President Trump announces multiple judicial nominees, accuses court system of blocking him from doing his job
President Donald Trump – whose second-term agenda has been bogged down by judicial roadblocks – announced several judicial picks in Truth Social posts on Tuesday, and complained in a post on Wednesday that the judiciary is preventing him from executing the job Americans elected him to do.
"Our Court System is not letting me do the job I was Elected to do. Activist judges must let the Trump Administration deport murderers, and other criminals who have come into our Country illegally, WITHOUT DELAY!!!" he declared in a Wednesday post.
Trump announced Missouri Principal Deputy Solicitor General Maria Lanahan as a nominee to sit as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, calling her "a true patriot" in a Tuesday post.
He also picked Judge Cristian Stevens to serve on the same court, calling Stevens, who currently serves on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, "a Great Patriot," in another post.
TRUMP FIELDS QUESTION ABOUT HIS TIMELINE FOR JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS: 'WE'RE PUTTING 'EM IN RAPIDLY'
The president also selected Zachary Bluestone to sit on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, referring to him as "a True Legal Warrior" in a Tuesday post.
A Tuesday White House press release notes that "Zachary Bluestone is appellate chief and a violent crimes prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri."
Trump is tapping Show-Me State Solicitor General Joshua Divine for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri as well as the Western District of Missouri.
TILLIS PUTS ONUS ON TRUMP TO AVOID BOASBERG PICKING US ATTORNEY AFTER MARTIN'S NOMINATION APPEARS SUNK
"I am proud to nominate Edward Aloysius O'Connell to serve as Associate Judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Eddie will help fix Violent Crime in the City by restoring the RULE OF LAW to Washington, D.C.," Trump declared in a post on Tuesday.
According to the White House release, "Edward Aloysius O'Connell is Chief of Staff and Deputy General Counsel of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board."
The president's judicial picks will need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS RETURN OF DEPORTED MIGRANT TO US, REJECTING TRUMP REQUEST
Last week, Trump announced his pick of Whitney Hermandorfer to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, calling her "a Fighter who will inspire confidence in our Legal System." She is the Strategic Litigation Unit director with the office of the Tennessee state attorney general.
Fox News' Luke Trevisan contributed to this report
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Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Opioid settlement plan allows millions to be spent on purposes other than the public health crisis
In the fallout of over 9,000 Mississippians dying of overdoses since 2000, lawyers and lawmakers have set up a plan to distribute the hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations that catalyzed the crisis. But public health advocates and Mississippians closest to the public health catastrophe worry the setup could enable these dollars to be spent on purposes other than ending the overdose epidemic. Mississippi is expected to receive $370 million from pharmaceutical companies that profited while people struggled with addiction. That payout is set to be split between the state and local governments, with 85%, or about $315 million, being controlled by the Legislature. For years after the state attorney general's office helped finalize the first settlements in 2021, it was unclear how the state would distribute its share and how much would be used to prevent the crisis from persisting. State senators and representatives took a major step toward answering these questions earlier this year. They nearly unanimously passed Senate Bill 2767, a law that outlines a general framework for how about $259 million of the funds will be distributed. A 15-person advisory council — made up of representatives for state government agencies, elected officials and law enforcement officials — will develop a grant application process for organizations focused on addressing the opioid addiction crisis. After evaluating the applications and making a list of which grants should be funded, the Legislature will decide whether to approve or deny each of the council's recommendations. The state lawmakers can spend the remaining $56 million they control for any purpose — related or unrelated to addressing addiction. House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who wield massive power over lawmakers and how state funds are spent, did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about their priorities for the funds. Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and the bill's lead sponsor, said she and other senators borrowed some ideas from surrounding states to determine how these funds could best prevent more fallout from the opioid crisis. 'It involves everything, from child welfare services to the judicial system to medical care to mental health services,' she said. 'It is a crisis that has affected every aspect of society, and we needed a comprehensive group of people making those recommendations.' However, the bill leaves some questions unanswered, like how the application process will work, when it will open to the public and how grants will be evaluated. Public health advocates and Mississippians impacted by addiction expressed concern about the advisory council's makeup, the $56 million carveout for expenses unrelated to the opioid crisis and the Legislature's final decision-making power. They said those provisions could cause some of the corporate defendants' dollars to be spent on issues other than addressing and preventing overdoses. Jane Clair Tyner, a Hattiesburg resident, lost her 23-year-old son Asa Henderson in 2019 after he struggled for years with substance use disorder. Until last month, through her former job with the Mississippi overdose prevention nonprofit End It For Good, she worked to ensure that fewer parents have to go through the pain her family experienced. She said the only ways these state settlement dollars should be spent are on improving Mississippi public health and keeping people who are at risk of overdosing safe. 'That's what it should go towards, but not to the Legislature,' she said. 'This is not a rainy day slush fund.' An evolving plan It wasn't always the plan for the Legislature to control so much of the settlement dollars. In 2021, when Mississippi and other states were in the midst of negotiating settlements, State Attorney General Lynn Fitch published an agreement between the state and local governments that would send only 15% to the Legislature's general fund. The agreement said that the bulk of the money – 70% – would be sent to the University of Mississippi Medical Center to build a new addiction medicine institute. But Mississippi law says the Legislature is the ultimate decision maker for how this type of state settlement money gets spent, according to Fitch's Chief of Staff Michelle Williams. So lawmakers passed their bill to change the plan. The Legislature changed the arrangement to make sure the money goes to where the state's most pressing addiction needs are, said Boyd. The advisory council, which will be supplemented by at least 22 additional nonvoting members, is a good way to have those needs captured, she said. As for the Legislature having final approval power, Boyd said that and other provisions were put into the bill to keep some power with lawmakers if the council becomes ineffective or political. It's the highest percentage of any state's opioid settlement share that will be controlled by a Legislature, according to the Vital Strategies Overdose Prevention Program and state guides. Dr. Caleb Alexander, an epidemiology professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, served as one of the plaintiffs' expert witnesses for some of the opioid lawsuits. Alexander has also helped U.S. cities and counties develop blueprints for how to use the settlements to quell their opioid crises. He said using the money on a variety of prevention, treatment and recovery strategies, rather than one big project, is likely a better way to save lives and prevent more addiction. But having the Legislature, rather than an apolitical body of addiction experts, play such a large role is not the setup he would suggest. 'I would have some concerns that it may gum things up,' he said. Additionally, Alexander said creating ways for funds to not be used to address the opioid epidemic, as the 2025 bill does, is 'a shame.' While the settlement agreements say that 70% of the funds must be spent on addressing addiction, there is nothing that prevents all the money from being used for the crisis, and most statesare doing that. He said the settlements define a wide variety of uses as addressing the epidemic — from first responder training to medication research and development — and he doesn't see a scenario where it makes sense to spend the money on other uses. 'The costs of abatement far outweigh the available funds for every city or county that I've examined,' he said. Boyd said she believes her colleagues in the House and Senate are all motivated to use this money to address addiction as a mental health condition. She said the new bill categorizes some funds as 'nonabatement' to free them up for ways to address addiction that may not fit neatly into the settlements' list of uses. The attorney general's original plan was the first to categorize a percentage of the funds as not needing to be used to stop the opioid crisis. Williams said it was written that way to match the terms of the national settlement agreements, although the settlement for the largest payout says spending on purposes other than addressing the opioid crisis is 'disfavored by the parties.' She said Fitch would love to see all the funds be spent on addiction response and prevention, like the One Pill Can Kill campaign the office runs. 'But it's the Legislature's prerogative,' she said. 'Where are the people in recovery?' Jason McCarty, the Mississippi Harm Reduction Initiative's former executive director, said he's glad the plan is no longer to send such a large portion of the settlement funds to UMMC. Organizations like the Initiative, he said, also could use additional support to keep Mississippians from dying. And he's concerned that while a peer recovery specialist will serve as a nonvoting member, none of the committee's 15 voting members must be people who've experienced addiction. 'Where are the people in recovery?' he asked. 'We're the subject matter experts.' Boyd said many of the voting committee roles are representatives of state agencies that she expects will help administer the settlement grants, like the Department of Mental Health. And there were only so many people who the Legislature can assign spots. 'It was no slight to anybody,' she said. 'It's just, this is a completely complex issue.' The Mississippi governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house will each assign two people to the committee, and Boyd said it's possible they will choose people in recovery. The bill says council members need to be appointed by early June. However the process plays out, McCarty hopes all the state's funds go to reputable organizations focused on preventing more opioid-related harm. In Mississippi, he sees a lack of housing and treatment options, especially for new parents, as areas that this money can help address. And as hundreds of Mississippians continue to die from overdoses each year, he said the state government has to move quickly and responsibly to make these funds available. 'We don't have a year to wait. It needs to go out quicker.' ___ This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Fox News
13 minutes ago
- Fox News
After Ukraine's surprise drone assault on Russia, new attention drawn to sensitive sites stateside
After Ukraine launched a sudden drone assault on Russian installations, it brought new attention to the U.S.' own vulnerabilities, regardless of which side the U.S. stood on Kyiv's attack. In recent years, Chinese Communist Party-linked entities have commercially targeted land around the U.S., including in the vicinity of sensitive installations like the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The Fufeng Group's 300-acre farmland purchase in 2021 first raised the collective antennae of Congress to such under-the-radar transactions – and even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis swiftly banned them in his state as a result, among other efforts around the country. On Tuesday, North Dakota's senators agreed that the U.S. must remain vigilant for any malign activity, whether it be from relatively novel drone assaults to potential espionage through real estate transactions. "When adversaries can buy our land, attend our universities, photograph silos in our prairies, perform aerial surveillance, park their ships near our military bases, or even just join our PTAs, they have more opportunities to be nefarious," Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer told Fox News Digital. "Our posture must always be vigilant, never assuming foreign actors are benign or have the best intentions," he said. "Whether it's directly spying, indirectly influencing, or sending drones to blow up aircraft, the ability of the enemy increases when we allow them easy access near our national interests." Cramer's Flickertail State counterpart, Sen. John Hoeven, joined an effort to prevent such land-buys and has worked with federal partners to update the process in which foreign investment is analyzed for approval and decided upon. "We need to remain vigilant against China and other adversaries," said Hoeven, who is co-sponsoring South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds' bill banning individuals and entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from purchasing farmland or commercial land near sensitive federal sites. "At the same time, we're working to update the CFIUS process [which governs federal approval of foreign investments] to ensure proper reviews are taking place as well," Hoeven said. "We also are working to develop the technology we need to protect our domestic military bases from potential drone threats." Rounds' bill also has bipartisan support, including from Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev., whose state also hosts sensitive government sites like Nellis Air Force Base and Area 51. "It is common sense that we should not allow our foreign adversaries to buy agricultural land next to these locations," Masto said in a statement. Rounds added in a statement that America's "near-peer adversaries… are looking for any possible opportunity to surveil our nation's capabilities and resources." Even private-sector entities have expressed concern, including the South Dakota Soybean Association, which said farmland must be protected from foreign purchase for both agricultural and national security purposes.
Fox News
17 minutes ago
- Fox News
Patel's immigration push at FBI yields 10,000 arrests since January
EXCLUSIVE: FBI Director Kash Patel's efforts to help carry out the Trump administration's immigration agenda have led to the bureau making 10,553 arrests since January. That figure, included in FBI data reviewed exclusively by Fox News Digital, reflects the total number of immigration-related arrests the bureau has assisted the Department of Homeland Security with making since Jan. 20, 2025. Recent arrests involving the FBI have included, for instance, an operation at the end of May on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The FBI aided ICE in arresting about 32 people on the two islands, including an alleged member of the MS-13 gang and a man named Luciano Pereira Deoliveira, who had pending child rape and pornography charges, according to the data. Patel has also periodically highlighted these arrests on social media, including the FBI's capture of Harpreet Singh in April. The FBI's Sacramento field office investigated Singh, who was wanted in India for alleged ties to terrorism and whom authorities say entered the U.S. illegally in 2022. The data comes as Patel has faced media scrutiny for the dramatic shakeup at the bureau during the past four months, which has involved ousting senior officials and other employees or attempting to relocate them to new field offices. Some reports say many agents and employees have been reassigned at times to help the DHS with immigration enforcement. Patel adviser Erica Knight said the bureau's priorities have changed to arresting allegedly criminal immigrants in part because of the surge in illegal migration during the Biden administration. "With over 10,000 immigration-related arrests, the Bureau under the direction of Director Patel is making it clear, it's not turning a blind eye to the border crisis, it's targeting the violent cartels and criminal networks that are exploiting it," Knight said. "This is the direction Americans have been demanding, and the Bureau is delivering on the promise to put safety and sovereignty first." Of the roughly 38,000 employees at the FBI, 13,192 have been tasked at some point since January with working on immigration enforcement, according to the data. Employees include both agents and support staff. The most recent week of data showed the highest number of employees working on immigration tasks were concentrated in the Los Angeles field office, followed by the Philadelphia, Houston, and San Antonio field offices. Although a statistic-rich agency, the FBI has no prior recent data of agents and employees aiding DHS with arrests through any formal effort. Under Patel, the FBI has launched interagency operations, such as one he and Attorney General Pam Bondi showcased in Virginia in March when announcing the arrest of an alleged top member of MS-13 in the state. The Virginia Homeland Security Task Force brought together state and federal law enforcement agencies to address transnational organized crime and immigration enforcement. U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert of Virginia said during a press conference at the time of the arrest that the task force had made 342 arrests, "many of them with illegal status" and 81 with "gang or transnational crime affiliation." The DOJ charged the MS-13 leader with a gun charge but later moved to dismiss the charge and instead deport him. A retired FBI agent who worked in the bureau for two decades told Fox News Digital that his understanding from interacting with a handful of agents is that some are likely to "grumble about" the new immigration enforcement work, while others view it as necessary to address the recent years' influx of migrants into the country. "The fact that the bureau is helping out on this stuff now is just because it's unusual times," the retired agent said. "We've never had a presidential administration … import 9 million potential threats into its country, or whatever that number is, so the FBI having to get involved in this stuff is unusual, but it's also necessary." "I think it was inevitable the FBI does get involved, but the trick is they've got to juggle helping out DHS and also tending the farm," he said. The retired agent also said the bureau "brings a lot to the table that these other agencies just don't have," such as new sources, databases, and skill sets. He also said the work can be beneficial for the FBI because of the intelligence-gathering opportunity it presents. "I would hope they're exploiting every single one of these guys, clearly debriefing them and finding out what they know and who they know," he said.
