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Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Byrna Technologies Announces Preliminary Fiscal Second Quarter Record Revenues of $28.5 Million
Company Achieves 41% Year-Over-Year Growth Driven by Compact Launcher Rollout and Retail Expansion ANDOVER, Mass., June 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Byrna Technologies Inc. ('Byrna' or the 'Company') (Nasdaq: BYRN), a technology company, specializing in the development, manufacture, and sale of innovative less-lethal personal security solutions, today announced select preliminary financial results for the fiscal second quarter ended May 31, 2025. Preliminary Second Quarter ResultsBased on preliminary unaudited results, Byrna expects total revenue for the fiscal second quarter of 2025 to be $28.5 million, representing a 41% increase from $20.3 million in the fiscal second quarter of 2024. The record Q2 performance was driven by strong early demand for the new Byrna Compact Launcher (CL), which launched on May 1, along with meaningful channel expansion. E-commerce sales grew 15% year-over-year, supported by growing brand recognition and an increasingly balanced channel mix. Dealer sales rose 106% year-over-year to $7.5 million, driven by early success in the Company's partnership with Sportsman's Warehouse, which soft-launched Byrna products in select stores during the second quarter. As of quarter-end, the program had rolled out an initial group of stores featuring shop-in-shop formats, with in-store 'Byrna Genius' installations expected to begin in July to support continued growth and deepen in-store engagement. Growth in the dealer channel also reflected continued momentum from Byrna's traditional distributor network. International sales rose 86%, including approximately $800,000 in royalty revenue from Byrna LATAM, which is up from a negligible base in the prior year period. To ensure sufficient supply for the CL launch and build inventory across product lines, Byrna produced 38,237 Compact Launchers in the quarter, contributing to a total of 63,835 launchers manufactured. Management Commentary'We are continuing to raise the bar at Byrna and are encouraged with our ability to generate a record $28.5 million in revenue for the second quarter,' said Byrna CEO Bryan Ganz. 'While we saw softness in overall consumer spending throughout the quarter, the launch of the CL and sustained expansion of our total addressable market helped drive a 41% year-over-year increase in revenue. This success is a testament to the growing strength of our brand and the innovation behind the CL. 'Over the past six months, we've steadily ramped production to support a successful launch of the CL. With the rollout now underway and a healthy inventory of SD and LE launchers in place, we are transitioning to a steady-state production cadence of 15,000 launchers per month. Combined with the ramping Sportsman's Warehouse partnership and an expanded influencer roster—including the recent addition of Tucker Carlson—we're well positioned to maintain momentum through the second half of 2025 and beyond.' Preliminary Fiscal Second Quarter 2025 Sales Breakdown: Sales Channel ($ in millions) Q2 2025 Q2 2024 % Change Web 16.6 14.4 15% Byrna Dedicated Dealers 7.5 3.6 106% Law Enforcement / Schools / Pvt Security 0.1 0.0 120% Retail Stores 0.8 0.2 223% International 3.6 1.9 86% Total Sales 28.5 20.3 41% Conference CallByrna plans to report its full financial results for the fiscal second quarter in July, which will be accompanied by a conference call to discuss the results and address questions from investors and analysts. The conference call details will be announced prior to the event. About Byrna Technologies is a technology company specializing in the development, manufacture, and sale of innovative non-lethal personal security solutions. For more information on the Company, please visit the corporate website here or the Company's investor relations site here. The Company is the manufacturer of the Byrna® SD personal security device, a state-of-the-art handheld CO2 powered launcher designed to provide a non-lethal alternative to a firearm for the consumer, private security, and law enforcement markets. To purchase Byrna products, visit the Company's e-commerce store. Forward-Looking StatementsThis news release contains 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of the securities laws. All statements contained in this news release, other than statements of current and historical fact, are forward-looking. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as 'plans,' 'expects,' 'intends,' 'anticipates,' and 'believes' and statements that certain actions, events or results 'may,' 'could,' 'would,' 'should,' 'might,' 'occur,' 'be achieved,' or 'will be taken.' Forward-looking statements include descriptions of currently occurring matters which may continue in the future. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, our statements related to preliminary revenue results for the second fiscal quarter 2025, the timing of the release of full financial results for the quarter, expectations for future sales growth and demand trends, the impact of marketing strategies, the anticipated performance of new products and retail store expansion, and the Company's ability to sustain momentum throughout 2025. Forward-looking statements are not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events. Forward-looking statements are based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates, and analyses that, while considered reasonable by the Company at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies, and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied. Any number of risk factors could affect our actual results and cause them to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements in this news release, including, but not limited to, disappointing market responses to current or future products or services; prolonged, new, or exacerbated disruption of the Company's supply chain; the further or prolonged disruption of new product development; production or distribution or delays in entry or penetration of sales channels due to inventory constraints, competitive factors, increased shipping costs or freight interruptions; prototype, parts and material shortages, particularly of parts sourced from limited or sole source providers; determinations by third party controlled distribution channels not to carry or reduce inventory of the Company's products; determinations by advertisers to prohibit marketing of some or all Byrna products; the loss of marketing partners or endorsers; potential cancellations of existing or future orders including as a result of any fulfillment delays, introduction of competing products, negative publicity, or other factors; product design defects or recalls; litigation, enforcement proceedings or other regulatory or legal developments; changes in consumer or political sentiment affecting product demand; regulatory factors including the impact of commerce and trade laws and regulations; import-export related matters or tariffs, sanctions or embargos that could affect the Company's supply chain or markets; delays in planned operations related to licensing, registration or permit requirements; and future restrictions on the Company's cash resources, increased costs and other events that could potentially reduce demand for the Company's products or result in order cancellations. The order in which these factors appear should not be construed to indicate their relative importance or priority. We caution that these factors may not be exhaustive; accordingly, any forward-looking statements contained herein should not be relied upon as a prediction of actual results. Investors should carefully consider these and other relevant factors, including those risk factors in Part I, Item 1A, ('Risk Factors') in the Company's most recent Form 10-K, should understand it is impossible to predict or identify all such factors or risks, should not consider the foregoing list, or the risks identified in the Company's SEC filings, to be a complete discussion of all potential risks or uncertainties, and should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. Investor Contact:Tom Colton and Alec WilsonGateway Group, Inc. 949-574-3860BYRN@
CNN
2 days ago
- General
- CNN
Inside Trump's gutting of the DOJ unit that enforces voting laws
The Justice Department's unit tasked with enforcing federal voting laws is down from roughly 30 attorneys to about a half-dozen, as most of its career staff has departed in the face of escalating pressure tactics from the Trump administration. The mass exodus that has whittled the voting section down to a fifth of its normal size came after a relentless campaign by the department's political leaders to smear the work of the longtime attorneys, dismiss noncontroversial cases, and reassign career supervisors. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump appointee who oversees the civil rights division, which houses the DOJ voting section, has joked about how the division has emptied out. More than 200 attorneys from the division, often called the 'crown jewel' of the department, took a buyout offered by the administration. 'The crying, the unhappy hours, the mass resignations, the leaking, there's a support group for former civil rights attorneys,' Dhillon told conservative commentator Tucker Carlson in a recent interview. 'These are all leading indicators of the stages of grief.' During President Donald Trump's first term, DOJ officials forced voting section attorneys to abandon the more high-profile work that had often been opposed by conservatives. But the gutting of the section during Trump's second administration goes far beyond that, according to former department attorneys and outside voter advocates. 'We are seeing many more people at this point, after many, many years of experience, leave the division,' said Thomas Saenz, the president of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 'That is obviously more devastating, because the work that's going to be done by them is going to be more clearly anti-voting rights and, frankly, done by less experienced people.' The Justice Department has already dropped challenges to Republican-drawn redistricting maps and GOP-backed election laws, as well as lawsuits that alleged Black voters in small communities had been discriminated against by longstanding local voting systems. The administration is abandoning preexisting cases brought under the Voting Rights Act as the 1965 civil rights law is under legal attack, with a new appeals court ruling foreclosing private enforcement of its main provision in a large swath of the country. It is unclear how the Justice Department will do even the most benign election law enforcement – like making sure military members serving abroad receive their ballots in time to vote – with the lack of staff and loss of expertise. And the attorneys' departure could undermine Trump's ability to execute his own agenda for voting practices, after his false beliefs that the 2020 election was stolen have only festered in the four years he was out of office. A provision of the president's sweeping executive order seeking to overhaul election rules has already been blocked by a judge in Washington, DC. Another major legal challenge will be scrutinized at a court hearing in Boston this week. Still, the voting unit and its barebones staff is pushing ahead, with a new lawsuit last week seeking to address the registration records of potentially tens of thousands of North Carolinians after election officials did not collect ID information required by law. A Justice Department official, pointing to the North Carolina lawsuit, said that the voting section 'remains active despite shifting priorities from the previous administration.' Now serving as acting chief, according to court filings, is Maureen Riordan, who served in various department roles – both career and politically appointed – during the first Trump administration before spending the Biden years at a conservative legal advocacy group that successfully opposed the Justice Department in a significant redistricting case. Dhillon and her boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, have been outspoken about their desire to reshape the department by pushing out career officials who balk at pursuing the administration's agenda in court. 'I would have loved all the lawyers from civil rights… to roll up their sleeves and get to work with me,' Dhillon said in a recent address to the Federalist Society. But, she said, 'a lot of lawyers didn't want to do that.' As the deadline for the buyout opportunity approached this spring, the administration's squeeze on the division's voting section tightened. Several career supervisors in the section were targeted with reassignments just days before that offer's expiration, according to people familiar with the section's inner workings. 'That's what really made people nervous,' said one former DOJ lawyer, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. The supervisors typically serve as the buffer between the career 'line' attorneys who litigate cases and the department's political appointees. Ultimately most of the supervisors, including the section's chief, left the department when confronted with the reassignments, which would have sent them to an administrative office that handles internal employee complaints. Just two trial attorneys remain at the section, sources told CNN, though the administration has tasked six attorneys in the civil rights division's housing enforcement section to pick up some of the voting section's work. The fact that the administration was bringing in attorneys from another section, while seeking to reassign the attorneys with longtime experience in voting law, shows that 'they don't want the people with the background and the experience,' the former lawyer said. A department official familiar with the matter told CNN that attorneys from sections with less work were being reassigned to clear case backlogs. The reassignments happened against the backdrop of a series of other administration maneuvers that encouraged the departures of career attorneys who thought, at the beginning of Trump's second term, they could stick it out. On her first day as attorney general, Bondi penned a memo requiring DOJ lawyers to 'zealously' advocate for administration positions or face disciplinary action and potential firing that set the tone. In the weeks that followed, the administration dropped a number of major cases including a Alabama voter purge lawsuit that had already produced a win for the DOJ; a Texas redistricting challenge that, after years of litigation, was about to go to trial; and the lawsuit brought against a Georgia overhaul of its election laws – an overhaul that was propelled by Trump's lies about the 2020 count and included new ID requirements and a ban on mobile voting. Before the Georgia case was formally dropped, Bondi said in a news release that the claims in the lawsuit were 'fabricated' and 'false.' Dhillon too slammed the Georgia lawsuit as a 'fact-free hypothesis.' Bondi's language was a 'huge allegation, and one that has consequences for your bar license,' the former DOJ lawyer told CNN. Gates McGavick, a Justice Department spokesperson, defended the Georgia case's dismissal and Bondi's rhetoric around it, saying in a statement to CNN that the legal challenge was 'based on conspiracy theories pushed by extremist politicians' and among 'the worst examples of weaponization under the prior administration.' Though less noticed, the Trump administration's move to dismiss a handful of more under-the-radar cases, dealing with challenges to the voting policies of municipalities, was perhaps an even greater blow to the morale of the career voting section officials. Those lawsuits were the type of unflashy cases the department has consistently brought under GOP administrations in the past, including the first Trump term, as they were not the partisan lightning rods like DOJ challenges to statewide election laws. 'Once small cases were dismissed, it became clear they weren't just shutting down controversial cases; they were shutting down Voting Rights Act enforcement,' another former DOJ attorney told CNN. One such case was a DOJ lawsuit against Houston County, Georgia, that alleged its system of elections for its county commission diluted the political power of Black voters, who make up nearly a third of the county's electorate. Among the Black candidates who were defeated over the years, under the county's at-large system, were candidates who ran as Democrats, Republicans or independents, according to the lawsuit, filed days before Trump's inauguration. 'You wouldn't have dismissed cases like those in Trump 1,' said a third former DOJ attorney, who did appellate work for the division before leaving at the beginning of the current administration. 'That's a signal to me that the Trump administration is just hostile across the board.' Amid the withdrawals, the Justice Department issued a new 'mission statement' for the voting section and other offices within the civil rights division. The statement signaled a focus on election fraud, as well as on defending Trump's executive order on voting. It also mislabeled the voting section (calling it the 'Voting Rights Section') and botched the name of a law that the voting section traditionally enforces, the National Voter Registration Act (calling it the 'National Voting Rights Act.') Though the Justice Department is abandoning the voting rights cases it brought under the prior administration, many of those lawsuits will continue because non-government voting rights groups are also involved in the legal challenges. Still, the department's withdrawal from the existing cases comes at a cost to the private litigators – and particularly so in the case alleging racial discrimination in the way Texas Republican lawmakers drew their legislative maps. A trial in that case began last month. 'A major player withdraws like that on the eve of trial, it's a concern,' said Saenz, whose organization is among the private groups that sued Texas. 'It increases burdens – both time burdens and money burdens, frankly – and could ultimately have an effect on the outcome.' And, as the department is apparently stepping away from enforcing a key Voting Rights Act provision known as Section 2, a federal appeals court cut off private enforcement of the provision in a ruling last month that applies to seven midwestern states. That ruling has been appealed. But in the meantime, as long at the department is not interested in bringing VRA cases, the 'heart' of the landmark civil rights law is 'effectively dead' in those seven states, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor who worked on voting issues in Democratic administrations, including in a top civil rights division role under President Barack Obama. Former DOJ attorneys told CNN that VRA enforcement on a local level was of particular concern. Those cases take significant resources, and often federal government subpoena power, to investigate and bring, as do enforcement actions brought under other federal voting laws. The Help America Vote Act, under which the department has brought cases dealing with ballot access for people with disabilities and requirements for provisional voting, cannot be enforced by private parties. Private parties can bring lawsuits under parts of the National Voter Registration law, which sets certain standards for voting registration in most of the country and also requires election officials take certain steps to keep their voter rolls clean. But their burdens are higher than they are for the DOJ, both because of a procedural threshold known as standing and because they lack the federal government's subpoena power to investigate voter registration practices. The unseen effort that goes into enforcing the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act has now also been called into question with the loss of the department's voting attorneys. The former appellate DOJ attorney described it as 'completely nonpartisan work,' and one of the section's 'highest priorities.' The law sets out the procedures to make sure US service members and other Americans abroad can vote. Voting section attorneys typically make contact with the top election officials in all 50 states ahead of every election to make sure their overseas ballot processes are on track to meet federal deadlines. The third former DOJ attorney described the effort as a 'really all-hands-on-deck process that involves dozens of attorneys.' The military vote has long been seen as sacrosanct, and UOCAVA was passed in 1986 with broad bipartisan support. Parts of Trump's election executive order would appear to make it harder for military families away from their homes to vote. The White House previously defended the executive order in an April statement that said Trump 'wants to ensure the right of every eligible citizen to vote while preserving election integrity.' A Justice Department official told CNN that the department 'will continue to enforce civil provisions of federal statutes that protect voter integrity,' including those in UOCAVA, NVRA and HAVA. Hollowing out the voting section could inflict collateral damage on the Republican Party, experts told CNN, because their supporters are infrequent voters who suffer the most if federal voting laws aren't enforced. And the ability of the administration to carry out Trump's stated goal of keeping voter rolls free of ineligible voters may now also be at risk with the career experts in the relevant law no longer working at the department. A test case for how the department operates without the longtime voting attorneys who left is the ongoing litigation challenging Trump's election executive order. Normally, a different DOJ division – the civil division – would defend a presidential order. In the legal challenges to it filed in DC, however, arguments were led by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Gates, a top Trump appointee in the civil rights division. It was notable that Gates showed up to the mid-April arguments by himself, as in other high-profile cases challenging Trump policies, career attorneys have been present as back up for the political appointees making the arguments. Dhillon, Gates' boss, watched from the audience. The arguments did not go well. Gates struggled with the judge's questions about the legal authorities the department would be relying on to carry out Trump's directives. He was also grilled by the judge on evidence put forward by the plaintiffs – a letter from the US Election Assistance Commission about implementing the executive order – that contradicted a key legal argument the administration was making in the case. That latter dust up earned a sharp footnote in the opinion of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who issued an order halting a provision of Trump's order that sought to expand requirements for Americans to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote. 'The Court is not currently of the mind that counsel for Defendants intentionally misrepresented the facts by failing to mention a letter authored by a declarant with whom he surely consulted,' she wrote. 'But the Court must remark that this exchange does not reflect the level of diligence the Court expects from any litigant—let alone the United States Department of Justice.' In a surprising move, the administration has indicated it would not appeal Kollar-Kotelly's preliminary order as the case moves forward on the merits. A hearing is scheduled on June 6 in a separate case, brought by Democratic-led states, that could produce a more sweeping order blocking other provisions in the executive order. The civil division is leading the administration's defense in that lawsuit.
CNN
2 days ago
- General
- CNN
Inside Trump's gutting of the DOJ unit that enforces voting laws
The Justice Department's unit tasked with enforcing federal voting laws is down from roughly 30 attorneys to about a half-dozen, as most of its career staff has departed in the face of escalating pressure tactics from the Trump administration. The mass exodus that has whittled the voting section down to a fifth of its normal size came after a relentless campaign by the department's political leaders to smear the work of the longtime attorneys, dismiss noncontroversial cases, and reassign career supervisors. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump appointee who oversees the civil rights division, which houses the DOJ voting section, has joked about how the division has emptied out. More than 200 attorneys from the division, often called the 'crown jewel' of the department, took a buyout offered by the administration. 'The crying, the unhappy hours, the mass resignations, the leaking, there's a support group for former civil rights attorneys,' Dhillon told conservative commentator Tucker Carlson in a recent interview. 'These are all leading indicators of the stages of grief.' During President Donald Trump's first term, DOJ officials forced voting section attorneys to abandon the more high-profile work that had often been opposed by conservatives. But the gutting of the section during Trump's second administration goes far beyond that, according to former department attorneys and outside voter advocates. 'We are seeing many more people at this point, after many, many years of experience, leave the division,' said Thomas Saenz, the president of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 'That is obviously more devastating, because the work that's going to be done by them is going to be more clearly anti-voting rights and, frankly, done by less experienced people.' The Justice Department has already dropped challenges to Republican-drawn redistricting maps and GOP-backed election laws, as well as lawsuits that alleged Black voters in small communities had been discriminated against by longstanding local voting systems. The administration is abandoning preexisting cases brought under the Voting Rights Act as the 1965 civil rights law is under legal attack, with a new appeals court ruling foreclosing private enforcement of its main provision in a large swath of the country. It is unclear how the Justice Department will do even the most benign election law enforcement – like making sure military members serving abroad receive their ballots in time to vote – with the lack of staff and loss of expertise. And the attorneys' departure could undermine Trump's ability to execute his own agenda for voting practices, after his false beliefs that the 2020 election was stolen have only festered in the four years he was out of office. A provision of the president's sweeping executive order seeking to overhaul election rules has already been blocked by a judge in Washington, DC. Another major legal challenge will be scrutinized at a court hearing in Boston this week. Still, the voting unit and its barebones staff is pushing ahead, with a new lawsuit last week seeking to address the registration records of potentially tens of thousands of North Carolinians after election officials did not collect ID information required by law. A Justice Department official, pointing to the North Carolina lawsuit, said that the voting section 'remains active despite shifting priorities from the previous administration.' Now serving as acting chief, according to court filings, is Maureen Riordan, who served in various department roles – both career and politically appointed – during the first Trump administration before spending the Biden years at a conservative legal advocacy group that successfully opposed the Justice Department in a significant redistricting case. Dhillon and her boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, have been outspoken about their desire to reshape the department by pushing out career officials who balk at pursuing the administration's agenda in court. 'I would have loved all the lawyers from civil rights… to roll up their sleeves and get to work with me,' Dhillon said in a recent address to the Federalist Society. But, she said, 'a lot of lawyers didn't want to do that.' As the deadline for the buyout opportunity approached this spring, the administration's squeeze on the division's voting section tightened. Several career supervisors in the section were targeted with reassignments just days before that offer's expiration, according to people familiar with the section's inner workings. 'That's what really made people nervous,' said one former DOJ lawyer, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. The supervisors typically serve as the buffer between the career 'line' attorneys who litigate cases and the department's political appointees. Ultimately most of the supervisors, including the section's chief, left the department when confronted with the reassignments, which would have sent them to an administrative office that handles internal employee complaints. Just two trial attorneys remain at the section, sources told CNN, though the administration has tasked six attorneys in the civil rights division's housing enforcement section to pick up some of the voting section's work. The fact that the administration was bringing in attorneys from another section, while seeking to reassign the attorneys with longtime experience in voting law, shows that 'they don't want the people with the background and the experience,' the former lawyer said. A department official familiar with the matter told CNN that attorneys from sections with less work were being reassigned to clear case backlogs. The reassignments happened against the backdrop of a series of other administration maneuvers that encouraged the departures of career attorneys who thought, at the beginning of Trump's second term, they could stick it out. On her first day as attorney general, Bondi penned a memo requiring DOJ lawyers to 'zealously' advocate for administration positions or face disciplinary action and potential firing that set the tone. In the weeks that followed, the administration dropped a number of major cases including a Alabama voter purge lawsuit that had already produced a win for the DOJ; a Texas redistricting challenge that, after years of litigation, was about to go to trial; and the lawsuit brought against a Georgia overhaul of its election laws – an overhaul that was propelled by Trump's lies about the 2020 count and included new ID requirements and a ban on mobile voting. Before the Georgia case was formally dropped, Bondi said in a news release that the claims in the lawsuit were 'fabricated' and 'false.' Dhillon too slammed the Georgia lawsuit as a 'fact-free hypothesis.' Bondi's language was a 'huge allegation, and one that has consequences for your bar license,' the former DOJ lawyer told CNN. Gates McGavick, a Justice Department spokesperson, defended the Georgia case's dismissal and Bondi's rhetoric around it, saying in a statement to CNN that the legal challenge was 'based on conspiracy theories pushed by extremist politicians' and among 'the worst examples of weaponization under the prior administration.' Though less noticed, the Trump administration's move to dismiss a handful of more under-the-radar cases, dealing with challenges to the voting policies of municipalities, was perhaps an even greater blow to the morale of the career voting section officials. Those lawsuits were the type of unflashy cases the department has consistently brought under GOP administrations in the past, including the first Trump term, as they were not the partisan lightning rods like DOJ challenges to statewide election laws. 'Once small cases were dismissed, it became clear they weren't just shutting down controversial cases; they were shutting down Voting Rights Act enforcement,' another former DOJ attorney told CNN. One such case was a DOJ lawsuit against Houston County, Georgia, that alleged its system of elections for its county commission diluted the political power of Black voters, who make up nearly a third of the county's electorate. Among the Black candidates who were defeated over the years, under the county's at-large system, were candidates who ran as Democrats, Republicans or independents, according to the lawsuit, filed days before Trump's inauguration. 'You wouldn't have dismissed cases like those in Trump 1,' said a third former DOJ attorney, who did appellate work for the division before leaving at the beginning of the current administration. 'That's a signal to me that the Trump administration is just hostile across the board.' Amid the withdrawals, the Justice Department issued a new 'mission statement' for the voting section and other offices within the civil rights division. The statement signaled a focus on election fraud, as well as on defending Trump's executive order on voting. It also mislabeled the voting section (calling it the 'Voting Rights Section') and botched the name of a law that the voting section traditionally enforces, the National Voter Registration Act (calling it the 'National Voting Rights Act.') Though the Justice Department is abandoning the voting rights cases it brought under the prior administration, many of those lawsuits will continue because non-government voting rights groups are also involved in the legal challenges. Still, the department's withdrawal from the existing cases comes at a cost to the private litigators – and particularly so in the case alleging racial discrimination in the way Texas Republican lawmakers drew their legislative maps. A trial in that case began last month. 'A major player withdraws like that on the eve of trial, it's a concern,' said Saenz, whose organization is among the private groups that sued Texas. 'It increases burdens – both time burdens and money burdens, frankly – and could ultimately have an effect on the outcome.' And, as the department is apparently stepping away from enforcing a key Voting Rights Act provision known as Section 2, a federal appeals court cut off private enforcement of the provision in a ruling last month that applies to seven midwestern states. That ruling has been appealed. But in the meantime, as long at the department is not interested in bringing VRA cases, the 'heart' of the landmark civil rights law is 'effectively dead' in those seven states, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor who worked on voting issues in Democratic administrations, including in a top civil rights division role under President Barack Obama. Former DOJ attorneys told CNN that VRA enforcement on a local level was of particular concern. Those cases take significant resources, and often federal government subpoena power, to investigate and bring, as do enforcement actions brought under other federal voting laws. The Help America Vote Act, under which the department has brought cases dealing with ballot access for people with disabilities and requirements for provisional voting, cannot be enforced by private parties. Private parties can bring lawsuits under parts of the National Voter Registration law, which sets certain standards for voting registration in most of the country and also requires election officials take certain steps to keep their voter rolls clean. But their burdens are higher than they are for the DOJ, both because of a procedural threshold known as standing and because they lack the federal government's subpoena power to investigate voter registration practices. The unseen effort that goes into enforcing the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act has now also been called into question with the loss of the department's voting attorneys. The former appellate DOJ attorney described it as 'completely nonpartisan work,' and one of the section's 'highest priorities.' The law sets out the procedures to make sure US service members and other Americans abroad can vote. Voting section attorneys typically make contact with the top election officials in all 50 states ahead of every election to make sure their overseas ballot processes are on track to meet federal deadlines. The third former DOJ attorney described the effort as a 'really all-hands-on-deck process that involves dozens of attorneys.' The military vote has long been seen as sacrosanct, and UOCAVA was passed in 1986 with broad bipartisan support. Parts of Trump's election executive order would appear to make it harder for military families away from their homes to vote. The White House previously defended the executive order in an April statement that said Trump 'wants to ensure the right of every eligible citizen to vote while preserving election integrity.' A Justice Department official told CNN that the department 'will continue to enforce civil provisions of federal statutes that protect voter integrity,' including those in UOCAVA, NVRA and HAVA. Hollowing out the voting section could inflict collateral damage on the Republican Party, experts told CNN, because their supporters are infrequent voters who suffer the most if federal voting laws aren't enforced. And the ability of the administration to carry out Trump's stated goal of keeping voter rolls free of ineligible voters may now also be at risk with the career experts in the relevant law no longer working at the department. A test case for how the department operates without the longtime voting attorneys who left is the ongoing litigation challenging Trump's election executive order. Normally, a different DOJ division – the civil division – would defend a presidential order. In the legal challenges to it filed in DC, however, arguments were led by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Gates, a top Trump appointee in the civil rights division. It was notable that Gates showed up to the mid-April arguments by himself, as in other high-profile cases challenging Trump policies, career attorneys have been present as back up for the political appointees making the arguments. Dhillon, Gates' boss, watched from the audience. The arguments did not go well. Gates struggled with the judge's questions about the legal authorities the department would be relying on to carry out Trump's directives. He was also grilled by the judge on evidence put forward by the plaintiffs – a letter from the US Election Assistance Commission about implementing the executive order – that contradicted a key legal argument the administration was making in the case. That latter dust up earned a sharp footnote in the opinion of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who issued an order halting a provision of Trump's order that sought to expand requirements for Americans to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote. 'The Court is not currently of the mind that counsel for Defendants intentionally misrepresented the facts by failing to mention a letter authored by a declarant with whom he surely consulted,' she wrote. 'But the Court must remark that this exchange does not reflect the level of diligence the Court expects from any litigant—let alone the United States Department of Justice.' In a surprising move, the administration has indicated it would not appeal Kollar-Kotelly's preliminary order as the case moves forward on the merits. A hearing is scheduled on June 6 in a separate case, brought by Democratic-led states, that could produce a more sweeping order blocking other provisions in the executive order. The civil division is leading the administration's defense in that lawsuit.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Disgusted Tucker Carlson turns on Republican party after congressman calls for Gaza to be 'nuked'
Tucker Carlson said he's not sure he can support the Republican party after a Florida congressman called for Gaza to be nuked. Congressman Randy Fine, who was recently elected to replace Mike Waltz in Florida as the preferred candidate of President Trump, made the jaw dropping comments in a Fox News interview last month. He said: 'In World War 2 we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. 'We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here in Gaza. 'There is something deeply wrong with its culture and it needs to be defeated.' The extraordinary comments sparked widespread outrage and prompted a response from Hamas itself - the terror cell and de facto government in Gaza. Carlson, speaking on his podcast alongside Glenn Greenwald, said he was so taken aback by the comments that he initially thought they couldn't have been made by a real politician. 'I text a friend of mine in Congress,' Carlson said. 'This is a person who I confirmed is a real person. I didn't believe it at first... I didn't believe he was really a member of Congress.' Congressman Randy Fine, who was recently elected to replace Mike Waltz in Florida as the preferred candidate of President Trump (pictured together), made the jaw dropping comments in a Fox News interview last month 'It's evil. How can you say something like that and not get expelled from Congress? How can that person still be in the Republican party?' Carlson went on to say that Fine's comments had made him question whether he could remain loyal to the Republican party. 'I don't know if I can support a party with someone like Randy Fine... that's so disgusting. 'So we're gonna nuke Gaza because of its culture? We're going to kill everyone because we don't like their culture?' he repeated incredulously. 'There are Christians in Gaza. Muslims in Gaza. To say there is some Gazan culture that's cohesive.' Carlson has been one of MAGA's most outspoken and high profile supporters, particularly loyal to Trump. But Fine is a Jewish Trump-backed pick who won 83 percent of the Republican primary vote after the president's endorsement. 'Randy Fine has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, RANDY, RUN!' Trump said at the time. Fine has a history of bad blood with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has also fallen out with Trump after running against him in the Republican presidential primary. 'I think these are voters who didn't like Randy Fine, but who basically were like, ''You know what? We're going to take one for the team. The President needs another vote up there. And so we're going to do it'',' DeSantis said of Fine's victory, going on to describe him as a 'squish.' And the Florida congressman doubled down in his attacks on Gaza on Monday, sharing a post to Instagram in the wake of the anti-Israel terror attack in Boulder, Colorado. 'We need to not be afraid to call evil by its name. Palestinianism,' he wrote. Fine added that his Jewish sons had been picked on at school since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel which led to the current conflict in the region.
The Herald
4 days ago
- General
- The Herald
Words matter, as ‘white genocide' lies show
There is a proverb in the Setswana language that I wish I could translate properly, but I don't think I can. It goes: 'Lefoko ga le boe, go boa monwana.' Literally, it means: 'You cannot take back or retract words you have uttered against someone. A pointed finger, or a gesture, can however be retracted.' The important part of this expression is that words matter. Words uttered and words amplified matter. Once released into the world, words are incredibly difficult to recall or erase. People are made by words we utter, and people are broken by words we release into the world. Words uttered thoughtlessly can break people, businesses, governments. Words chosen carefully can save reputations, avert wars, build empires. Over the past week, I have attended several events in New York. These events have cut across class, race, age and gender. All of them have brought home to me just how much damage has been done to SA by the thoughtless, racist, white supremacist, and utterly false allegations that there is a 'white genocide' in SA when there is patently none taking place here. These lies, whipped up and fanned in SA and internationally by utterly shameless, cynical and unethical organisations such as AfriForum and Solidarity, have been transmitted to dimwits like American broadcaster Tucker Carlson who has, like a faithful dog, then placed them at the feet of US President Donald Trump. Two weeks ago, armed with these lies, the most powerful man in the world ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with pictures from the DRC and a misleading video, and claimed that this was evidence of these 'deaths' in SA. The SA Police Services last week released figures showing that in the first quarter of this year, five of six farmers were killed in SA. That's not a white genocide. It's murder of ordinary South Africans, all suffering under the scourge of crime. The point is that these lies of a non-existent 'white genocide' were uttered in the White House and reported across the globe. From Moscow to Beijing, from Havana to São Paulo, from Maputo to Cairo, the world was watching. And the world heard the most powerful man in the world lie to the world that there is a 'white genocide' in SA even though there is none. Words matter. Words carry. Words stick. Certainly, these false allegations of a genocide of white South Africans have stuck. Anecdotally, I see this everywhere. In the past week an immigration officer in New York asked a (white) friend of mine coming to SA: 'Is it true whites are being killed in SA?' At a school in New York, an Albanian asked me: 'Is it true white farmers are being slaughtered in SA?' At a Japanese restaurant I was asked: 'What are you guys doing in SA? Did you hear what President Trump said?' Many others joked about the scandalous encounter and utterances in the White House during the ambush of Ramaphosa. For the next decade I expect South Africans to be confronted by these lies whenever they travel across the world. I wonder how the so-called leaders of outfits like Solidarity and AfriForum sleep at night knowing they have lied to the world so much. On the other hand, why am I so naive as to expect that these hollow men still have a conscience? Here is another proverb: 'Lies have short legs.' It means that lies don't last long in life and that without corroboration and support, a lie cannot be sustained. When a lie is uttered from the White House not once, not twice, but almost weekly for four months, it reverberates across the world for a significant period of time. SA's brand has been badly damaged by these lies. I used to arrive at an immigration point on my travels across the world and people would smile at me and say 'Nelson Mandela'. Now, thanks to AfriForum and Solidarity and their lies, black South Africans are being asked if they are genocidaires. There can be nothing sicker than this — black South Africans, and black women in particular, are the most affected by all these crimes. SA now needs a robust strategy across the world to push back against these lies. This effort to counter the besmirching of SA's name needs to cut across from businesses to diplomats to ordinary citizens of the world. We have half a million Americans visiting SA every year — let's ensure they go back to their country as ambassadors for SA. Let's ensure they go home with a single message: it's a lie — SA is beautiful and there is no genocide there. We must be very clear, though. This assault on SA has been deeply damaging and will continue to be so. This assault on SA will continue, led by the relentless hate fanned by AfriForum and Solidarity. Huge damage has been done. Fixing it won't be easy because words are hard to erase.
