'A destructive path': Is the White House going after independent economic statistics?
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Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Victims feeling exhausted and anxious about wrangling over Epstein files
LOS ANGELES — Women who say they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein are feeling skeptical and anxious about the Justice Department's handling of records related to the convicted sex offender, with some backing more public disclosures as an overdue measure of transparency, and others expressing concerns about their privacy and the Trump administration's motivations.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
U.S. plans to ease human rights criticism of El Salvador, Israel, Russia
Leaked drafts of the State Department's long-delayed annual human rights reports indicate that the Trump administration intends to dramatically scale back U.S. government criticism of certain foreign nations with extensive records of abuse. The draft human rights reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia, copies of which were reviewed by The Washington Post, are significantly shorter than the ones prepared last year by the Biden administration. They strike all references to LGBTQ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened. The draft report for El Salvador, which, at the Trump administration's urging, has agreed to incarcerate migrants deported from the United States, states that the country had 'no credible reports of significant human rights abuses' in 2024. The State Department's previous report for El Salvador, documenting 2023, identified 'significant human rights issues' there — including government-sanctioned killings, instances of torture, and 'harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.' Several Venezuelans whom the Trump administration sent to the Salvadoran prison said they were subjected to repeated beatings. The leaked draft reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia underscore how the Trump administration is radically rethinking America's role in global human rights advocacy. The documents also are consistent with internal guidance circulated earlier this year by State Department leaders who advised staff to truncate the reports to the minimum required by statutory guidelines and executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, and to remove references to government corruption, gender-based crimes and other abuses the U.S. government historically has documented. The State Department declined to address questions about the leaked documents reviewed by The Post. 'The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report,' a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to brief the news media, said Wednesday. 'The human rights report focuses on core issues.' This official said the Trump administration would bring a new focus to some issues, including backsliding on freedom of expression in some countries allied with the United States, even as the administration has itself faced criticism on free-speech grounds for seeking to deport foreigners studying in the United States who have criticized Israel's conduct in Gaza. U.S. diplomats have compiled the State Department's annual human rights reports for almost 50 years. Their findings are considered the most thorough and wide-ranging of their kind and are routinely relied upon by courts inside and outside the United States. The human rights reports are congressionally mandated to be sent to lawmakers by the end of February. Public release typically happens in March or April. The State Department is yet to officially release this year's reports, which cover activities and observations made in 2024. Current and former U.S. officials say most of this year's reports were nearly completed when the Biden administration transitioned out in January. The drafts for El Salvador and Russia are marked 'finalized,' while the draft for Israel is marked 'quality check.' All were edited in the last few days, the documents show. It is unclear whether the reports eventually transmitted to Congress and released to the public will mirror the drafts. The internal guidance circulated by State Department leaders earlier this year instructed diplomats responsible for drafting reports to remove references to numerous potential human rights violations, including governments that had deported people to a country where they could face torture, crimes that involve violence against LGBTQ people and government corruption. The internal guidance was written by Samuel Samson, a Trump political appointee at the State Department. Samson, initially little known in Foggy Bottom, attracted attention after writing an article for the agency's Substack in May criticizing Europe for what he alleged was the continent's descent into 'a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.' Samson was tasked with reviewing the country reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia. While all three reports continue to describe human rights abuses in those countries, each was whittled down considerably from a year before and all bear significant changes to the language used to describe alleged abuses. The draft prepared for Israel, for instance, is 25 pages long; last year's report was more than 100 pages. Meanwhile, a comparison of the documents covering El Salvador shows the Trump administration downplaying the country's history of prison violence, emphasizing that there has been a reduction overall while stating that purported deaths were under government review. Trump has expressed fondness for El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, and hosted him in the Oval Office earlier this year after the administration secured an agreement to deport people to the country's notorious CECOT megaprison. The Salvadoran Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Scrutiny of corruption and judicial independence also is significantly scaled back in the draft report for Israel. The 2023 report compiled by the Biden administration addresses the corruption trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another of Trump's international allies, and judicial overhaul efforts, which critics say threatens the independence of the country's judiciary. The Trump administration's draft report for Israel makes no mention of corruption or threats to the independence of Israel's judiciary. Previous human rights reports also have mentioned Israeli surveillance of Palestinians and restrictions of their movement, including an Amnesty International finding on Israel's use of 'experimental facial recognition system to track Palestinians and enforce movement restrictions.' This issue is not addressed in the draft report either. The Israeli Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The draft reports examined by The Post contain no reference to gender-based violence or violence against LGBTQIA people. Keifer Buckingham, who worked on these issues at the State Department until January, said it was a 'glaring omission' in the case of Russia, where the country's Supreme Court had banned LGBTQIA organizations and labeled them 'extremist,' with raids and arrests last year. The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Buckingham chastised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who as a U.S. senator for many years was a vocal defender of human rights. 'Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it's convenient to them,' said Buckingham, who now works as managing director at the Council for Global Quality. During his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio praised the State Department's annual human rights reports. In 2012, he said 'the world has been a better place [for two centuries] because America has strived to defend these fundamental human rights both at home and abroad.' 'The State Department's annual human rights report sheds light on foreign governments' failure to respect their citizens' fundamental rights,' he said a statement then, adding that it was important for the world to know that 'the United States will stand with freedom-seeking people around the world and will not tolerate violations against their rights.' U.S. officials have repeatedly pointed to a speech given by Trump during a visit to the Middle East in May as an example of the new way Washington relates to the world, with an emphasis on sovereignty over universal rights. Speaking in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump had criticized 'Western interventionists … giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs.' This shift of the U.S. role in promoting human rights has coincided with a change in U.S. promotion of democracy. In a cable sent in July, Rubio instructed diplomats to no longer publicly comment on other countries' elections, including making an assessment of whether the election was 'free and fair,' unless there is a 'clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest to do so.' The move was a shift from long-standing U.S. practice — even under Rubio himself. The secretary had personally congratulated world leaders in Trinidad and Tobago and Ecuador for conducting 'free and fair' elections since January. Last month, the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, stepping up a feud with the Brazilian government for the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, for his alleged role in a violent coup plot in 2022. In announcing those sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department invoked the Magnitsky Act, a law that allows the American government to impose penalties on foreign nationals accused of corruption and human rights violations. In a statement, Rubio said that Moraes had committed 'serious human rights abuse, including arbitrary detention involving flagrant denials of fair trial guarantees and violations of the freedom of expression.' Moraes has said that the court would not yield to foreign pressure, but on Wednesday eased some house arrest restrictions on Bolsonaro. Clara Ence Morse and Meg Kelly contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
The CFPB has reversed course on BNPL guidance. Which section of the agency should we trust?
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reported in June that buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans, the four-payments-in-six-weeks loan you can find from many online retailers, aren't causing repayment struggles or financial distress for first-time borrowers. That's a huge sigh of relief — and something of a surprise — if you read the agency's BNPL analysis in January. 3 worrisome trends of buy now, pay later And how to avoid becoming a statistic yourself Read more Under the consumer watchdog's new leadership, it withdrew a previously issued rule that would have expanded consumer protections on BNPL. This latest analysis also focuses strictly on the experiences of first-timers, not all BNPL users. All of that said, the CFPB's new report seems to walk back its last one. So, what gives? What's going on at the CFPB? The CFPB's downfall is months in the making. Remember when the Trump Administration shuttered the agency's headquarters in early February? Or when the courts ordered that recently fired employees, including the former student loan ombudsman, could return to work in late March? Well, the agency remains a quagmire. It doesn't even have a long-term leader: Former FDIC board member Jonathan McKernan sat before the Senate on Feb. 27. His nomination was never put to a vote, however, and he was reassigned to the Treasury in mid-May. In the meantime, the current CFPB has been undoing the work of its predecessor. In addition to rescinding a rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports, the new CFPB has also withdrawn the interpretative rule that would have mandated BNPL transactions be treated like those of credit cards. Many agree that change is necessary at the CFPB One popular idea, supported by America's Credit Unions, for example, is to adjust the leadership structure to a bipartisan commission in the hopes of avoiding a politically-charged agency that swings as wildly as the White House. Two CFPBs come to two different conclusions Despite the upheaval at the CFPB, and its seemingly divergent conclusions about six months apart, there is more to the situation than an apparent contradiction due to an administration change. Consider that the economists who authored the agency's June report have been at the CFPB for more than four years and worked during the Biden Administration. One of them, Dr. Cortnie Shupe, was also a co-author of the January report. Bankrate requested interviews with the CFPB and the authors but didn't get a response before publishing. Still, the two reports' divergent findings might still leave you scratching your head. In this latest analysis, the CFPB matches first-time BNPL borrowers with their credit profiles over an 18-month span to help answer the question: Does BNPL borrowing leave consumers worse off when it comes to their other consumer debt obligations? The agency's economists looked for any evidence that this might be the case, such as increasing balances, credit utilization, finance fees and delinquency. Key conclusions about BNPL borrowers January report June report Most take out multiple loans simultaneously. First-time borrowers increase their BNPL borrowing one quarter after receiving their first loan, but decreases after that. Nearly 2 in 3 have subprime credit. While they're overrepresented in the category, those with subprime or no credit repaid their BNPL loans 98 percent of the time. They're likelier than peers who don't use BNPL plans to hold higher balances on other consumer loans. After borrowing a BNPL loan, their non-BNPL debt doesn't rise — and no evidence suggests that BNPL access causes them to suffer non-BNPL-debt stress, such as delinquency and overreliance on credit cards. Both reports are in agreement on one thing: more research is necessary. Of course, the real BNPL battle is over regulation — something the CFPB's current administration doesn't seem to be in the mood for. January June 'The importance of BNPL in the credit profiles of BNPL borrowers underlines the need for further research to understand how this growing financial product causally impacts borrowers' financial health.' 'It is therefore critical that researchers and policymakers continue to regularly assess how BNPL borrowing is affecting broader measures of consumer indebtedness and financial well-being.' So, is BNPL harmful or helpful? The data-backed answer to whether BNPL is a helpful tool or potentially damaging comes down to where you look and — at times — what you want to see. But the blind truth about whether BNPL is right for you is simple: it can be one or the other. Bankrate senior industry analyst Ted Rossman has likened BNPL to power tools. They can help you get quickly if you're smart about it, or they can be incredibly destructive and perhaps even dangerous to use. The data bears that out, even if it's limited. The CFPB's research has been relatively treasured given the product's novelty and lack of regulation and reporting. It wasn't until this summer that FICO announced it would begin incorporating BNPL into credit scoring. Related: BNPL credit reporting is coming soon – but are credit cards still a better option? But put aside the CFPB for a moment. Bankrate's new Buy Now, Pay Later Survey is plenty conclusive: 49 percent of people who have utilized BNPL reported that they experienced at least one problem, such as overspending (24 percent), missing payments (16 percent) and regretting a purchase (15 percent). The ease of starting a BNPL plan — you can likely try qualifying via a soft credit check at online checkout — also poses the risk. It's easy enough to apply and secure that you might jump in without considering the impact on your budget. And, as the CFPB's January report highlighted, you might be tempted to stack these loans, making repayments even more difficult to track. What's your next step? Aim to be objective in your own research and decision-making around BNPL. It can help to ask the following questions before you borrow: Can the purchase be postponed until you budget and save up for it in cash? Do you have better financing options, such as a credit card that carries greater protections? Do you already have a BNPL loan (or other consumer debt) to repay? Does the biweekly BNPL payment fit easily into your budget? Do you fully understand the terms and conditions of the potential BNPL loan? Would you be working with one of the most reputable BNPL companies? The answers to these questions can help determine the best route for your finances. 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