victims who believe they are making legitimate investments to keep these scams going.

“This seizure of $225.3 million in funds linked to cryptocurrency investment scams marks the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history, said Shawn Bradstreet, a special agent in that agency’s San Francisco field office.

In this investigation, more than 400 suspected victims say they lost money after believing that they were making investments, officials said.

According to the FBI internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2024 internet Crime Report, cryptocurrency investment fraud resulted in more than $5.8 billion lost in 2024. People over age 60 were impacted the most, losing an estimated $2.8 billion.

June 19 (UPI) — An appeals court on Wednesday ruled against the Justice Department’s attempt to replace President Donald Trump as the defendant in a multimillion-dollar defamation case.

Trump is fighting a 2023 defamation judgment ordering him to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for denying that he sexually assaulted her at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s.

Though the president denies the assault, he was found liable for sexual abuse and then for defaming her by denying the assault after she made it public.

The Department of Justice had asked the court for permission to substitute itself as the defendant in the appeal under the Westfall Act, a mechanism that allows the United States to defend claims against federal officers and employees when the alleged offense occurred within the scope of their duties.

Federal prosecutors argued that Trump was president during his first term in 2017 when he first denied sexually abusing Carroll.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its denial of the Justice Department’s request in a brief order Wednesday stating: “The Court will issue an opinion detailing its reasoning in due course.”

The ruling is the latest setback in Trump’s fight against paying Carroll the judgement.

Late last week, the same court rejected Trump’s attempt to get a retrial challenging the $5 million civil judgement he was ordered by a jury to pay Carroll.

Trump has long accused the Justice Department of being politically weaponized against him, and a spokesperson for his legal team issued a statement Wednesday rejecting the ruling.

“The American People are supporting President Trump in historic numbers, and they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll Hoaxes, the defense of which the Attorney General has determined is legally required to be taken over by the Department of Justice because Carroll based her false claims on the President’s official acts, including statements from the White House,” the spokesperson said, The Hill reported.

California sued the U.S. Justice Department on Monday over its demand last week that local school districts ban transgender youth from competing in sports, arguing the federal agency had overstepped its authority in violation of both state and federal law.

The “pre-enforcement” lawsuit was filed “in anticipation of imminent legal retaliation against California’s school systems” for not complying with the agency’s directive by its Monday deadline, said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office, which is handling the litigation.

“The President and his Administration are demanding that California school districts break the law and violate the Constitution — or face legal retaliation. They’re demanding that our schools discriminate against the students in their care and deny their constitutionally protected rights,” Bonta said in a statement. “As we’ve proven time and again in court, just because the President disagrees with a law, that doesn’t make it any less of one.”

The lawsuit comes a week after Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump appointee and head of the federal Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to school districts across California warning them that they faced potential “legal liability” if they did not “certify in writing” by Monday that they will break with California Interscholastic Federation rules and state law to ban transgender athletes from competition in their districts.

Dhillon argued that allowing transgender athletes to compete “would deprive girls of athletic opportunities and benefits based solely on their biological sex,” in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond responded last week by saying in his own letter to schools that Dhillon’s warning carried no legal weight and that school districts were still obligated to follow state law, which requires transgender athletes be allowed to compete on teams based on their gender identity.

The California Department of Education sent a letter to federal authorities Monday, informing them that California’s school districts are under no obligation to provide certifications to the Justice Department.

“There are no changes in law or circumstances that necessitate a new certification,” wrote General Counsel Len Garfinkel. “Moreover, the DOJ letter references no law that would authorize the DOJ to require another ‘certification.’”

“All students — not just transgender students — benefit from inclusive school environments that are free from discrimination and harassment,” Garfinkel added. “When transgender students are treated equally, their mental health outcomes mirror those of their cisgender peers.”

Bonta’s lawsuit asks a federal court in Northern California to uphold the constitutionality of California’s antidiscrimination laws protecting transgender athletes, and to bar the Trump administration from withholding funds or taking other retaliatory actions against school districts that refuse to abide by the Trump directive.

The lawsuit falls along one of the fastest growing legal and political fault lines in America: Does the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment — the Constitution’s oft-cited guarantee against discrimination — protect transgender rights or undermine them?

Dhillon, other members of the Trump administration and anti-transgender activists nationwide have argued that the inclusion of transgender girls in youth sports amounts to illegal discrimination against cisgender girls.

Bonta’s office and other LGBTQ+ advocates argue that the exclusion of transgender girls is what constitutes illegal discrimination — and that courts, including the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs California and much of the American West, have agreed.

While Dhillon “purports that compliance with the Equal Protection Clause requires the categorical exclusion of transgender girls from girls’ sports, as courts have previously upheld, just the opposite is true: the Equal Protection Clause forbids such policies of total exclusion, as does California law,” Bonta’s office said.

State law that allows transgender students to participate in sports consistent with their identity “is squarely within the State’s authority to ensure all students are afforded the benefits of an inclusive school environment, including participation in school sports, and to prevent the serious harms that transgender students would suffer from a discriminatory, exclusionary policy.”

An attorney who supports keeping transgender athletes out of girls sports said the rights of female athletes are paramount in this situation.

Both the U.S. Constitution and federal statute provide protections for female athletes that California is violating by “allowing males into ‘girls only’ categories,” said Julie A. Hamill, principal attorney with California Justice Center, a law firm that has complaints pending with the federal Office for Civil Rights on behalf of young female athletes.

“By continuing to fan flames of division and play politics, leftist politicians and media outlets are causing further harm to American girls,” Hamill said.

Polls have shown that Americans generally support transgender rights, but also that a majority oppose transgender girls competing in youth sports. Many prominent advocates for excluding transgender girls from sports praised Dhillon’s actions last week as a bold move to protect cisgender girls from unfair competition.

Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education, has called on California school systems to adopt resolutions in support of the Trump administration order.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Shaw said last week. “Our daughters deserve safe, fair competition … But radical policies are undermining that right, pushing boys into girls’ sports and threatening their opportunities. We’re not backing down.”

Shaw, a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, said other school systems could model these resolutions on one passed by her school district.

A handful of the state’s 1,000 school districts have passed such resolutions.

The lawsuit’s claim that retaliation from the Trump administration could be imminent for schools that do not comply with the administration’s demands is not entirely speculative. It is based at least in part on repeated threats and actions the administration has already taken against states over its trans-inclusive sports policies.

President Trump has said outright that he wants to cut federal funding to California over its laws allowing transgender athletes to compete in youth sports. The federal Justice Department has announced investigations into the state and the California Interscholastic Federation over its inclusive policies for transgender athletes.

U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli in Los Angeles, a longtime ally of Dhillon and whose appointment has yet to be confirmed, recently threw his office’s support behind a private lawsuit challenging the inclusion of a transgender athlete on the track and field team at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside.

Dhillon issued her letter to California school districts after another transgender athlete from Jurupa Valley High School, 16-year-old AB Hernandez, won multiple medals at the state high school track and field championships despite President Trump demanding on social media that she not be allowed to compete.

The letter came despite attempts by the state to appease concerns.

After Trump’s online threats, for example, the CIF updated its rules for transgender competitors. As a result, Hernandez was allowed to compete at the state finals in the girls’ long jump, high jump and triple jump, but her qualifying did not result in the exclusion of any cisgender girl.

In addition, while Hernandez was awarded several medals, those medals were also awarded to cisgender girls who otherwise would have claimed them had Hernandez not been competing — with the girls sharing those spots on the medal podiums.

Supporters of the rule change said it eliminated concerns about cisgender girls losing opportunities to compete and win to transgender girls, but critics said the changes did not go far enough, and that transgender athletes needed to be fully banned from competition.

Dhillon’s letter demanding school districts certify that such bans were being implemented made no mention of the CIF’s rule change.

May 30 (UPI) — A Defense Intelligence Agency worker has been charged with attempting to provide classified information to an officer or agent of a government because he was dissatisfied with the Trump administration, the Justice Department said.

Nathan Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Va., was arrested Thursday and was to make his initial court appearance Friday afternoon in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday, DOJ said.

Thinking he was communicating with a foreign official, Laatch unknowingly was in touch with an undercover FBI agent.

Since 2019, Laatsch was a civilian employee as a data scientist and information technology specialist in the DIA’s Insider Threat Division and held a top secret security clearance, according to the DOJ.

DIA headquarters are located in Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington.

The arrest affidavit didn’t list the name of the foreign country.

After his arrest, he allegedly told authorities he was requesting citizenship in the foreign country because of conditions in the United States.

“I’ve given a lot of thought to this before any outreach, and despite the risks, the calculus has not changed,” the affidavit obtained by Politico said. “I do not see the trajectory of things changing, and do not think it is appropriate or right to do nothing when I am in this position.”

Subsequently, the agency obtained video from the DIA office where Laatsch was seen writing notes and then hid them into his socks, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia obtained by ABC News.

Another DIA employee saw him placing multiple notebook pages in the bottom of his lunchbox, according to the affidavit.

In March, the FBI received a tip that someone was willing to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government. It initially wasn’t known that person was Laatsch.

The FBI obtained an email from someone who didn’t “agree or align with the values of this administration” and was “willing to share classified information” to which he had access. This included “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation,” DOJ said.

Laatsch transcribed classified information to a notepad at his desk and over about three days moved it from his workspace.

A meeting was scheduled with the suspect’s contact.

On May 1, FBI surveillance observed Laatsch go to a specified location at a park in Northern Virginia and left an item. After Laatsch departed, the FBI retrieved a thumb drive, which contained information marked “Secret” or “Top Secret.”

On May 7, Laatsch allegedly sent a message to the undercover FBI agent, which indicated Laatsch was seeking something from the foreign government in return for continuing to provide classified information. On the next day, Laatsch said he was interested in “citizenship for your country” because he did not “expect things here to improve in the long term.”

He told the agent he didn’t need “material compensation.”

Between May 15 and Tuesday, Laatsch again transcribed multiple pages of notes from his work station and put them in his clothing, DOJ said.

On Thursday, the suspect arrived at a prearranged location in northern Virginia. He was arrested when the FBI received the documents.

The FBI Washington Field Office is investigating the case with assistance from the U.S. Air Force Office of Investigations and DIA.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted Thursday on X: “This case underscores the persistent risk of insider threats. The FBI remains steadfast in protecting our national security and thanks our law enforcement partners for their critical support.”

May 23 (UPI) — Boeing has avoided prosecution over two crashes of 737 Max planes that killed 346 people, but must pay $1.1 billion in a settlement reached with the U.S. Justice Department.

The aerospace company won’t face a trial as scheduled next month, ABC News reported.

Last week, DOJ officials met with crash victims’ family members, many of whom want the company to go to trial, about the agreement, according to CNBC.

The company, as part of the agreement, must pay $444.5 million for a new fund for crash victims. The eight-page agreement filed Friday was obtained by Flying magazine.

Paul Cassell, a lawyer representing some of the families, said in a statement he hopes U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor rejects the deal.

“This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history,” Cassell said. “My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject it.”

DOJ noted relatives of more than 110 crash victims said they support the non-prosecution agreement or “support the Department’s efforts to resolve the case pre-trial more generally.”

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter Friday to Attorney General Pam Bond urging her agency not to cut a deal and “to hold Boeing and any responsible executives accountable for their role in the 2018 Lion Air and the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crashes, which killed a total of 346 passengers.”

The DOJ said it intends to file a motion to dismiss the case once the “agreement in principle” is finalized, by no later than the end of next week.

“It is the Government’s judgment that the Agreement is a fair and just resolution that serves the public interest,” the DOJ said in the filing in the North District of Texas in Fort Worth. “The Agreement guarantees further accountability and substantial benefits from Boeing immediately, while avoiding the uncertainty and litigation risk presented by proceeding to trial.”

In the agreement, Boeing “will admit to conspiracy to obstruct and impede the lawful operation of the Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Evaluation Group.

Also, the aerospace company, besides the fund for victims, must pay a $487.2 million criminal fine, though $243.6 million it already paid in an earlier agreement; $444.5 million for a new fund for crash victims; and $445 million more on compliance, safety and quality programs.

On Oct. 29, 2018, the first crash in Jakarta, Indonesia, killed all 189 passengers and crew. Black box data from the Lion Air jet showed the pilots struggled to fight the plane’s malfunctioning safety system from takeoff to the moment it nose-dived into the water.

In the second crash four months later on March 10, 2019, 157 people died when a Ethiopian Airlines aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The Maxes were grounded for nearly two years after the second crash.

In 2021 during the first Trump administration, Boeing agreed to a $2.51 billion fine to avoid prosecution.

It was set to expire two days after a door panel blew out of a nearly new 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines on Jan. 5, 2024. The aircraft left Boeing’s factory without key bolts installed.

In 2024, U.S. prosecutors said Boeing violated the settlement because the company failed to set up and enforce a compliance and ethics program to detect violations of U.S. fraud laws.

Then Boeing agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud last December. O’Connor determined the government’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies was a factor in the selection of an independent compliance monitor for Boeing. The company had agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay a fine of at least $243 million besides that same amount paid earlier.

In 2022, a Boeing former chief technical pilot was acquitted on fraud charges tied to the Max’s development.

The DOJ is expected to have a written agreement with Boeing in place by the end of next week.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has struck a deal in principle with Boeing to allow it to avoid prosecution in a fraud case stemming from two fatal 737 MAX plane crashes that killed 346 people, a harsh blow to the families of the victims.

Boeing will pay more than $1.1bn, including the fine and compensation to families, and more than $455m to strengthen the company’s compliance, safety, and quality programmes, the DOJ said on Friday.

The aircraft maker also agreed to pay an additional $444.5m into a crash victims’ fund that would be divided evenly per crash victim on top of an additional $243.6m fine.

“Boeing must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics program and retain an independent compliance consultant,” the DOJ said on Friday. “We are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits.”

The agreement allows Boeing to avoid being branded a convicted felon and is a blow to families who lost relatives in the crashes and had pressed prosecutors to take the US planemaker to trial. A lawyer for family members and two US senators had urged the DOJ not to abandon its prosecution, but the government quickly rejected the requests.

The DOJ expects to file the written agreement with Boeing by the end of next week. Boeing will no longer face oversight by an independent monitor under the agreement.

Boeing did not immediately comment.

No more guilty plea

Boeing had reached a tentative non-prosecution agreement with the government on May 16, as first reported by the news agency Reuters.

The agreement would forestall a June 23 trial date the planemaker faces on a charge it misled US regulators about a crucial flight control system on the 737 MAX, its best-selling jet.

Boeing in July had agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the two fatal 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia spanning 2018 and 2019, pay a fine of up to $487.2m and face three years of independent oversight.

Boeing no longer will plead guilty, prosecutors told family members of crash victims during a meeting last week.

The company’s posture changed after a judge rejected a previous plea agreement in December, prosecutors told the family members.

Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas said in 2023 that “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history.”

Boeing has faced enhanced scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration since January 2024, when a new MAX 9 missing four key bolts suffered a mid-air emergency losing a door plug. The FAA has capped production at 38 planes per month.

DOJ officials last year found Boeing had violated a 2021 agreement, reached during the first Trump administration’s final days, that had shielded the planemaker from prosecution for the crashes.

That conclusion followed the January 2024 in-flight emergency during an Alaska Airlines’ flight. As a result, DOJ officials decided to reopen the 2018-19 fatal crashes case and negotiate a plea agreement with Boeing.

SALT LAKE CITY, May 22 (UPI) — A new Washington state law that requires members of the clergy to report child abuse or neglect, including when the information is revealed in confession, is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

The DOJ claims the law is anti-Catholic and appears on its face to violate the First Amendment. The investigation, which was announced earlier this month, will look at the development and passage of Senate Bill 5375.

The bill, which adds clergy members to the list of mandatory reporters, was passed by the Senate in a 28-20 vote and 64-31 by the House. It was signed into law May 2 by Gov. Bob Ferguson and is to go into effect July 27.

A DOJ news release says the law has no exception for the absolute seal of confidentiality that applies to Catholic priests.

“SB 5375 demands that Catholic Priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law, a violation of the Constitution and a breach of the free exercise of religion cannot stand under our Constitutional system of government,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in the release.

“Worse, the law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compared to other reporting professionals,” Dhillon said.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, disputes those claims and said the law is not anti-Catholic. She pointed out that members of the clergy are defined as a licensed, accredited or ordained minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder or similarly situated religious or spiritual leader of any church, religious denomination, religious body, spiritual community or sect.

Mandated reporters include law enforcement officers, professional school personnel, social service counselors, nurses, psychologists and licensed childcare providers, among others. If they have reasonable cause to believe a child has suffered abuse or neglect, they are required to report that to law enforcement or the Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

Under the new law, clergy members must report abuse, but cannot be compelled to testify against the penitent in a court case or criminal proceedings.

“We are talking in our case here about really simply just the reporting in real time of known or suspected abuse and neglect of children in real time,” Frame said. “We’re simply saying, if you believe or you know that a child is actively being abused or neglected, call it in so we can go check on that child to make sure that they are safe.”

Archbishop Paul Etienne of the Archdiocese of Seattle descibted the the law as government overreach. After the apostles were thrown into jail for preaching in the name of Jesus Christ, St. Peter responded, “We must obey God rather than men,” he said in a written statement.

“This is our stance now in the face of this new law,” Etienne said. “Catholic clergy may not violate the seal of confession — or they will be excommunicated from the Church. All Catholics must know and be assured that their confessions remain sacred, secure, confidential and protected by the law of the church.”

The Catholic Church in the United States has been reporting incidents of abuse to law enforcement and cooperating with civil authorities for decades, according to Etienne. Those efforts began in 1986 in the Seattle Archdiocese, he said.

“Our policies already require priests to be mandatory reporters, but not if this information is obtained during confession,” Etienne said.

Frame countered that voluntarily complying with part of the law does not make priests mandatory reporters.

“They may be if they are a teacher, for instance, but they are not mandatory reporters in their role as clergy,” she said. “And to say that we’re already mandated reporters has caused great confusion such that people think the only point of this bill was to ‘go after confession.’ Not true.”

The senator has been trying since 2022 to pass legislation to make clergy mandatory reporters. Articles by Investigative West about how a Jehovah’s Witnesses community in Washington allegedly was covering up sexual abuse of children spurred her effort.

The nonprofit news organization reported the community was handling complaints internally and abuse was not being addressed.

Frame, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a family member from ages 5 to 10, said children need to know that if they ask a trusted adult such as a faith leader for help, they’ll get it.

“I told the mandated reporter about the abuse and that’s how it was stopped, and that was my teacher,” she said.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocated for passage of SB 5375 through its FFRF Action Fund lobbying arm, said the law closes a longstanding and dangerous loophole that allowed clergy to withhold information about child abuse.

“FFRF urges the DOJ to immediately drop this politically motivated and legally unsound investigation,” the organization said in a news release. “Protecting children from harm must be a priority that transcends religious boundaries. It is not anti-Christian to hold clergy accountable — it is pro-child, pro-justice and pro-human rights.”

Other states that do not have an exemption for penitential communication as of May 2023 are New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway.

The Utah Legislature passed a bill last year that does not make clergy mandated reporters, but protects them from civil and criminal liability if they report ongoing abuse or neglect even if the information came from a penitent during confession.

Utah Rep. Anthony Loubet, R-Kearns, said he sponsored House Bill 432 after constituents reached out to him. Some religious organizations had implemented their own reporting requirements, but the protection from liability applied only to mandated reporters, which did not include clergy, he said.

Members of the clergy like having this option, Loubet said.

“This made it clear that they could report if they wanted to and if they did, they received the protection,” he said.

May 21 (UPI) — Microsoft, the Department of Justice and others have thwarted the use of the Lumma Stealer malware that globally has infected nearly 400,000 computers.

The tech giant’s Digital Crimes Unit seized and helped take down, suspend and block about 2,300 “malicious domains” that were the backbone of Lumma’s infrastructure, said Steven Masada, assistant general counsel for Microsoft’s DCU.

Microsoft on May 13 filed a federal lawsuit against Lumma Stealer in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia, itnews reported.

Microsoft says Lumma Stealer is a “malware as a service” that can steal data from browsers, cryptocurrency wallets and other applications by installing malware.

The tech firm from March 15 through Friday identified more than 394,000 Windows computers around the world that were infected with the Lumma malware.

The Department of Justice on Wednesday unsealed two warrants authorizing the seizure of five Internet domains used by cybercriminals to operate the Lumma malware service, which also is called “LummaC2.”

The Lumma malware “is deployed to steal sensitive information, such as user login credentials from millions of victims in order to facilitate a host of crimes,” said Matthew Galeotti, leader of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, in a news release.

Those crimes include fraudulent bank transfers and cryptocurrency theft, Galeotti said.

“The Justice Department is resolved to use court-ordered disruptions like this one to protect the public from the theft of their personal information and their assets,” he added.

The DOJ’s affidavit seeking the two seizure warrants accuses the administrators of LummaC2 of using the seized websites to distribute the malware to their affiliates and other cyber criminals.

Browser data, autofill info, login credentials for email and banking services, and cryptocurrency seed phrases that open crypto wallets were common targets affected by the malware, according to the DOJ.

FBI investigators also identified at least 1.7 million instances in which the malware enabled cybercriminals to steal such information.

The DOJ on Monday seized two online domains used to distribute the malware, which caused the Lumma operators to direct users to three new domains on Tuesday.

The DOJ seized the three new domains on Wednesday.

Europol’s European Cybercrime Center and Japan’s Cybercrime Control Center enabled the takedown of Lumma infrastructure within their respective jurisdictions, Microsoft officials said.

May 18 (UPI) — The federal government will allow the sale of devices that enable standard rifles to operate like machine guns, a move that angered gun control groups.

The Justice Department said Friday it reached a settlement with Rare Breed Triggers. This is in accordance with President Donald Trump‘s Feb. 17 executive order Protecting Second Amendment Rights and the attorney general’s Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force announced on April 8.

“This Department of Justice believes that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety.”

There are two ways to speed the firing of bullets. Bump stocks use the recoil of the weapon to repeatedly bump the trigger, while trigger devices are aftermarket items that directly engage the trigger.

During the first Trump administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stocks, which mimic rapid trigger pulls to fire rapidly in a way similar to a machine gun. In 2017, the gunman in a mass shooting killed 58 people in Las Vegas while firing from his hotel room window using bump stocks.

In 2022, ATF included specific trigger devices under the National Firearms Act of 1934. The ATF determined that the devices allow a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle to fire as fast as a military M-16 in automatic mode.

In 2023, the Justice Department, as part of the Biden administration, brought a lawsuit in New York against Rare Breed Triggers.

The National Association of Gun Rights filed a separate lawsuit in Texas challenging the ban and a judge there ruled the ban was unlawful.

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote in Cargill v. Garland, ruled ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule classifying a bump stock as a “machine gun.”

The Court’s majority found that bump stocks do not meet the definition of a machine gun because they didn’t allow for automatic fire with the single pull of a trigger.

The next month, the Northern District of Texas applied the case to a device called a “forced-reset trigger” and concluded that they also cannot be classified as a “machine gun.”

DOJ is avoiding additional legal action against Rare Breed Triggers in appeals and related cases concerning the similar issue, Bondi said.

The settlement with Rare Breed Triggers includes agreed-upon conditions that significantly advance public safety with respect to FRTs, including that Rare Breed will not develop or design them for use in any pistol and will enforce its patents to prevent infringement that could threaten public safety.

Rare Breed also agreed promote the safe and responsible use of its products.

“The cuffs are off. As of May 16, 2025, we’re free! Expect the website to be updated on Monday, May 19,” the company posted on its website.

The decision was condemned by Vanessa Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Giffords, the national gun violence prevention group led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 while meeting with constituents in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.

“The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns. Lives will be lost because of his actions,” Gonzalez said. “This is an incredibly dangerous move that will enable shooters to inflict horrific damage. The only people who benefit from these being on the market are the people who will make money from selling them, everyone else will suffer the consequences.”

The national gun control advocacy group Brady United said in a press release that “highly dangerous weapons of war can now be purchased anonymously” and without a background check.

“The Trump Administration’s secret settlement with the gun lobby to permit the sale of Forced Reset Triggers will turn already deadly firearms into weapons of mass destruction,” Kris Brown, president of Brady United, said in the release.

“Machine guns are weapons of war that have absolutely no place in our communities. This dangerous backroom deal is not only an astonishing abuse of power, but undermines decades of sensible government gun safety policy and puts whole communities at immediate serious risk,” he said.

Brady previous was called the National Council to Control Handguns and founded in 1974 by Dr. Mark Borinsky, whose son was shot and killed in 1974.

In 1981, White House Press Secretary Jim “the Bear” Brady suffered a bullet to the head, and the organization now bears his name.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is carrying out a criminal investigation into UnitedHealth Group for possible Medicare fraud.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) first broke the story on Wednesday.

UnitedHealth said it had not been notified by the DOJ about the “supposed criminal investigation reported”, and the company stood by “the integrity of our Medicare Advantage program”.

The DOJ’s healthcare-fraud unit is overseeing the criminal investigation, which focuses on the company’s Medicare Advantage business practices, WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

While the exact nature of the potential criminal allegations against UnitedHealth is unclear, it has been an active probe since at least last summer, the newspaper said.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment to the WSJ about the fresh criminal probe. The department did not immediately respond to requests for comments from the Reuters news agency.

Last week, UnitedHealth said in a regular filing that it had been “involved or is currently involved in various governmental investigations, audits and reviews”, without disclosing further details.

The new investigation follows broader scrutiny into the Medicare Advantage programme, in which Medicare-approved plans from a private company supplement regular Medicare for Americans age 65 and older by covering more services that the government-only plans do not, such as dental and vision services.

In February, the WSJ reported a civil fraud investigation into UnitedHealth’s Medicare practices. The company had then said that it was unaware of any new probe.

In the same month, US Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa launched an inquiry into UnitedHealth’s Medicare billing practices, requesting detailed records of the company’s compliance programme and other related documents.

The DOJ earlier this month filed a lawsuit accusing three of the largest US health insurers of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to brokers in exchange for steering patients into the insurers’ Medicare Advantage plans.

Nearly half of the 65 million people covered by Medicare, the US programme for people aged 65 and older or with disabilities, are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans run by private insurers.

The insurers are paid a set rate for each patient, but can be paid more if patients have multiple health conditions. Standard Medicare coverage is managed by the government.

Brewing turmoil

The health insurer has been under pressure for months. On Tuesday, UnitedHealth Group’s CEO, Andrew Witty, stepped down unexpectedly, and the company simultaneously suspended its 2025 financial forecast due to rising medical costs, triggering an 18 percent drop in shares to a four-year low.

Stephen Hemsley, who led the company for more than a decade until 2017, is taking back the reins following setbacks including the December murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of its insurance unit, which catapulted UnitedHealth into the public consciousness.

On Thursday, after the news of the probe broke, UnitedHealth Group shares plunged 18 percent to hit a five-year low.

“The stock is already in the doghouse with investors, and additional uncertainty will only pile on,” James Harlow, senior vice president at Novare Capital Management, which owns shares in UnitedHealth, told the news agency Reuters.

If losses hold, UnitedHealth will be the worst-performing stock on the S&P 500 index in two of the last three days.

The past month’s selloff has wiped out nearly $300bn from UnitedHealth’s market capitalization, or more than half of its value since its shares hit a record high in November.

May 13 (UPI) — Justice Department nominees won’t be confirmed until the Trump administration provides full transparency on “Qatari influence,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced on Tuesday.

The recently announced donation of a $400 million luxury Boeing 747-8 from the Qatari royal family for President Donald Trump to use as Air Force 1, which Trump has said will be donated to his presidential library after he leaves office, spurred opposition from Senate Democrats.

“This has the appearance of naked corruption” and “is a grave national security risk,” Schumer said Tuesday in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“Given reports that you played a central role in approving his proposal, I request answers to the following questions,” Schumer told Bondi.

Schumer wants to know if the aircraft will include secure communications, self-defense systems, shielding and other security requirements that “are ready on day one.”

If so, he wants to know who installed them and how the Trump administration knows the aircraft is not a national security threat.

If not, Schumer wants to know “what modifications would be needed to ensure a foreign-sourced Air Force One is safe to use and free of security threats.”

He also wants to know if taxpayers would have to pay to retrofit the aircraft, if the gift would negate a $3.9 billion 2018 contract with Boeing for two new presidential aircraft, and how much such a cancellation might cost.

If the $3.9 billion contract is not cancelled, Schumer asked Bondi how the Trump administration justifies allocating resources to a foreign-sourced aircraft that only would be used while Trump is president, who negotiated the agreement and its parameters.

“What is Qatar being offered in return?” Schumer asked.

He also wants to know why Bondi in February “deprioritized enforcement” of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other foreign-influence laws.

“Please explain this decision to weaken FARA, which requires agents of foreign governments, like Qatar, to register and disclose their activities,” Schumer said.

“Until the administration provides a detailed justification of this new program, including complete and comprehensive answers to these and other questions posed by oversight committees, I will place a hold on all political nominees of the Department of Justice,” Schumer said.

Senate rules enable a senator to place a blanket hold on political nominations for matters that are unrelated to the respective nominees.

A White House spokesperson accused Schumer of politicizing the aircraft donation.

“Sen. Schumer and his anti-law-and-order party are prioritizing politics over critical DOJ appointments, obstructing President Trump’s Make America Safe Again agenda,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement to UPI.

“Cryin’ Chuck must end the antics, stop Senate stonewalling and prioritize the safety and civil rights of Americans,” Fields added.

A DOJ spokesperson in an emailed statement to UPI said Schumer and Senate Democrats should stop blocking DOJ nominees.

“The American people overwhelmingly elected President Trump to nominate highly qualified candidates at the Department of Justice who will Make America Safe Again,” the spokesperson said. “The Senate should do its part by confirming these nominees.”