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Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Floridians Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio at forefront of Trump's controversies
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both joined President Trump's cabinet promising to restore 'integrity' to their offices. Nearly four months in, however, both prominent Floridians are neck deep in administration controversies. Though in a role seen as independent, Bondi says she works 'at the directive of Donald Trump' and has proved her loyalty by threatening judges who rule against him and approving the gift of a luxury jet for Trump's use from the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar — a country she once lobbied for as a Tallahassee consultant. Rubio, meanwhile, has claimed the power to detain and deport students and travelers based on their social media posts and has echoed Trump's rhetoric against allies such as Canada. 'I don't think anybody should be surprised by anything that these two have done, or anybody in the cabinet has done,' said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. 'They are not making decisions on their own,' Jarvis said. 'If they demonstrate any kind of independent thinking, they'll be gone very quickly.' But Evan Power, chair of the state's Republican Party, said both have been successes in Washington, D.C. 'Florida Leads the Way!' he said via text. 'Secretary Rubio has done an exceptional job as Secretary of State putting together great deals and peace efforts,' Power texted. 'Pam Bondi has also delivered holding people accountable for supporting illegal immigration.' Bondi was a prosecutor in Hillsborough County before she was twice elected Florida's attorney general in 2010 and 2014. In 2013, she declined to join a multi-state fraud suit against Trump University shortly after the Trump Foundation contributed $25,000 to her associated political committee. She later served as a special advisor to Trump during his first impeachment and backed Trump's efforts to challenge his 2020 election loss. At her contentious confirmation hearing in January, she refused to acknowledge that former President Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020. 'I don't have to say anything': Pam Bondi dodges 2020 election question at Senate hearing But she did slam what she called a 'weaponized' Justice Department under Biden, which she said 'has to stop.' Following her confirmation along nearly partisan lines, she has repeatedly backed Trump on every controversial and constitutionally questionable act, including freezing and cutting off congressionally-approved funding. In a cabinet meeting last month, she told Trump he was 'overwhelmingly elected by the biggest majority,' despite his popular vote margin being the narrowest in 56 years, and said he has the sole authority 'to determine how the money of this country will be spent.' It's in her numerous appearances on Fox News — three dozen as of Monday, according to the New York Times — that she has been most vociferous in threatening those she perceived to be Trump's enemies. She told Fox the judge who ruled to stop sending Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador 'has no right to ask those questions.' She added the administration would 'absolutely' keep the flights going despite the order. In a Fox appearance in April, she said the judiciary was 'deranged' and defended the arrest of Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan on charges she interfered with immigration enforcement. 'We are sending a very strong message today,' Bondi said. ''We will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.' One point of contention during her Senate hearing was her work with Tallahassee firm Ballard Partners, which received a six-figure monthly fee to lobby for the government of Qatar in advance of the 2022 World Cup. Bondi was registered through the firm to represent the Arab nation, which she defended as 'anti-human trafficking' work. Her ties to Qatar became a major issue this week amid reports she signed off on the royal family gifting the U.S. government a $400 million airliner for Trump's use as Air Force One during his presidency and later for his presidential library and personal use. ABC News reported Bondi wrote in a memo that the gift, which some analysts have argued is prohibited by the Constitution's Emolument Clause banning 'any present … from any King,' was not a bribe and was 'legally permissible.' Bondi 'has been a Trump stooge since she was Florida attorney general,' said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican consultant in Tallahassee who became a registered Democrat in opposition to Trump. 'She's no surprise at all. She is a Trump-Kool Aid drinker, and she's made a lot of money doing it.' It was Rubio, he added, who was the most disappointing of Trump's Cabinet members. The Miami native served as state House speaker before representing Florida in the U.S. Senate for 14 years. 'He had such good potential,' Stipanovich said. 'He's a bright man, he's a capable man. There was a time at which he appeared to have principles. But he, like so many others, has succumbed to the gravitational pull of Donald Trump.' Rubio was seen as a well-qualified appointment amid more ideological, and less-traditional, cabinet picks such as Pete Hegseth at Defense and Sean Duffy at Transportation. But, Jarvis said, 'he only looked good in comparison.' After being unanimously confirmed — the only Trump pick to get every Democratic vote in the Senate — Rubio almost immediately was put in charge of the dismantling of the USAID foreign aid agency, which he once called 'critical to our national security.' He also echoed Trump's rhetoric about Canada becoming the '51st state' while on a trip to Canada. Rubio has been at the forefront of the controversial detentions of students. In the case of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was detained for weeks before a judge ordered her temporary release, the administration never offered any evidence beyond a single op-ed she wrote in a student newspaper. Rubio said he would be 'revoking the visas and/or green cards' of hundreds of other international students he determines to be 'Hamas supporters in America' based on their social media or protest history. U.S. revokes visas from 15 international students at UCF, detains one Rubio was also the key player in the agreements with El Salvador president Nayib Bukele to send Venezuelan migrants to the country's jails for alleged gang membership, often without due process. He told a journalist last month he would 'never tell' if he had gotten in touch with El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia, a migrant the government admitted was wrongly swept up in a raid of alleged gang members. 'And you know who else I'd never tell?' Rubio asked. 'A judge.' Rubio, however, has received wider-ranging credit for working to negotiate a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and for easing some tensions with his European counterparts over negotiations regarding the war in Ukraine. As to why Rubio has become such a Trump loyalist, Stipanovich said he thinks it is to prepare for a future run for president. 'I'm not sure that there's a single principle held by any member of the Trump cabinet,' he said. 'If there is, I don't know what it is. And it's certainly not held by Pam Bondi or Marco Rubio.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump's legal strategy: If you can't win in court, threaten the judge
President Trump's savaging of the judiciary goes back far and deep. This despicable approach starts with his mentor in legal evil, Roy Cohn. When an associate reported to Cohn that the law was against their client, Cohn famously retorted, 'F— the law, who's the judge? Cohn saw judges not as prelates of a logical system of ethical ideals, nor as keepers of our sacred right to justice, but as politicians in robes — vulnerable to coercion, denunciation and threats. Trump was well-schooled in how to do it at the feet of the master. Remember Judge Gonzalo Curiel? He was the Obama-appointed federal judge in California who oversaw the Trump University fraud case, which Trump settled for $25 million in 2016 just 10 days after his election. Trump launched a $1 million counterclaim for defamation (a favorite Cohn gambit) to pressure the plaintiff class representative to go away. Under a state law that aims to protect individuals from lawsuits intended to silence or intimidate them for exercising their rights to free speech, Curiel dismissed the counterclaim and awarded the plaintiff $1 million for her trouble. Curiel went on to certify the class, which had alleged that Trump University was a fraudulent endeavor, then denied Trump summary judgment and ordered the case to trial. Trump retaliated with a series of racist attacks on Curiel. He told Fox News that Curiel was personally biased against him because he wanted to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the Indiana-born Curiel could not preside because of his 'Mexican heritage.' He said he had a judge who was a 'hater of Donald Trump, a hater' and referred to Curiel— a graduate of the same law school as Mike Pence — as a 'Mexican.' He further suggested taking some action against the judge. Vintage Roy Cohn! Trump's despicable attacks on the judiciary have persisted during the first 100 days of Trump 2.0. He has oozed the bile of pure hatred towards judges who have ruled against him, calling for their impeachment. House Republicans are following his lead, seeking to impeach at least six judges who have ruled against parts of Trump's agenda. Trump's statements earned him a shocking rebuke from Chief Justice Roberts. Without mentioning him by name, Roberts thundered in March that 'for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.' The rare statement from the Chief Justice came just hours after a social media post from Trump, who described District Judge James E. Boasberg as an unelected 'troublemaker and agitator,' and a 'radical left lunatic' after Boasberg had blocked deportation flights that Trump claimed were authorized in wartime by the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. Top Trump advisor Stephen Miller has also railed against a cabal of 'Communist' judges who are determined to keep 'terrorists' in the country, while Elon Musk in a post on X said judges who defy the president should be impeached. The threats have also been delivered through physical means. Several judges have faced a slew of 'intimidation tactics' sending the message that their home addresses are publicly known. A New Jersey judge, for example, received a pizza addressed to her murdered son. Earlier this month, a Wisconsin County Court judge was arrested by the FBI in her own courthouse and led away in manacles after allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest. Other judges who defied the administration have faced bomb threats and threats of physical violence. One Supreme Court justice is now speaking out more forcefully. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson received a standing ovation at a conference of judges in Puerto Rico last week after denouncing the administration's 'relentless attacks' on federal judges, seeing in them a threat to the rule of law (but again without mentioning Trump by name). Jackson said, 'Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs … And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.' 'The attacks are also not isolated incidents,' Jackson told the assembled judges. 'That is, they impact more than just individual judges who are being targeted. Rather, the threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government and they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.' 'A society in which judges are routinely made to fear for their own safety or their own livelihood due to their decisions is one that has substantially departed from the norms of behavior that govern a democratic system,' she stated. 'Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair and not rule-of-law oriented, operate.' 'Other judges have faced challenges like the ones we face today, and have prevailed,' she said, pointing to similar attacks on judges who issued controversial rulings during the Civil Rights Movement and the Watergate scandal. Her 18-minute denunciation is the strongest statement yet by any member of the Supreme Court during Trump's second term. It is hard to believe that her prepared remarks were not approved by the Chief Justice. Judges have few avenues to fight back ethically against unprincipled personal attacks. Lawyers are supposed to speak out on their behalf, but we now know that Big Law is afraid of reprisals from Trump that might affect their billion-dollar revenues. Judge Curiel mildly jabbed at Trump in court papers stating his derogatory comments about him had 'placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.' He was forbidden from further public comment because of ethical rules about commenting extrajudicially on pending cases. Roy Cohn knew this, and so does Trump. Bullies lash out at the defenseless. We are living in trying times. James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York's Southern District. He is also the host of the public television talk show and podcast Conversations with Jim Zirin. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump's legal strategy: If you can't win in court, threaten the judge
President Trump's savaging of the judiciary goes back far and deep. This despicable approach starts with his mentor in legal evil, Roy Cohn. When an associate reported to Cohn that the law was against their client, Cohn famously retorted, 'F— the law, who's the judge? Cohn saw judges not as prelates of a logical system of ethical ideals, nor as keepers of our sacred right to justice, but as politicians in robes — vulnerable to coercion, denunciation and threats. Trump was well-schooled in how to do it at the feet of the master. Remember Judge Gonzalo Curiel? He was the Obama-appointed federal judge in California who oversaw the Trump University fraud case, which Trump settled for $25 million in 2016 just 10 days after his election. Trump launched a $1 million counterclaim for defamation (a favorite Cohn gambit) to pressure the plaintiff class representative to go away. Under a state law that aims to protect individuals from lawsuits intended to silence or intimidate them for exercising their rights to free speech, Curiel dismissed the counterclaim and awarded the plaintiff $1 million for her trouble. Curiel went on to certify the class, which had alleged that Trump University was a fraudulent endeavor, then denied Trump summary judgment and ordered the case to trial. Trump retaliated with a series of racist attacks on Curiel. He told Fox News that Curiel was personally biased against him because he wanted to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the Indiana-born Curiel could not preside because of his 'Mexican heritage.' He said he had a judge who was a 'hater of Donald Trump, a hater' and referred to Curiel— a graduate of the same law school as Mike Pence — as a 'Mexican.' He further suggested taking some action against the judge. Vintage Roy Cohn! Trump's despicable attacks on the judiciary have persisted during the first 100 days of Trump 2.0. He has oozed the bile of pure hatred towards judges who have ruled against him, calling for their impeachment. House Republicans are following his lead, seeking to impeach at least six judges who have ruled against parts of Trump's agenda. Trump's statements earned him a shocking rebuke from Chief Justice Roberts. Without mentioning him by name, Roberts thundered in March that 'for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.' The rare statement from the Chief Justice came just hours after a social media post from Trump, who described District Judge James E. Boasberg as an unelected 'troublemaker and agitator,' and a 'radical left lunatic' after Boasberg had blocked deportation flights that Trump claimed were authorized in wartime by the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. Top Trump advisor Stephen Miller has also railed against a cabal of 'Communist' judges who are determined to keep 'terrorists' in the country, while Elon Musk in a post on X said judges who defy the president should be impeached. The threats have also been delivered through physical means. Several judges have faced a slew of 'intimidation tactics' sending the message that their home addresses are publicly known. A New Jersey judge, for example, received a pizza addressed to her murdered son. Earlier this month, a Wisconsin County Court judge was arrested by the FBI in her own courthouse and led away in manacles after allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest. Other judges who defied the administration have faced bomb threats and threats of physical violence. One Supreme Court justice is now speaking out more forcefully. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson received a standing ovation at a conference of judges in Puerto Rico last week after denouncing the administration's 'relentless attacks' on federal judges, seeing in them a threat to the rule of law (but again without mentioning Trump by name). Jackson said, 'Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs … And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.' 'The attacks are also not isolated incidents,' Jackson told the assembled judges. 'That is, they impact more than just individual judges who are being targeted. Rather, the threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government and they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.' 'A society in which judges are routinely made to fear for their own safety or their own livelihood due to their decisions is one that has substantially departed from the norms of behavior that govern a democratic system,' she stated. 'Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair and not rule-of-law oriented, operate.' 'Other judges have faced challenges like the ones we face today, and have prevailed,' she said, pointing to similar attacks on judges who issued controversial rulings during the Civil Rights Movement and the Watergate scandal. Her 18-minute denunciation is the strongest statement yet by any member of the Supreme Court during Trump's second term. It is hard to believe that her prepared remarks were not approved by the Chief Justice. Judges have few avenues to fight back ethically against unprincipled personal attacks. Lawyers are supposed to speak out on their behalf, but we now know that Big Law is afraid of reprisals from Trump that might affect their billion-dollar revenues. Judge Curiel mildly jabbed at Trump in court papers stating his derogatory comments about him had 'placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.' He was forbidden from further public comment because of ethical rules about commenting extrajudicially on pending cases. Roy Cohn knew this, and so does Trump. Bullies lash out at the defenseless. We are living in trying times. James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York's Southern District. He is also the host of the public television talk show and podcast Conversations with Jim Zirin.
Economist
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Economist
The judge losing his patience with the Trump administration
DONALD TRUMP likes picking fights with judges. In 2016 Mr Trump said a judge's Mexican heritage rendered him incapable of fairly adjudicating fraud cases against Trump University, a for-profit institution that closed in 2011. Two years later the president condemned a ruling against his immigration policies as a 'disgrace'. Lawsuits against him during the Biden years—including one for conspiring to steal the 2020 election—spurred many attacks.
Chicago Tribune
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Heidi Stevens: Trump has treated the country as his stage. But Americans are not extras in their own life stories
Of all the roles that Donald Trump has held during the course of his life, the most consistent has been performer. Whether he's helming a real estate company, backing a string of casinos or bankrolling a football team; founding Trump University or purchasing Miss Universe; running for president or running the country, he makes sure to perform the part for all the world to see — chronicling his endeavors in self-aggrandizing books, splashing his name across buildings, launching his own social media platform when he was banned from the others. 'The Apprentice' may have been his first reality TV show, but America has been serving, in Trump's estimation, as his cast, crew and set all along. And now that his main character vibes and commitment to artifice are back in the White House, he's determined to remake our past, present and future in his image, once and for all. Whether it's threatening universities that don't bend to his will or axing the entire team of scientists compiling a massive report on the effects of climate change or laying waste to programs he doesn't care for — programs that feed hungry people and educate children and create a safety net for seniors — his vision won't be blurred by inconvenient truths. Whether it's ignoring a unanimous Supreme Court ruling or arresting a sitting judge or detaining a Tufts student over a co-authored oped or deporting U.S. citizen children, including one with cancer, his story won't be sidetracked by laws. Whether it's banning parts of history from being taught in our schools or purging military heroes who weren't white men from Defense Department websites or banning words like equality, Black and inclusion from government documents, his commitment to whitewashing is absolute. Whether it's issuing an executive order declaring that the United States doesn't recognize transgender individuals or refusing to engage with reporters who use gender pronouns in their emails, there's always room for cruelty in this show. One thing that doesn't fit neatly in the Trump narrative is thousands upon thousands of fed up Americans flooding the streets and sidewalks of small towns and bucolic suburbs and giant cities. So many people. So many signs. So much righteous indignation at what's transpired in 100 days. So much determination to bend this narrative back toward constitutional adherence and democratic ideals, away from economic ruin and global isolation. So many Americans who refuse to be relegated to extras in the stories of their own lives. 'Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now,' Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a recent speech to New Hampshire Democrats. 'These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.' Earlier in his speech, he had this to say: 'It's time for us to be done with optimism about their motives or their objectives. It's time to stop wondering if you can trust the nuclear codes to people who don't know how to organize a group chat. It's time to stop ignoring the hypocrisy and wearing a big gold cross while announcing the defunding of children's cancer research. Time to stop thinking that we can reason or negotiate with a madman. Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong. Time to stop surrendering when we need to fight.' The governor's been getting some blowback from critics who say he's inciting unrest. But megaphones and microphones are not violent weapons. They're tools for change, and they're constitutionally protected. He's right to encourage Americans to exercise their rights. He's also not alone. No less than David Brooks, a longtime conservative commentator — he described himself as 'a happy member of Team Red for decades' — is making a similar plea. 'So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks,' Brooks wrote in the New York Times on April 17. 'In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they're attacking our universities. On yet another front they're undermining NATO and on another they're upending global trade. But that's the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump's acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.' This isn't normal politics, he argues. 'We're seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican,' he wrote. 'It's time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It's time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. 'I'm really not a movement guy,' he concluded. 'I don't naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I'm not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now. Trump is shackling the greatest institutions in American life. We have nothing to lose but our chains.' It's not how Trump would script it. But America isn't his show. It's our nation. It's our communities. It's our values. It's our shared history and sacrifices and sweat and triumphs and traditions and dark chapters and hard-earned lessons and joy and art and cherry blossoms and mountains and 125,000 lakes and everything we've been trusted to care for and leave in better shape than we found it. It's real. It's fragile. It's all of ours.
