update - Trump admin moves to re segregate the rural South

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Thousands of Afghans in the US face the risk of deportation after a federal appeals court refused to postpone the Trump administration's decision to remove their legal protection.

The government in April said it would end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — which grants migrants whose home nations are considered unsafe protection from deportation and work permits for a limited period — for people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.



The administration had planned to stop the TPS for Afghans last week, while the programme is due to end for Cameroonians on 4 August. The decision is expected to affect an estimated 11,700 Afghans and 5,200 Cameroonians, government data shows.


CASA, a non-profit immigrant advocacy group, sued the administration over the TPS revocation for citizens from those two countries. It said the decisions were racially motivated and failed to follow a process laid out by Congress.

The Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia said in a ruling late on Monday that CASA has a plausible case against the government and directed a lower court to "move expeditiously" to hear the lawsuit.




However, the appeals court said there was "insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement" of the Trump administration's decision not to extend TPS for people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.

In other words, the protections have ended while the lawsuit plays out.

The appeals court also said many of the TPS holders from the two countries may be eligible for other legal protections that remain available to them.

'Dire' conditions in Afghanistan
However, without an extension, TPS holders from Afghanistan and Cameroon face a “devastating choice", CASA had warned in court documents.

"Abandon their homes, relinquish their employment, and uproot their lives to return to a country where they face the threat of severe physical harm or even death, or remain in the United States in a state of legal uncertainty while they wait for other immigration processes to play out," the non-profit had said.

TPS is precarious because it is up to the Homeland Security secretary to renew the protections regularly — usually every 18 months.

The Trump administration has pushed to remove TPS from people from seven countries, with hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela and Haiti affected the most.



FILE: A Taliban fighter stands guard in a market ahead of Eid al-Adha, or "Feast of the Sacrifice", in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, June 5, 2025. Ebrahim Noroozi/Copyright 2025 The AP. All rights reserved
Homeland Security officials said in their decision to end TPS for Afghans that the situation in their home country was getting better. Several NGOs disagree with that.

"Ending TPS does not align with the reality of circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan," Global Refuge President and CEO Krish O'Mara Vignarajah said in a statement.

"Conditions remain dire, especially for allies who supported the US mission, as well as women, girls, religious minorities, and ethnic groups targeted by the Taliban."

Trump administration can end deportation protections for Afghans, court rules

 

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Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) put new pressure on Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Jeffrey Epstein case by dumping a road map to the pedophile's financial network into her lap as President Donald Trump begged his followers to move on from the scandal.

The Oregon Democrat and his investigators have been probing the late financier's networks and discovered four big banks had flagged $1.5 billion in suspicious money transfers to the Treasury Department involving Epstein that appeared to be linked to his sex-trafficking ring. Wyden went public with those findings last week and then handed his evidence to Bondi, reported The New Republic.



“I am convinced that the DOJ ignored evidence found in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Epstein file, a binder that contains extensive details on the mountains of cash Epstein received from prominent businessmen that Epstein used to finance his criminal network,” Wyden writes in his letter to the attorney general.


Wyden suggested seven lines of inquiry that DOJ investigators could follow to expose Epstein's financial ties with global elites, and his letter notifies Bondi that the federal government is already in possession of much of that evidence.

"Epstein clearly had access to enormous financing to operate his sex trafficking network, and the details on how he got the cash to pay for it are sitting in a Treasury Department filing cabinet," the senator told Bondi.





Banks file suspicious activity reports, or SARS, with the Treasury Department, and Wyden said his staff has documented filings on more than 4,725 wire transfers involving Epstein's accounts. His letter to Bondi makes clear the Trump administration is sitting on a mountain of evidence just waiting to be investigated.

"I'm handing Trump's DOJ a ready-made case with seven different lines of investigation for them to follow the money on Jeffrey Epstein," Wyden tweeted. "Trump's DOJ needs to demand more documents and more answers from banks that worked with Epstein. That includes investigating how Epstein used shady, sanctioned Russian banks to send hundreds of millions of payments likely linked to sex trafficking."

"My investigators also found that several ultra-wealthy Wall Street financiers, including Leon Black, paid Jeffrey Epstein hundreds of millions of dollars," the senator added. "There's a clear paper trail here between Epstein and these guys, and DOJ needs to follow the money to figure out why."





A Treasury spokesperson claims that Wyden never asked the Biden administration for the documents he now wants released, but an in-camera review by the senator's staff shows he sought that information from President Joe Biden and was given access – but a Republican senator blocked him from seeking a subpoena for their release.

"A Wyden aide tells [The New Republic] that in 2024, soon after Wyden’s staff viewed these Treasury documents in camera, Wyden actively moved to get the Senate to subpoena their release," wrote TNR's Greg Sargent. "Because Finance Committee rules require bipartisan support for subpoenas, Wyden sought the backing of several GOP senators on the committee, including now-chairman Mike Crapo and Marsha Blackburn. But none would support a subpoena, the aide says."

"That also has very dark implications, and you’d think MAGA would now intensify pressure on Senate Republicans to seek access to these Treasury documents as well," Sargent added.


MAGA influencers have traded on Epstein conspiracy theories for years, hinting that the convicted sex trafficker had evidence to destroy Trump's opposition, but now some of them – including FBI Director Kash Patel and Turning Point USA head Charlie Kirk – are losing their enthusiasm for the matter, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) just sent lawmakers home rather than face another vote for the files' release.

"That’s why moves like this one by Wyden are important, and why Democrats should use their limited power to do more of them," Sargent wrote. "This would keep the spotlight focused where it counts: The Trump administration possesses large amounts of information about Epstein’s corrupt and depraved dealings with unidentified members of the global elite, and Trump and his top advisers — with active GOP acquiescence — are now all in on the elite cover-up."

'Dark implications': Bondi faces fresh pressure as she's handed new Epstein 'paper trail'

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower-court decision that blocked its enforcement nationwide.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after Trump’s plan was also blocked by a federal judge in New Hampshire. It marks the first time an appeals court has weighed in and brings the issue one step closer to coming back quickly before the Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit decision keeps a block on the Trump administration enforcing the order that would deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily.

“The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the majority wrote.




The 2-1 ruling keeps in place a decision from U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle, who blocked Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship and decried what he described as the administration’s attempt to ignore the Constitution for political gain. Coughenour was the first to block the order.




The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The Supreme Court has since restricted the power of lower court judges to issue orders that affect the whole country, known as nationwide injunctions.







But the 9th Circuit majority found that the case fell under one of the exceptions left open by the justices. The case was filed by a group of states who argued that they need a nationwide order to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship only being the law in half of the country.

“We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief,” Judge Michael Hawkins and Ronald Gould, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote.


Judge Patrick Bumatay, who was appointed by Trump, dissented. He found that the states don’t have the legal right, or standing, to sue. “We should approach any request for universal relief with good faith skepticism, mindful that the invocation of ‘complete relief’ isn’t a backdoor to universal injunctions,” he wrote.

Bumatay did not weigh in on whether ending birthright citizenship would be constitutional.

The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

Justice Department attorneys argue that the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

The states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — argue that ignores the plain language of the Citizenship Clause as well as a landmark birthright citizenship case in 1898 where the Supreme Court found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

Trump’s order asserts that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if the mother does not have legal immigration status or is in the country legally but temporarily, and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. At least nine lawsuits challenging the order have been filed around the U.S.

Appeals court finds Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship unconstitutional, upholds block

A federal appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower-court decision that blocked its enforcement nationwide.

apnews.com

 

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In what has been described as a "barrage of attacks on workers," the U.S. Department of Labor under President Donald Trump is planning to overhaul dozens of rules that protect workers from exploitation and wage theft.

The administration announced this month that it planned to change over 60 regulations it deems "unecessary" burdens to businesses and economic growth.




According to an analysis released Tuesday by labor policy experts at the Century Foundation—senior fellows Julie Su and Rachel West and director of economy and jobs Andrew Stettner—most of the changes "reverse critical standards that ensure workers get a just day's pay and come home healthy and safe."

In one of the most sweeping changes, the department plans to reverse a 2013 rule that extended minimum wage and overtime protections to home healthcare workers.

These workers, who care for elderly and other medically frail individuals, already make less than $17 an hour on average.

Stettner told Common Dreams that the changes will "suppress wages" and allow agencies to "put the screws on workers to work 50- or 60-hour weeks."

The Trump administration is also rolling back a Biden-era rule that banned bosses from paying subminimum wages to disabled employees.




This discriminatory practice has been on the wane due to state-level bans in 15 states. But in the absence of a federal ban, nearly 40,000 employees—most of whom have intellectual disabilities—still received less than the federal minimum wage as of 2024.

The Century Foundation report says that by ending the rule, the Trump administration would be once again "relegating workers with disabilities to jobs that pay as little as pennies per hour."

The department is also taking a hatchet to workers' rights and safety. Another major change it proposed would do away with protections for seasonal migrant farmworkers under the H-2A visa program who raise complaints about wage and hour violations.

It was commonplace for farm owners to take advantage of these seasonal employees, whose legal status was tied to their work, and who therefore risked deportation if they lost their jobs.




Cases of exploitation, however, declined to an all-time low after the Biden administration introduced the rule, which banned employers from firing, disciplining, or otherwise retaliating against workers who attempted to participate in collective bargaining.

"These reforms protected the rights of farmworkers in the H-2A program to speak out individually and collectively against mistreatment and prevented employers from arbitrarily firing them from their jobs," the report says.

The department also proposed weakening the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) general duty clause, which allows businesses to be punished for putting their employees in dangerous situations. The proposed change would exempt many jobs that are deemed "inherently risky" from protection.

The administration described it as a way to prevent OSHA from cracking down on workplace injuries among athletes and stuntmen.


However, Stettner suggested that the broad language could allow the administration to go much further in defining what is considered "inherently risky." The report notes that the administration is "crowdsourcing" suggestions from employers about what other occupations to exempt.

"The employer community, they're jumping onto this," Stettner said. "They're telling their members to write in to the Department of Labor about other inherently dangerous occupations they should accept from the general duty clause."

The authors pointed out that the administration has previously rolled back restrictions meant to protect workers from heat-related stress on the job, which results in more than 600 deaths and over 25,000 injuries each year.

As the administration pushes to expand coal mining, it is also weakening protections for the miners themselves. After laying off most of the employees at OSHA's research arm—which monitors cases of black lung disease—earlier this year, it is now weakening safety requirements to prevent roof falls, mine explosions, and exposure to toxic silica.


"The DOL's role should be to protect the most vulnerable workers: farmworkers, people with disabilities, people that have suffered discrimination," Stettner said. "They're showing their true colors as an anti-worker administration."


Trump admin launches new 'barrage of attacks' on Americans

 

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The Trump administration is dramatically escalating its surveillance of immigrants through a shocking expansion of GPS monitors that were specifically designed to track cattle, according to internal White House documents obtained by The Washington Post.

In a June 9 memo, Immigration and Customs Enforcement ordered staff to slap ankle monitors on all participants in its Alternatives to Detention program "whenever possible" — potentially forcing an additional 159,000 migrants into electronic shackles.



The directive represents a massive expansion from the current 24,000 immigrants already wearing the devices, turning their homes and communities into what advocates call "digital cages.”

Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story.

"This will be a tool used to extend the reach of the government from just the folks it can manage to put in physical detention to an additional hundreds of thousands more that it can surveil," warned Laura Rivera, a senior attorney at Just Futures, tothe Post.

"It's designed to turn their own communities and homes into digital cages."

The monitors will be fastened to the ankles of people in the program, who have agreed to surveillance as their cases are processed — but the memo says pregnant women can have them fastened to their wrists.

The policy has blindsided immigrants like Paola, a 29-year-old Honduran mother who fled an abusive husband four years ago. Despite attending every court hearing and complying with check-ins while awaiting her asylum case, she was suddenly ordered to wear an ankle monitor due to "new laws."




"Maybe they've taken these drastic steps because many people don't show up to court," Paola told The Post. "But some of us do everything right and still get treated the same."

The expansion represents a windfall for the Geo Group, the private prison giant that employs Trump's border czar Tom Homan as a consultant and donated more than $1.5 million to Trump's campaign. The company's subsidiary BI Inc. — a business that was set up to monitor cattle — runs the entire tracking program.

"We have taken several important steps to be prepared to meet that opportunity, and we are very well positioned," Geo CEO David Donahue said to investors in May, revealing the company is prepared to track "millions of immigrants."

The bulky devices weigh as much as an iPhone and prone to causing rashes and bruises, the Post reported.

"It makes you feel like you are really a bad person," said Michael Langa, who wore one for eight months. "It really gets into your psyche and really damages your soul."

Revealed: Leaked documents expose plan to use cattle trackers on immigrants

 

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Donald Trump’s attempts to keep his personal attorney Alina Habba as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor has sparked yet another showdown between his administration and a judiciary he despises.

The latest clash between the president and the courts is a crisis of his own making, piling on to an already chaotic week at the Department of Justice where officials are putting out Jeffrey Epstein-related fires elsewhere.




In a rare move Tuesday morning, New Jersey’s federal trial judges named their own nominee to replace Habba at the end of her 120-day term as the state’s acting U.S. Attorney. But hours later, Attorney General Pam Bondi not only blocked the judges’ nominee but “removed” her from the office entirely.

That prosecutor, Desiree Leigh Grace, who has spent a decade fighting crime at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark, said she is still prepared to take the job and will show up for work “in accordance with the law.” A spokesperson for the Justice Department told The Independent that “Grace is no longer an employee of the department.”

The situation has left the office’s leadership in a state of limbo with potentially serious consequences for its caseload after Habba launched several investigations and indictments against Trump’s political enemies.




It’s unclear what will happen next.

To stay on permanently, Habba needs to be confirmed by the Senate, but it’s unlikely her name will come up for a vote any time soon. New Jersey’s Democratic senators have effectively killed off chances of a confirmation vote, let alone a hearing.

On Tuesday, Bondi accused the New Jersey judges of “going rogue”. But by firing Habba’s deputy and attacking judges, “it is clear that it is the AG herself who has gone rogue,” Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund, told The Independent.

Bondi and her deputy attorney general Todd Blanche “are amplifying the issue on social media, using it as a tool to undermine the legitimacy of the judiciary,” Canter said.

The Independent has requested comment from the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey.

Habba’s appointment by Trump as New Jersey’s top prosecutor was controversial from the start. After she briefly served as “counselor to the president” at the White House, she was sworn in as acting U.S. attorney in her home state on March 28.



Alina Habba was sworn into office as New Jersey’s top prosecutor alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi, who kicked off a war with the courts by firing Habba’s replacement nominated by the state’s federal judges (Getty Images)
She has appeared to repeatedly fail upwards in her service to the president. In the months leading up to the 2024 election, she lost several blockbuster cases defending Trump, costing him close to half a billion dollars, and judges slapped her with sanctions and scoldings in open court.




Legal experts argue that her 120-day term as New Jersey’s top prosecutor should have ended Tuesday. Blanche argues her term ends at midnight on Friday, marking 120 days from her swearing-in ceremony.

If the Trump doubles down on keeping Habba in her role, the administration could be entering unprecedented, messy legal territory.

The president may attempt to reappoint Habba, which will likely trigger another legal fight between Trump and the courts, according to Stanford Law School professor Anne Joseph O’Connell, an expert on vacancy issues.

That could set off even more legal battles. Anyone facing prosecution by Habba’s office could argue in court that she was unlawfully appointed, and that the charges against them should be thrown out.



New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim blasted Bondi’s move, calling it ‘another blatant attempt to intimidate anyone that doesn’t agree with them and undermine judicial independence’ (Getty Images)
Federal judges had similarly tried to stop John Sarcone from continuing on as U.S. attorney in upstate New York earlier this year. Trump then named him as a “special attorney to the attorney general” to keep him in place.

Despite the New Jersey judges using their lawful authority to appoint Grace, who was hired by Habba to serve as her top assistant, Justice Department officials have accused them of advancing a politically motivated attempt to force Habba out of the job. (The order from the judges was signed by George W. Bush-appointed chief judge Renee Marie Bumb.)


New Jersey’s Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim blasted the Justice Department for undermining judges who lawfully appointed Habba’s successor.

“The firing of a career public servant, lawfully appointed by the court, is another blatant attempt to intimidate anyone that doesn’t agree with them and undermine judicial independence,” the senators said in a joint statement. “This administration may not like the law, but they are not above it.”

Under federal law, the U.S. attorney general has the power to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in a state for 120 days when that position is vacant. At the end of that period, the law only says that the “district court for such district may appoint a United States Attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.”

But the law doesn’t require the interim U.S. attorney to be kicked out. It only requires that the district court decide whether it wants to keep that person or appoint someone else, a person close to the confirmation process told The Independent.

In a post on LinkedIn Wednesday night, Grace did not explicitly mention that she was fired, but ended on a defiant note.



Habba has remained a faithful Trump ally with appearances at his rallies and on right-wing media (Getty Images)
“[T]he District Judges for the District of New Jersey selected me to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. It will forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit, and I’m prepared to follow that Order and begin to serve in accordance with the law,” she wrote.


Her post was met with dozens of messages of support from law enforcement and officials in other state prosecutors’ offices.

Other top Democrats have accused the Trump administration of abusing the interim appointment process to install loyalists like Habba, who otherwise would never win approval in the Senate.

Trump appointed far-right legal activist Ed Martin as interim U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., and then replaced him with former Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro when it was clear there were not enough votes to confirm him. The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended Pirro’s nomination by a vote of 12-0 on Thursday, with no Democrats voting in support.

Senator Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat, said that rather than respect the courts, “the Trump Administration is trying to make end-runs around the Constitution.”

The Justice Department's claims of political maneuvering follow years of allegations of Habba launching politically motivated stunts of her own.


Shortly after her appointment to the U.S. attorney’s office, she told a right-wing media outlet that she plans to “turn New Jersey red.”

“So, hopefully, while I’m there, I can help that cause,” she said.

In April, Habba told Fox News that her office had launched an investigation into New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin over a directive to local law enforcement instructing them against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

The following month, she announced on Fox News that her office was bringing criminal charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka after a scuffle with federal agents during a congressional oversight visit at an immigration detention center.

She later abruptly dropped trespassing charges against Baraka “for the sake of moving forward” — and then criminally charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault.

The judge overseeing the case against Baraka criticized Habba’s about-face in open court and questioned why prosecutors even brought the charges in the first place.



Shortly after entering the U.S. attorney’s office, Habba launched investigations into top Democrats and filed charges against the mayor of Newark and a sitting member of Congress (Getty Images)
“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” Magistrate Judge Andre M. Espinosa said. “Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth and to the upholding of due process for all.”


Habba has also been under an ethics investigation New Jersey Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Ethics for months following a settlement with a former employee at Trump’s Bedminster golf club who accused the lawyer of tricking her into signing an agreement to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations.

Habba’s back-to-back losses in New York courtrooms defending Trump last year racked up nearly half a billion dollars in two blockbuster judgments against him.

Trump was ordered to pay E Jean Carroll more than $83 million after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former Elle magazine writer. One month later, Trump was ordered to pay more than $350 million to the state for more than a decade of business fraud — a judgment that has only grown with interest to more than $500 million as he tries to appeal.

Habba was repeatedly reprimanded for her behavior and mistakes in court, and the president’s other attorneys in the fraud case ought to distance themselves from Habba after they were sanctioned for “frivolous” court filings they claim were her fault.

But Habba emerged as a powerful spokesperson on Trump’s behalf, infusing her in-court arguments with the same disdain for what she and Trump view as a politically-motivated judiciary.



Habba’s performance in courtrooms was repeatedly criticized by the judges overseeing Trump’s cases (Getty Images)
Habba’s New Jersey-based firm, Habba Madaio & Associates, was first hired by Trump in 2021 for a legal challenge against his niece Mary Trump and The New York Times, which were sued for $100 million for publishing information about his tax returns. That case was ultimately dismissed, and Trump was ordered to pay $400,000 in legal fees.


She also represented Trump in a defamation case brought by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, who accused the former president of sexual assault. Zervos later dropped the case.

In 2023, Habba was the subject of a blistering federal court judgment that ordered nearly $1 million in sanctions against her and Trump’s legal team for their spurious lawsuit against former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. A federal judge in Florida accused his attorneys of turning to the courts to put on a political sideshow, labeling Trump a “mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process.”

“The courts are not intended for performative litigation for purposes of fund-raising and political statements,” District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote at the time.

When she joined Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in the days leading up to Election Day last year, she danced her way to the stage to the tune of DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.”


Trump picks another fight with the courts to save Alina Habba

 

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Michael Gordon prosecuted some of the most notorious members of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His latest case to make is proving that the Justice Department fired him because he was good at his job.

Gordon sued the federal government Thursday, claiming his June 27 termination was politically motivated retribution for his work on prosecuting Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. He and two other former Justice Department officials are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the department, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Executive Office of the President.

Former federal prosecutor Michael Gordon poses for a photo outside the Sam Gibbons United States Courthouse, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)© The Associated Press
Dozens of Justice Department attorneys have been fired, demoted or forced out or have quit since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. Gordon and the other plaintiffs — Patricia Hartman and Joseph Tirrell — appear to be the first of them to file a lawsuit.



Hartman was a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Columbia. Tirrell led the department's ethics office.

Gordon, 47, said he received a performance review two days before his firing and got the highest rating. His one-page termination letter, signed by Bondi, didn’t specify any reasons for his dismissal.




Gordon, who joined the department in 2017, said he is proud to have played a part in the largest investigation in Justice Department history.

“We did what was right for the right reasons, without fear or favor,” Gordon told The Associated Press this week. “I didn’t lose my job for breaking the law. I lost it for enforcing it.”

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

After watching the Capitol riot unfold live on television from his office in Tampa, Florida, Gordon volunteered to join the team of federal prosecutors working full-time on Jan. 6 cases.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. Gordon prosecuted more than three dozen of those defendants.

Among them was Richard “Bigo” Barnett, an Arkansas man who propped his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office; Eric Munchel, a Tennessee bartender who carried plastic zip-tie handcuffs and a stun gun into the Senate gallery; and Rebecca Lavrenz, a Colorado woman who promoted herself online as the “J6 praying grandma.”




Gordon also handled the case against Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who became a target of right-wing conspiracy theories about Jan. 6. Fox News Channel and other right-wing media outlets amplified baseless claims that Epps was an undercover government agent who helped incite the attack to entrap Trump supporters.

Former colleagues describe Gordon as a hardworking attorney who was a valuable member of the Capitol riot team. And there's no doubt in their minds that he was fired purely for political reasons.

“There is no reason why you would want to lose somebody like Mike Gordon,” said Michael Romano, who was deputy chief of the Justice Department’s now-disbanded Capitol Siege Section before resigning earlier this year.

Former federal prosecutor Jason Manning, who worked with Gordon on a Jan. 6 case, said his former colleague was “remarkably skilled at trial.”




“He did some of the early trials of some high-profile cases, so people looked to him as an example of how you successfully present these cases to judges and to juries,” said Manning, who left the department last summer.

Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, has called on Bondi to immediately reinstate Gordon. Castor's letter to Bondi noted that Gordon was working on a high-profile fraud case against Leo Govoni, a Florida man charged with embezzling over $100 million from medical trust funds.

“The victims deserve closure, and the public deserves a justice system free from intimidation and partisan retribution,” Castor wrote.

Gordon said he would accept reinstatement.

“When prosecutors are punished for doing their jobs, we all lose the protection of the law,” he said. “I can’t just sit back and watch and let my children grow up in a country where justice means whatever the president says it is and not what the law says.”


Gordon was in his office with his door closed, preparing a witness for trial by video conference, when an office administrator interrupted the call and handed him his termination letter.

“You don't fire one of your top prosecutors in the middle of a $100 million fraud case unless politics matters to you more than justice,” Gordon said. “They fired me not for anything I failed to do, but rather for prosecuting people they wanted protected.”

Gordon was bracing to get fired when Trump returned to the White House and immediately issued blanket pardons, commuted sentences and ordered the dismissal of charges in every Capitol riot case. Trump also installed Ed Martin Jr., a leading advocate for Jan. 6 rioters, to serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin swiftly demoted several senior attorneys, including some who handled or supervised politically sensitive cases.


Gordon wasn't included in the initial wave of firings and demotions, so he hoped his job was safe. He said he can't explain why he and two other colleagues who worked on Jan. 6 cases were fired on the same day in June. Their termination letters cited only “Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States.”

“I feel like my firing is a small story, but what it means is a bigger one,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole professional career as a lawyer fighting on behalf of the government. And now they’ve forced me into a position where I am fighting the government.”

Prosecutor who handled high-profile Capitol riot cases sues government over his firing

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department's No. 2 official met Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The meeting in Florida, which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he worked to arrange, is part of an ongoing Justice Department effort to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from parts of President Donald Trump’s base over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.

David Oscar Markus, attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, center, is questioned by the media outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla., Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/John Raoux)© The Associated Press
“Ms. Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped, she never invoked a privilege, she never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability,” attorney David Oscar Markus told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, where Maxwell met with Blanche.

In a social media post Tuesday, Blanche said that Trump “has told us to release all credible evidence” and that if Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the Justice Department “will hear what she has to say.”

David Oscar Markus, attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, center, is questioned by the media outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla., Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/John Raoux)© The Associated Press
Markus said his team was “thankful” the deputy attorney general came to question Maxwell, calling it a “good day.”

Asked if his client could potentially receive a pardon or see her prison term reduced, Markus said: “There’s no promises yet. So she’s just answering questions for now.”




Blanche said Thursday in a social media post that he met with Maxwell and the interview will continue on Friday.

“The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The House Committee on Oversight issued a subpoena Wednesday for Maxwell to testify before committee officials in August.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence and is housed at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. She was sentenced three years ago after being convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.



David Oscar Markus, attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, speaks during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla., Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/John Raoux)© The Associated Press
Officials have said Epstein killed himself in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, including royals, presidents and billionaires.

FILE - Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, during a news conference in New York on July 2, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)© The Associated Press
Earlier this month, the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Bondi told Trump in May that his name was among high-profile people mentioned in government files of Epstein, though the mention does not imply wrongdoing



Trump, a Republican, has said that he once thought Epstein was a “terrific guy” but that they later had a falling out.

A subcommittee on Wednesday also voted to subpoena the Justice Department for documents related to Epstein. And senators in both major political parties have expressed openness to holding hearings on the matter after Congress’ August recess.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has introduced legislation with bipartisan support that would require the Justice Department to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his associates.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republican majority leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have said they will address whatever outstanding Epstein-related issues are in Congress when they return from recess.



Epstein, under a 2008 non-prosecution agreement, pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. That allowed him to avert a possible life sentence, instead serving 13 months in a work release program. He was required to make payments to victims and register as a sex offender.

In 2019, Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for nearly identical allegations.

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Justice Dept. official meets with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's imprisoned former girlfriend

So there you go. Maxwell gets a pardon when all this blows over and she stays alive. And in return, she says that Trump wasn't Epstein's buddy or a well-known pedo and neither were any Republican politicians or donors pedos!!! Win : win!!

 

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump has moved to keep his former defense attorney Alina Habba on the job as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, even though a panel of judges refused to extend her tenure.

Habba's term was set to expire this week, and federal judges in New Jersey had moved to appoint someone else to the position. But the Republican president on Thursday withdrew Habba's nomination to hold the role permanently, setting in motion a series of steps that allow her to transition from being an interim U.S. attorney to an acting U.S. attorney and remain in the job for the next 210 days.




“Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba posted on X. “I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”

The Trump administration’s decision resolves what had threatened to become a high-profile clash over who would serve as New Jersey's top prosecutor, a post with sweeping authority over public corruption, violent crime and organized crime cases. The move allows Habba, one of the most visible and controversial U.S. attorneys in the country, to remain in charge and cements the administration’s preference for loyalists in key Justice Department positions.

FILE - Alina Habba speaks after being sworn in as interim US Attorney General for New Jersey, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on March 28, 2025. (Pool File via AP)© The Associated Press
Habba, who became interim U.S. attorney for the state in March, appeared to lose the position on Tuesday when judges in the district declined to keep her in the post while she awaited confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Instead, the judges appointed one of Habba's subordinates, Desiree Leigh Grace, to take her place.




But hours later, Bondi removed Grace, accusing the judges who replaced Habba of being “rogue” and “politically minded.”

In a post on LinkedIn, Grace addressed her appointment by the district's judges, saying it would “forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit.”

Habba, whose term as interim U.S. attorney was set to end Friday, was designated as acting United States attorney, a Justice Department official said. Federal law would have precluded her from serving as acting U.S. attorney while her nomination for the role was pending in the Senate.

During her four months as interim U.S. attorney, Habba’s office tangled with two prominent New Jersey Democrats — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver — over their actions during a chaotic visit to a privately operated immigration detention center in the state’s largest city.




Baraka was arrested on a trespass charge stemming from his attempt to join a congressional visit of the facility. Baraka denied any wrongdoing, and Habba eventually dropped that charge. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa rebuked Habba’s office over the arrest and short-lived prosecution, calling it a “worrisome misstep.” Baraka is now suing Habba over what he says was a “malicious prosecution.”

Habba then brought assault charges against McIver, whose district includes Newark, over physical contact she made with law enforcement officials as Baraka was being arrested.

The prosecution, which is pending, is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption. McIver denies that anything she did amounted to assault.

Besides the prosecution of McIver, Habba had announced she launched an investigation into New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, and attorney general, Matt Platkin, over the state’s directive barring local law enforcement from cooperating with federal agents conducting immigration enforcement.


In social media posts, Habba highlighted her office’s prosecution of drug traffickers, including against 30 members of a fentanyl and crack cocaine ring in Newark.

Trump had formally nominated Habba as his pick for U.S. attorney on July 1, but the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, signaled their opposition to her appointment. Under a long-standing Senate practice known as senatorial courtesy, a nomination can stall out without backing from home state senators, a phenomenon facing a handful of other Trump picks for U.S. attorney.

___

Associated Press journalist Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Mike Catalini, The Associated Press

Trump administration clears way to keep Alina Habba as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor

 

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View attachment 465642

That should really make the base happy.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1948770823411798225