Latest news with #Lawfare
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Outrage erupts after Trump's Chrisley pardon as critics condemn what it says about president's regard for the law
President Donald Trump is facing fierce criticism after he decided to pardon reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. The Chrisleys, best known for their Chrisley Knows Best TV show, were serving prison sentences for fraud and tax evasion. They were convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 12 years (Todd) and seven years (Julie). The White House confirmed the couple's full pardons on Tuesday. Speaking to their children during a phone call from the Oval Office Tuesday, Trump said: 'Your parents are going to be free and clean and I hope we're going to do it by tomorrow.' 'They were given pretty harsh treatment based on what I'm hearing,' he added. The move prompted widespread criticism. 'Trump just pardoned TV personalities Todd and Julie Chrisley, who conspired to defraud Atlanta-area banks out of $30 million in fraudulent loans. In Trump's America, crimes are celebrated and prison sentences are cut short,' said Harry Sisson, a Democratic influencer, on X, calling it 'actual insanity.' In another post, Sisson noted that the pardons for the Chrisleys come as Trump also pardoned 'a corrupt Virginia sheriff who took over $75,000 in bribes' (Trump called him a 'wonderful person'), and a 'man convicted of serious tax crimes, whose mom donated $1 million to Trump and worked on his campaigns.' Sisson called it 'blatant corruption.' 'Oh, Trump's going to pardon the Chrisleys? I'm stunned,' sarcastically noted Phillip Bump, a columnist for The Washington Post, on BlueSky. Anna Bower, a reporter for Lawfare, wrote on BlueSky that the Chrisleys were 'indicted by a federal grand jury in 2019, during the first Trump administration.' 'The Trump-nominated U.S. attorney was Byung Jin "BJay" Pak. He was forced to resign in early 2021 after Trump became convinced he wasn't doing enough to investigate purported election fraud in GA,' she added. 'Their [the Chrisleys'] daughter, Savannah, campaigned for Trump. During a speech at the RNC in 2024, she said her parents were 'persecuted' for their political beliefs,' Bower noted. 'I shudder to think about what Savannah Chrisley had to do to secure those pardons for her parents,' lawyer Amee Vanderpool said on X. "For context: The Chrisleys are well-known Trump supporters," Ally Sammarco, a Democratic strategist, told her followers on X. Singer-songwriter Ricky Davila added: 'The orange felon pardoned corrupt Virginia Sheriff Scott Jenkins who was convicted of bribery and fraud, now he pardoned Todd and Julie Chrisley who defrauded banks. Because nothing says law and order like a felon gifting pardons to other felons for their loyalty.'
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Ex NYC Governor Andrew Cuomo under investigation for Covid testimony
The US Justice Department has launched an investigation into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his testimony to Congress during the Covid-19 pandemic, US media reports. Congressional Republicans have accused Cuomo - who is running for New York City mayor - of lying in an investigation surrounding his response to the crisis. It marks the latest in a string of investigations launched by the Trump administration into Democrats or opponents since the president returned to the White spokesperson has said the former governor is not aware of a Justice Department investigation into his actions. House Republicans reportedly requested Cuomo be federally investigated and argued he lie to a congressional committee when he said he was not involved in reviewing a report from the New York Health Department about how the state handled the Covid pandemic while he was governor. In a statement, Rich Azzopardi, a Cuomo spokesperson, told the BBC's US partner CBS News that the former governor has not had any contact from law enforcement about the case or received any said news of the investigation was leaked, describing it as "lawfare" and "election interference".The BBC has reached out to the Cuomo and the Justice Department for was frequently criticised for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and often clashed with Trump over his handling of the crisis. The one-time New York governor is attempting a political comeback and is leading polls in the New York City mayoral race. He is running against Eric Adams, who in April had a criminal case against him permanently dismissed by a federal judge after the Trump administration directed prosecutors to drop the corruption move led to the resignation of Manhattan's top federal prosecutor who accused Adams of striking a deal with the Trump administration to dismiss his case in exchange for immigration is one of a handful of Democrats being targeted by Trump. Earlier this week, a Trump-allied prosecutor charged a New Jersey Democratic lawmaker with assault following an alleged incident outside an immigration facility.
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
West Point Is Supposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate
It turned out to be easy to undermine West Point. All it took was an executive order from President Trump and a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dictating what could and couldn't be taught in the military and its educational institutions. In a matter of days, the United States Military Academy at West Point abandoned its core principles. Once a school that strove to give cadets the broad-based, critical-minded, nonpartisan education they need for careers as Army officers, it was suddenly eliminating courses, modifying syllabuses and censoring arguments to comport with the ideological tastes of the Trump administration. I will be resigning after this semester from my tenured position at West Point after 13 years on the faculty. I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly. I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form. The trouble began around the time Mr. Trump was sworn in for his second term as president. That week, West Point administrators pressured me to withdraw an article about the military's obligation to be politically neutral that had been accepted for publication at the national security blog Lawfare. The administrators did not find fault with the article but said they were worried that it might be provocative to the incoming administration. Reluctantly, I complied. Then came the executive order from Mr. Trump on Jan. 27 and Mr. Hegseth's memo two days later. Mr. Trump's order prohibited any educational institution operated by the armed forces from 'promoting, advancing or otherwise inculcating' certain 'un-American' theories, including 'gender ideology' and the idea that 'America's founding documents are racist or sexist.' Mr. Hegseth's memo went further, adding that the service academies were prohibited even from providing instruction about such topics. Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth also ordered that the academies shall 'teach that America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.' These were brazen demands to indoctrinate, not educate. Whatever you think about various controversial ideas — Mr. Hegseth's memo cited critical race theory and gender ideology — students should engage with them and debate their merits rather than be told they are too dangerous even to be contemplated. And however much I admire America, uncritically asserting that it is 'the most powerful force for good in human history' is not something an educator does. Another problem with Mr. Hegseth's memo was its vagueness. Did critical race theory mean the specific work of scholars like Derrick Bell and Kimberlé Crenshaw? Or did it mean any discussion of the complexities of race in society? Did gender ideology refer to the view that biological females can be men? Or did it refer to any examination of the role of gender in our lives? Rather than interpreting Mr. Hegseth's demands narrowly, West Point seems to have read them broadly. What followed was a sweeping assault on the school's curriculum and the faculty members' research. Department heads ordered reviews of syllabuses and then demanded changes. West Point scrapped two history courses ('Topics in Gender History' and 'Race, Ethnicity, Nation') and an English course ('Power and Difference'). The sociology major was dissolved and a Black history project at the history department was disbanded. Department leaders forced professors to remove from their courses works by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and other women and men of color. One of my supervisors ordered professors to get rid of readings on white supremacy in Western ethical theory and feminist approaches to ethics in 'Philosophy and Ethical Reasoning,' a course I direct that is required for all cadets. A West Point student debate team was even told that it couldn't take certain positions at a forthcoming competition. And these are just some of the episodes I am aware of. (Terence Kelley, a spokesman for West Point, told The Times that while it may be unusual for a typical college or university to modify policy based on presidential executive orders or to limit research and debate, West Point personnel must abide by military regulations and policy and that such changes are 'in no way unique to the current administration.') Neither Mr. Trump's order nor Mr. Hegseth's memo mentioned faculty research. Nevertheless, on Feb. 13, the dean's office shared a memo outlining a policy requiring faculty members to get approval from their department heads to do any writing, talks, social media posting or other public expressions of our scholarship if it is affiliated with West Point. I am writing this essay without having secured approval. Though the memo does not say so, administrators have told me that any parts of my research that seem to conflict with the Trump administration's politics will not be approved. Many faculty members, including me (I study, among other things, masculinity and war), can no longer publish or promote our scholarship. (Mr. Kelley told The Times that while this policy was updated on Feb. 13, it dates to April 2023. In my experience, however, that was not how it was applied until this year. This past September, for example, I published without such approval an opinion essay in The Times about the military's obligation to be politically neutral — an argument along the lines of the essay I was asked not to publish this year in Lawfare.) I expected — naïvely, I now realize — that West Point's leaders would set an example for the cadets by raising their voices in defense of the values and mission of the institution. Instead, I have seen an eagerness to reassure the Trump administration that the academy is in its pocket. There are many costs to West Point's capitulation. One is that the academy is failing to provide an adequate education for the cadets. The cadets are no longer able to openly investigate many critical issues like race and sexuality or be exposed to unfamiliar perspectives that might expand their intellectual horizons. As for the faculty members, West Point no longer seems to recognize our duties to our disciplines and our students. Even if we preserve our jobs, we are sacrificing our profession. Furthermore, the cadets are being sent the message that the debates in which they are not allowed to engage are those the Trump administration considers settled. The lesson many cadets are learning is that it is inappropriate for them to question their own government — a dangerous message to convey to future Army officers. Then there's the message that the cadets are learning about West Point. Cadets are told constantly that they are to lead a life of honor, to choose the harder right over the easier wrong, to have moral courage. But now they are learning that these are just empty slogans. What actual leaders do, it seems, is whatever protects their jobs. I fear the cadets will remember this lesson for the rest of their lives. Finally, there's the threat to America's constitutional order. Academic freedom is important at any institution of higher learning, but it has an additional importance at a military academy. The health of our democratic system depends on the military being politically neutral. Protecting freedom of thought and speech in the academic curriculum at West Point is an important way to avoid political partisanship. By allowing the government to impose an ideological orthodoxy on its classrooms, West Point is abandoning its neutrality and jeopardizing a critical component of the very constitutional order that the military exists to protect. West Point seems to believe that by submitting to the Trump administration, it can save itself in the long run. But the damage cannot be undone. If the academy can't convincingly invoke the values of free thought and political neutrality when they are needed most, it can't accomplish its mission. Whatever else happens, it will forever be known that when the test came, West Point failed.
