Latest news with #politicization
New York Times
4 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
In Trump's ‘Patriotic' Hiring Plan, Experts See a Politicized Federal Work Force
Republicans have long complained that the federal government is filled with ideologically opposed bureaucrats who stand in the way of their policies and are too hard to fire. Presidents from both parties have kicked off their time in office with a hiring freeze, looking to put their own stamp on personnel strategies. But President Trump is the first to ask federal job applicants to describe their allegiance to administration policy in an essay or to mandate training for senior government officials on White House executive orders, experts said. Senior agency officials, who are often political appointees, are to be directly involved in the hiring process, which has not previously been the case. The guidelines, released last month, arrived at a time when the Trump administration was beginning the process of filling vacancies left by the vast and indiscriminate job cuts of the last four months. The plan has long been to replace career civil service employees, whom Mr. Trump refers to as the 'deep state,' with workers who are more in line with his agenda and have an allegiance to him. Another piece of that effort is already underway, converting some senior positions to 'at will' employment so that they are easier to get rid of. Taken together with the new guidelines for traditionally nonpartisan hires, critics see a blueprint for politicizing the bureaucracy. The provisions are just two of many that appear in the 53 total pages of guidance released by the Office of Personnel Management, the government's human resources division, and the White House. But their startling implications, experts said, dwarf the good ideas in the guidance, such as focusing on skill-based hiring. 'It's the screening for ideological agreement and the training for ideological message that's unique about the Trump hiring plan,' said Donald F. Kettl, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland who studies the civil service. 'The bureaucracy is certainly accountable to the president and his executive orders, but the bureaucracy is also accountable to the law and to the existing body of regulations, as well as to the professional standards for which they were hired.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
As Ousters Continue, F.B.I. Singles Out Employee Over Friendship With Trump Critic
The F.B.I. has targeted another round of employees who ran afoul of conservatives, forcing out two veteran agents in Virginia — one of whom is friends with a critic of President Trump — and punishing another in Las Vegas, according to several people familiar with the matter. Two of the men, Spencer Evans and Stanley Meador, are senior agents who ran F.B.I. field offices in Las Vegas and Richmond, Va. The third, Michael Feinberg, a top deputy in the Norfolk, Va., office, had ties to a former agent whom Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, identified in his book as part of the so-called deep state. The moves add to the transfers, ousters and demotions that have rippled across the F.B.I. as Mr. Patel and Dan Bongino, his No. 2, promise to remake the country's premier law enforcement agency. The wave of changes, current and former agents say, amount to little more than retaliation, underscoring what they describe as the politicization of the F.B.I. as its leaders seek to mollify Mr. Trump's supporters. Critics say Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino, who are clear about their loyalty to the president and lack the experience of their predecessors, are simply doing what they railed about for years under the previous administration: weaponizing the bureau. In a statement addressing his decision to step down, Mr. Feinberg denounced the agency as an organization that had begun 'to decay.' The F.B.I. declined to comment. The case of Mr. Feinberg appears to be another example of retribution, former officials said. In his statement, he said that in late May, he was threatened with an investigation and the possibility of a demotion because of his friendship with Peter Strzok, a longtime counterintelligence agent who was fired in 2018. 'I was informed that, because I maintain a friendship with a former F.B.I. executive who is a critic and perceived enemy of the current administration, I would not be receiving any of the promotions for which I was currently being considered, and that I should actually steel myself to be demoted,' he said. Mr. Feinberg added that the F.B.I. had intended to have him take a polygraph, or a lie-detector test, about the nature of his ties to Mr. Strzok, which he said are entirely social. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
28-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
Chris Cillizza's Tesla vandalized, says obsession with politics is 'making us all crazy'
Former CNN journalist Chris Cillizza revealed on Wednesday that his Tesla was defaced with a sign reading "Musk is a Nazi," which someone taped to his bumper during his son's soccer tournament over the weekend. Cillizza said on his Substack that the politicization of everyday products is "making us crazy" and deepening the political divide between Americans. He reflected on the "journey" he's been on since purchasing his Tesla about five years ago, noting that owning an electric vehicle once meant "coding yourself as like an enviro-liberal-wacko-communist," but is now seen as a symbol of the right. "Five years ago, my Tesla symbolized everything MAGA world hated. But now it symbolizes everything the left hates?" he questioned. "Doesn't that suggest ascribing meaning to it in the first place was misguided?" The political commentator expressed frustration over the politicization of "everything" in recent years, referencing the backlash he received after visiting Chick-Fil-A, where some of his followers accused him of supporting anti-LGBTQ causes. "I didn't eat it because I wanted to send a message to gay people," Cillizza claimed. "I ate it because it was delicious." He also refuted the idea that being a patron of a company equates to endorsing its politics, an argument commonly made by critics of figures like Elon Musk. "If your bar is that you never interact with or buy anything from a company whose founder has taken a position with which you disagree or which has donated to a cause you don't support, I find it very hard to believe you are going to make any purchases ever," Cillizza wrote. "Breaking news: Giant corporations tend to do what makes them the most money, not always what's 'right.'" Closing out his thoughts on the incident, Cillizza warned against "the obsession with making every little bit of our lives into a political statement," declaring that it's "driving us further from any sort of recognition of our common humanity."
Washington Post
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Congresswoman's charges fuel claims of intimidation of Trump critics
In April, the Justice Department arrested a Wisconsin judge accused of helping an undocumented immigrant try to evade arrest by federal authorities. Three weeks later, the Secret Service launched a probe into former FBI director James B. Comey over a social media post it said amounted to a threat against President Donald Trump. And this week, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey charged a member of Congress with assault after she was accused of slamming her forearms against federal agents. Trump officials have said their moves are about ending the politicization of law enforcement and holding everyone to the same standard of justice, regardless of title or status. But Democrats and some legal scholars say they carry a message. Especially alarming to some is the recent criminal charge leveled against a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey. 'It's an attempt to intimidate potential critics,' said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley Law School. Chemerinsky said he can't think of a precedent for arresting a judge, charging a member of Congress and investigating the former head of the FBI, noting that prosecutions of public officials typically focus on corruption. 'This is arresting a congresswoman for interfering with federal law enforcement,' he said. 'I can't think of an instance where we've seen something like that.' Others, such as Eugene Volokh, an emeritus First Amendment professor at UCLA, said he believes there are 'plausible arguments' that the judge and congresswoman may have broken the law. Trump, who was indicted in two federal cases after his first term ended, promised as a candidate last year to remedy what he portrayed as a criminal justice system weaponized against him when Joe Biden was president. (Biden said he did not involve himself in the cases.) Trump defended his administration's actions on Tuesday. A White House spokesman, Harrison Fields, said that unlike Democrats, the administration is focused on investigating crimes regardless of who commits them. The clashes reflect a politically charged moment, with many Democrats shut out of power in Washington and eager to challenge the Trump administration in vocal and visible ways. Trump and his supporters often adopt a tough posture, relishing the arrests in social media posts and cable TV appearances. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-New Jersey) with assaulting two federal agents outside an immigration center in Newark during a scuffle this month. Trump accused McIver of being 'out of control' and said 'the days of that crap are over.' 'It's super unfortunate that we have come to this point in America that this is what we see happening to leaders in America who are trying to do their jobs,' McIver said Tuesday on CNN. 'We've seen this administration come after and attack leaders for trying to do their jobs. It's political intimidation, and I will not be intimidated.' Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) was arrested at the same event and was initially charged with trespassing. On Monday, Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said she would seek to dismiss the charges against Baraka, who is running in the Democratic primary for governor. The judge in that case has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday afternoon. On May 9, McIver visited Delaney Hall detention center in Newark with two other House Democrats for a congressional oversight tour of the facility. Baraka was arrested for trespassing amid a chaotic scene involving him, masked law enforcement officials and the three House members. Video released by the Department of Homeland Security shows McIver rushing after the agents as they attempted to arrest Baraka and shouting to protesters outside to 'surround the mayor.' At one point in the video, McIver's elbows appear to make contact with a masked officer amid the crush of the crowd. McIver went on an hour-long tour of the facility with the other House members afterward. Habba, in her statement Monday, said her office gave McIver 'every opportunity' to resolve the matter without bringing criminal charges but that McIver refused. Habba did not elaborate on what those opportunities entailed, and her office declined to comment further on McIver's case. McIver told CNN that Habba had asked her to admit to doing something she didn't do and that she refused to do so. Habba and other Justice Department officials cast the case as an effort to stand up for federal agents trying to do their jobs. 'This administration will always protect those who work tirelessly to keep America safe,' Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a social media post Monday night. Habba, in announcing the charges against McIver, maintained that 'no one is above the law — politicians or otherwise.' There could be more fallout from the incident. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey) told reporters Tuesday there was a 'possibility' she and Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-New Jersey) could face charges because of the incident. Coleman said attorneys from the members of Congress would meet soon with prosecutors. 'So we don't know what she has intended,' she said. 'But we're ready for whatever it might be.' Republicans said Democrats need to follow the law. 'Members are free to do what they want, but they run consequences when they do,' said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma). 'They don't have any special legal protection, nor should they.' Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) suggested voting to expel McIver from the House, while others have pushed for voting to formally censure her. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has not indicated whether he would consider taking action against her. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) told Democrats during their weekly caucus meeting on Tuesday that they would make sure that the 'so-called U.S. attorney' never gets confirmed by the Senate. Habba, a former personal lawyer for Trump, has not been formally nominated. U.S. attorney candidates have typically been subject to the 'blue slip' tradition in the Senate, which means their nominations are effectively killed if either of the two senators representing their home state do not approve of them. New Jersey's senators — Cory Booker and Andy Kim — are both Democrats who seem unlikely to approve her. 'She's an incredibly dangerous, politicized person in that role,' Kim said on Tuesday. This year's race for governor in New Jersey is seen as a high-profile gauge of voter sentiment about Trump. Like other Democrats in the primary, Baraka is pitching himself as someone who can push back forcefully on the administration as well as tackle local issues. 'This is really dangerous,' said Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-New Jersey), who is running for governor and previously served as a federal prosecutor in the office that Habba now oversees. 'McIver is a member of Congress. She was performing oversight duty. For Habba to politically charge her and … engage in a political type of assault on a member of Congress is really a dangerous path.' The charges against McIver were filed less than a month after federal officials arrested Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan at the courthouse where she presides. Hours later, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo online of the judge being led away in handcuffs below the phrase, 'No one is above the law.' Dugan has been indicted on charges of obstructing an official proceeding and concealing a person from arrest. She is accused of directing an immigrant who appeared before her to exit her courtroom through a side door instead of directly into a hallway where agents were waiting to arrest him. The agents caught up to him outside the courthouse. Dugan has asked the court to throw out the charges, arguing that federal prosecutors have no power to charge her for how she conducts business in her courtroom. Last week, the administration accused Comey, a Trump adversary, of threatening the president by posting a photo online of shells on a beach spelling out the phrase '86 47.' Trump is the 47th president, and '86' means to ban or remove someone and can be used as slang for killing a person. The Secret Service launched an investigation and on Friday interviewed Comey, who had already taken down his social media post. Comey has said he meant to spread only a political message. Volokh, the emeritus professor at UCLA, said he was skeptical of the need to investigate Comey. But he saw the Dugan and McIver cases differently. 'So much depends on the facts, but as a general matter, I think that these prosecutions, if the facts are as the government alleges, may very well be quite legitimate,' he said. Aziz Huq, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said investigators, prosecutors and investigators typically exercise restraint when reviewing cases involving free speech because they do not want to trample on anyone's rights. That's not so with recent decisions, he said. 'Rather than seeing caution in the use of these tools, we're seeing the opposite, which is the aggressive and arguably actually reckless use of these tools against individuals who are seen as being adverse to this administration,' he said. Hannah Knowles and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Official Pushed to Rewrite Intelligence So It Could Not Be ‘Used Against' Trump
New emails document how a top aide to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, ordered analysts to edit an assessment with the hope of insulating President Trump and Ms. Gabbard from being attacked for the administration's claim that Venezuela's government controls a criminal gang. 'We need to do some rewriting' and more analytic work 'so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS,' Joe Kent, the chief of staff to Ms. Gabbard, wrote in an email to a group of intelligence officials on April 3, using shorthand for Ms. Gabbard's position and for the president of the United States. The New York Times reported last week that Mr. Kent had pushed analysts to redo their assessment, dated Feb. 26, of the relationship between Venezuela's government and the gang, Tren de Aragua, after it came to light that the assessment contradicted a subsequent claim by Mr. Trump. The disclosure of the precise language of Mr. Kent's emails has added to the emerging picture of a politicized intervention. The final memo, which is dated April 7 and has since become public, still contradicts a key claim that Mr. Trump made to justify sending people accused of being members of the gang to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process. Emails on the topic from Mr. Kent, who is also Mr. Trump's pending nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, have circulated within the intelligence community and were described by people briefed on them. Mr. Kent's interventions have raised internal alarms about politicizing intelligence analysis. Defenders of Mr. Kent have disputed that his attempted intervention was part of a pressure campaign, arguing he was trying to show more of what the intelligence community knew about the gang. But the disclosure of his emails supports the accounts of critics who said he was applying political pressure to generate a torqued narrative that would support, rather than undermine, the administration's policy agenda. The issue centers on Mr. Trump's invocation in March of a rarely used wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to summarily deport people accused of being members of the gang. After several planeloads of such transfers, courts have blocked any further use of the law for now. The act, enacted in 1798, allows the government to remove citizens of a country that is in a declared war with the United States or otherwise invading U.S. territory. On its face, it appears to require a linkage to the actions of a foreign state, and Mr. Trump summoned such a link into existence in a proclamation on March 15. 'TDA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela,' Mr. Trump declared, referring to the gang. 'I make these findings using the full extent of my authority to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs under the Constitution.' But the U.S. intelligence community believes that the opposite is true: The gang is not controlled by the administration of Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, nor committing crimes in the United States at its direction, according to the two assessments by the National Intelligence Council. The council is an elite internal think-tank that reports to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It undertakes analytical projects at the request of policymakers, relying on information collected by agencies like the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency. The White House requested the original assessment in February as it was preparing Mr. Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation. Even after the council produced its first assessment, Mr. Trump proceeded to sign the proclamation that put forward the opposite claim in order to activate wartime deportation powers. The disconnect first came to light in a March 20 Times article that reported on the existence of the Feb. 26 memo and detailed why the intelligence community had reached its conclusion. The Times also reported that the F.B.I. partly dissented and thought there were some links between the gang and Venezuela's government based on information that the rest of the country's spy agencies thought was not credible. The Trump administration reacted with alarm to the disclosure of the intelligence assessment. On March 21, a Friday, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general — who is also a former criminal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump — issued a statement saying the Justice Department was opening a criminal leak investigation while also portraying the Times article as inaccurate. The following Monday, March 24, Mr. Kent sent an email to several people, including Michael Collins, then the acting head of the National Intelligence Council. Attaching a copy of the Times article to his message and telling the team to look at it, Mr. Kent said it was necessary to 'rethink' the assessment, according to multiple people who described it. 'Flooding our nation with 'migrants' and especially 'migrants' who are part of a violent criminal gang is the action of a hostile nation, even if the gov of Venezuela isn't specifically tasking or enabling TDA's operations,' Mr. Kent wrote, according to the people briefed on the email. Mr. Kent's comment that the Maduro administration wasn't 'tasking or enabling' the gang's operations appears to be a concession that Mr. Trump's claim might be doubtful. But Mr. Kent doubles down on the idea that Venezuela had taken advantage of Biden-era immigration policies to allow migrants, including gang members, into the United States. Mr. Kent wrote that the council needed to produce a new assessment on the topic that would reflect 'basic common sense' by the end of the week, saying he wanted to understand how any agency had concluded that Venezuela's government was not orchestrating Tren de Aragua's actions in the United States. The precise language of Mr. Kent's March 24 email was reported earlier by Reuters. Mr. Collins agreed to start work on a new council assessment, according to the people familiar with the exchange. Mr. Collins and Mr. Kent exchanged several emails on April 3 and April 4. But in one long email on April 3, Mr. Kent asked for changes, arguing that it wrongly, in his view, made it sound as if the Venezuelan government had no connections to the gang. 'Let's just come out and say TDA leaders are given sanctuary in Venezuela as their gang members commit horrendous crimes in America, then we can provide the context about our exact knowledge of relationship between TDA and the Venezuelan government,' Mr. Kent wrote. He also argued the assessment did not do enough to describe the situation on the border and Biden administration policies that he believed had made it too easy for migrants to enter the United States. He characterized former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as having announced that the border was open and having turned Customs and Border Protection into a 'travel service for illegals.' 'TDA didn't need logistical support from the Venezuelan government because Biden provided it for them,' Mr. Kent wrote. 'I understand some may view this as political, but it's not.' Mr. Kent ended the email by writing he wanted a version by the end of the week that could be declassified and provided to the White House team led by Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration's anti-immigration policy. On April 3 and 4, in a series of emails, the two men collaborated on various proposed edits to the document, Mr. Kent pushing for more about the impact of border policy on migration, and Mr. Collins agreeing to some edits. Officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on Tuesday. The intelligence community broadly thinks, according to the publicly released assessment, that Venezuela's government 'probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.' F.B.I. analysts agree with that assessment, the memo said, but also think that 'some Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members' migration' and use them as proxies to destabilize the United States and undermine public safety. The basis for the F.B.I.'s partial dissent, however, comes from statements made in custody by migrants who were arrested in the United States — and 'most' of the intelligence community 'judges that intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible,' the memo said. Among other reasons, it cited a lack of corroboration from any communications and funding flows that spy agencies would expect to collect if such coordination were happening, it said. The memo also contradicted Mr. Kent's premise, in the March 24 email, that Venezuela's government was deliberately sending migrants to the United States, bad actors or otherwise. Rather, it said, Venezuelans were migrating 'voluntarily, often at great personal risk, to flee political instability and near-collapse of Venezuela's economy.' Mr. Kent is said to have reacted happily to the final version of the second memo and ordered it declassified so that it could be discussed publicly, setting in motion a chain of events that led to its public release on May 5 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Notwithstanding Mr. Kent's happiness with Mr. Collins's final work, the second memo still contradicts what Mr. Trump said and its official disclosure has been a legal and political problem for the Trump administration. Ms. Gabbard has since fired Mr. Collins and his deputy at the National Intelligence Council, bashing them as biased, deep-state bureaucrats.
