Report: Mike Waltz, staff used Gmail to discuss sensitive military positions and weapons systems
Mary McCord, Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Justice Department join Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction to new stunning reporting by the Washington Post, that NBC News has not yet independently verified, which has uncovered how embattled Trump National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz and his staff have reportedly used Gmail for official government business which is a far less secure communications application than Signal, which was already a
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Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The sequel to Trump's so-called travel ban is not an improvement on the original
Ahead of the Republican presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2016, Donald Trump was looking to solidify his position as the likely GOP nominee. To that end, the future president came up with a stunning proposal: As 2015 neared its end, Trump declared his support for 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States' until such time that he was satisfied that U.S. officials understood 'what the hell is going on.' As regular readers know, it was a bigoted applause line — which his base eagerly embraced. It also turned into a campaign promise the Republican was eager to keep. On only his seventh day in the White House, Trump signed a policy that became known as the 'travel ban,' sparking outrage, bureaucratic chaos, family hardships and a series of messy legal fights. On the first day of Joe Biden's term, the then-Democratic president undid his predecessor's policy, signing a proclamation titled 'Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to The United States.' More than four years later, Trump is not only restoring his old policy, he's also adding to it. NBC News reported: In a return of one of the most controversial policies of his first term, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Wednesday banning nationals from a dozen countries. ... Nationals of 12 countries will be barred from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It's difficult to summarize all of the granular details of the White House's latest move in a blog post — Team Trump published relatively detailed overviews online overnight, and NBC News' report is thorough — but in addition to the aforementioned 12 countries, seven other countries (Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela) will face partial travel restrictions. There will apparently be some exceptions for athletes competing in international events, as well as those who've qualified for Afghan special immigrant visas. The administration's policy is scheduled to take effect shortly after midnight on Monday, but whether the White House will change, overhaul or worsen the strategy between now and then remains to be seen. As the world begins assessing the practical, geopolitical and moral implications of Trump's new — but not improved — policy, let no one say this is surprising. On the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 election, the Republican boasted about blocking Muslims from entering the country during his first term, telling voters, 'We didn't want people coming into our country who really love the idea of blowing our country up.' Months later, Trump assured the electorate that he intended to restore and expand his original policy. (He vowed this would happen on the first day of his second term, though he missed his own deadline by 135 days.) But the fact that the incumbent president is following through on a misguided promise does not make a bad idea good. Indeed, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons described the White House's gambit as 'new Muslim ban' in a written statement. 'President Trump's own statement makes it clear exactly what this new executive order is: the latest attempt to institute his unpopular and immoral Muslim ban which was thrown out time and again by the courts in his first term,' the Delaware senator said. 'Improving our national security should be a bipartisan goal, but fear and bigotry do not keep Americans safe. What this will do instead is cause chaos, inflict pain, and break apart families, just as his prior attempts did. This order should be reversed, and Congress needs to reassert our role by passing laws that make our immigration system secure, effective and humane.' To be sure, some of the countries affected by the president's directive have Muslim populations, but some do not. That said, the White House's official 'fact sheet' on the policy specifically included this quote from Trump: 'We will restore the travel ban, some people call it the Trump travel ban, and keep the radical Islamic terrorists out of our country that was upheld by the Supreme Court.' There were already some indications that some Muslim-American voters were feeling buyers' remorse after having backed Trump last fall. The Republican's latest move probably won't help on this front. This article was originally published on
Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
Migrant deported to third country returned to US after Trump admin yields to judge's order
A Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico by the Trump administration was returned to the U.S. this week, his lawyers confirmed to Fox News on Thursday, marking the first known instance of the Trump administration complying with a judge's orders to return an individual removed from the U.S. based on erroneous information. The individual, identified only as O.C.G, was returned to the U.S. via commercial flight, lawyers confirmed, after being deported to Mexico in March. The news comes one week after lawyers for the Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy that they were working to charter a plane to secure the return of the individual, identified only as O.C.G., to U.S. soil. Murphy had ruled that O.C.G., a Guatemalan migrant, had been deported to Mexico earlier this year without due process and despite his stated fears of persecution, and ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return. Additionally, Murphy told laywers for the administration that O.C.G. had not been given the chance to contest his removal to a country where he could face threats of torture, a right afforded under U.S. and international law. O.C.G. was previously held for ransom and raped in Mexico but was not afforded the chance to assert those fears prior to his removal, Murphy noted in his order, citing submissions from O.C.G.'s attorneys. "In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped," Murphy said earlier this month, noting that the removal process "lacked any semblance of due process." "The return of O.C.G. poses a vanishingly small cost to make sure we can still claim to live up to that ideal," Murphy said in his order. Lawyers for the Trump administration told the court last week that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations Phoenix Field Office made contact over the weekend with O.C.G.'s attorneys and are "currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg." That appears to have happened, and O.C.G. was flown via commercial airline to the U.S. on Wednesday. The news comes amid a broader court fight centered on Trump's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – an 18th-century wartime law it invoked earlier this year to deport certain migrants more quickly. Many were sent to CECOT, El Salvador's maximum-security prison. To date, the Trump administration has not complied with federal court orders to facilitate the return of those individuals to the U.S., even individuals who were deported in what the administration has acknowledged was an administrative error. Unlike the migrants at CECOT, however, O.C.G. had not been detained in Mexico. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. They did not immediately respond to questions about whether the administration plans to follow suit in other cases in which a federal judge ordered the administration to return an individual deemed to have been wrongfully deported. The news comes just hours after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to provide all migrants removed to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act an opportunity to seek habeas relief to contest their removal, as well as the opportunity to challenge their alleged gang status, which was the basis for their removal under the law. Judge Boasberg also gave the Trump administration one week to submit to the court information explaining how it plans to facilitate the habeas relief to migrants currently being held at CECOT. That ruling is almost certain to provoke a high-stakes legal standoff with the administration, and comes as Trump officials have railed against Judge Boasberg and others who have ruled in ways seen as unfavorable to the administration as so-called "activist judges." Trump called for Boasberg's impeachment earlier this year, prompting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare public statement of rebuke. "America's asylum system was never intended to be used as a de facto amnesty program or a catch-all, get-out-of-deportation-free card," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement over the weekend.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Biden Breaks Cover to Torch Trump's ‘Ridiculous' Probe Into His Mental Fitness
Joe Biden has lashed out at President Donald Trump's 'ridiculous and false' claims that he was not making his own decisions while in the White House. The 82-year-old former president issued the rebuke after his successor launched a probe into Biden's alleged 'cognitive decline' while in office and whether his team took advantage of his diminishing mental state to sign off on a number of actions using an autopen. 'Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,' Biden said in a statement distributed to multiple outlets. 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' He added: 'This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans, who are pushing disastrous legislation that would slash essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families—all to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.' Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and David Warrington, the White House counsel, to lead the investigation into whether Biden's team 'purposefully shielded' the Democrat's declining mental acuity from the public. The order alleges, without evidence, that it has become 'increasingly apparent' that Biden's aides used the autopen to sign off on executive actions in order to 'conceal Biden's cognitive decline.' The autopen is a mechanical device that replicates a person's signature, allowing presidents to sign off on multiple executive actions. 'This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,' the memo said. Trump has been pushing the theory that Biden didn't personally sign the sweeping pardons issued just before leaving office, including one for his son, Hunter Biden, and preemptive pardons for other family members. His new order also points to Biden's appointment of 235 federal judges and the commutation of sentences for '37 of the 40 most vile and monstrous criminals' on death row as vindication for the investigation. 'Given clear indications that President Biden lacked the capacity to exercise his Presidential authority, if his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity while taking radical executive actions in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of presidential power,' the memo said. The Justice Department is conducting its own review of Biden's pardons for his family and death row inmates. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin reportedly directed staff to examine whether Biden was 'competent' at the time or if others were 'taking advantage of him through use of AutoPen or other means.' Biden's mental and physical fitness once again came under scrutiny following bombshell claims in Original Sin, a new book by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. Biden also recently announced he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Trump—who is just three years younger than Biden—suggested Biden's team manipulated him into pushing for an 'open border' policy as president, as this was in contrast to the Democrat's long-standing views. 'He didn't approve this stuff, because when Joe Biden was with it, he would never have approved it,' Trump told reporters at the Capitol on May 20. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.
