Trump administration asks US appeals court to block order reinstating FTC commissioner Slaughter
The Justice Department in a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the lower judge's reinstatement of Slaughter runs afoul of the president's executive powers under the U.S. Constitution.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
9 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump releases Martin Luther King assassination files
WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Monday released more than 240,000 pages of documents related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., including records from the FBI, which had surveilled the civil rights leader as part of an effort to discredit the Nobel Peace Prize winner and his civil rights movement. Files were posted, opens new tab on the website of the National Archives, which said more would be released. King died of an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, as he increasingly extended his attention from a nonviolent campaign for equal rights for African Americans to economic issues and calls for peace. His death shook the United States in a year that would also bring race riots, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump's administration released thousands of pages of digital documents related to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and former President John F. Kennedy, who was killed in 1963. Trump promised on the campaign trail to provide more transparency about Kennedy's death. Upon taking office, he also ordered aides to present a plan for the release of records relating to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and King. The FBI kept files on King in the 1950s and 1960s - even wiretapping his phones - because of what the bureau falsely said at the time were his suspected ties to communism during the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union. In recent years, the FBI has acknowledged that as an example of "abuse and overreach" in its history. The civil rights leader's family asked those who engage with the files to "do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief," and condemned "any attempts to misuse these documents." "Now more than ever, we must honor his sacrifice by committing ourselves to the realization of his dream – a society rooted in compassion, unity, and equality," they said in a statement. "During our father's lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the family, including his two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said, referring to the then-FBI director. James Earl Ray, a segregationist and drifter, confessed to killing King but later recanted. He died in prison in 1998. King's family said it had filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit in Tennessee in 1999 that led to a jury unanimously concluding "that our father was the victim of a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers and unnamed co-conspirators, including government agencies as a part of a wider scheme. The verdict also affirmed that someone other than James Earl Ray was the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. Our family views that verdict as an affirmation of our long-held beliefs." Jowers, once a Memphis police officer, told ABC's Prime Time Live in 1993 that he participated in a plot to kill King. A 2023 Justice Department report, opens new tab called his claims dubious.
Sky News
33 minutes ago
- Sky News
President Bush determined to 'rid world of evil-doer Saddam Hussein', new records reveal
It would have been "politically impossible" to stop President Bush from invading Iraq, as he believed he was on a "crusade against evil", new records show. Newly declassified UK government files show Sir Tony Blair was warned by his US ambassador that George W Bush was determined to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein, in the months before the invasion of Iraq. Sir Tony, who was prime minister at the time, was trying to encourage the US president to use diplomatic means to change the situation in the Middle Eastern country, and flew to Camp David in January 2003 to make the case, just two months before the joint US-UK invasion. The UK government was also hoping the United Nations Security Council would agree a new resolution specifically authorising the use of military force against Iraq. But the files, made public for the first time, show that Sir Tony's ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer, warned him it would be "politically impossible" to sway Mr Bush away from an invasion unless Hussein surrendered. The documents, released by the National Archives at Kew in west London, show Sir Christopher also wrote that Mr Bush believed himself to be on "a crusade against evil to be undertaken by God's chosen people". Sir Tony's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, told the PM that when he met Mr Bush, he should make the point that a new diplomatic resolution was "politically essential for the UK, and almost certainly legally essential as well". But the White House was becoming increasingly impatient at the unwillingness of France and Russia - both of whom held a veto - to agree a resolution so long as UN inspectors were unable to find any evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the supposed justification for war. Sir Christopher warned Sir Tony shortly before his visit to see Mr Bush in January 2003 that options for a peaceful solution in Iraq had effectively run out. He wrote: "It is politically impossible for Bush to back down from going to war in Iraq this spring, absent Saddam's surrender or disappearance from the scene. "If Bush had any room for manoeuvre beforehand this was closed off by his State of the Union speech. "In the high-flown prose to which Bush is drawn on these set-piece occasions, he said in effect that destroying Saddam is a crusade against evil to be undertaken by God's chosen people." In a cable sent the previous month, Sir Christopher said that much of the impulse for deposing Hussein was coming from the president, a born-again Christian, who was scornful of what he saw as the "self-serving" reservations of the Europeans. "His view of the world is Manichean. He sees his mission as ridding it of evil-doers. He believes American values should be universal values," Sir Christopher stated. "He is strongly allergic to Europeans collectively. Anyone who has sat round a dinner table with low-church Southerners will find these sentiments instantly recognisable." In the end, Sir Tony and Mr Bush abandoned efforts to get a new Security Council resolution, blaming French President Jacques Chirac for refusing, and launched the invasion of Iraq anyway. Lobbying from Mandelson and anger at the French Among the new files, there are also a number of other revelations. These include: Current UK ambassador to the US, Sir Peter Mandelson, was so desperate to get back into government following his second resignation from Sir Tony's government that he asked Lord Birt, a policy adviser to Downing Street, to write to the prime minister in 2003, asking for him to receive a role - four months before Sir Peter was appointed as the UK's next European commissioner Sir Tony was furious at French president Jacques Chirac's efforts to undermine pressure being put on Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe by the UK in 2003, over growing violence caused by a policy of driving the remaining white farmers from their lands in the African nation The prime minister also insisted on changing the rules around which parties can lay wreaths at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in a bid to protect the Northern Irish peace process in 2004, despite warning this could create an "adverse reaction" from the SNP and Plaid Cymru
The Independent
41 minutes ago
- The Independent
It was ‘politically impossible' for UK to draw back from Iraq War, new files claim
Newly-released government files have suggested that it was 'politically impossible' to draw back from the the Iraq War unless dictator Saddam Hussein surrendered. Britain's ambassador warned that President George W Bush was bent on the overthrow of Hussein as part of a 'mission' to rid the world of 'evil-doers'. In January 2003 – two months before US and UK forces launched their invasion – Tony Blair to flew to Camp David to urge the president to allow more time for diplomacy to work. However, files released to the National Archives at Kew, west London, show that Britain's ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, warned it had become 'politically impossible' to draw back from war unless Hussein surrendered. British officials were still hoping that the the United Nations Security Council would agree a new resolution specifically authorising the use of military force against Iraq. Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, said that when he met the president he should make the point that a new resolution was 'politically essential for the UK, and almost certainly legally essential as well'. However, the Americans were becoming increasingly impatient with the unwillingness of France and Russia – which both had a veto on the council – to agree a resolution so long as UN inspectors were unable to find any evidence of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, the supposed justification for war. Following Mr Bush's annual State of the Union address to Congress, shortly before Mr Blair's visit, he warned that the options for a peaceful solution had effectively run out. 'It is politically impossible for Bush to back down from going to war in Iraq this spring, absent Saddam's surrender or disappearance from the scene' he wrote. 'If Bush had any room for manoeuvre beforehand this was closed off by his State of the Union speech. 'In the high-flown prose to which Bush is drawn on these set-piece occasions, he said in effect that destroying Saddam is a crusade against evil to be undertaken by God's chosen people.' In a cable sent the previous month, Sir Christopher said that much of the impulse for deposing Hussein was coming from the president, a born-again Christian, who was scornful of what he saw as the 'self-serving' reservations of the Europeans. 'His view of the world is Manichean. He sees his mission as ridding it of evil-doers. He believes American values should be universal values,' Sir Christopher wrote. 'He is strongly allergic to Europeans collectively. Anyone who has sat round a dinner table with low-church Southerners will find these sentiments instantly recognisable.' In the event, the US and UK abandoned their efforts to get agreement on a new Security Council resolution, claiming French president Jacques Chirac had made it clear he would never agree.
