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What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White

What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White

Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.


This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

The Supreme Court Finally Takes On Trump | The New Yorker

The Supreme Court Finally Takes On Trump

"In an overnight ruling, the Justices defended the rule of law. Will their toughness last?

A white statue outside the U.S. Supreme Court. The columns are visible in the background.

The most heartening, and maybe most important, event of the Trump Administration so far arrived just before 1 A.M., on Saturday, in the form of an unsigned order from the Supreme Court. The order—responding to an emergency request to prevent the immediate removal of Venezuelan migrants—was gratifyingly unambiguous. “The Government,” it said, “is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

Thank God for the Supreme Court. This is not a sentence that I have been accustomed to typing in recent years—not since President Trump, during his first term, engineered a six-Justice conservative super-majority. But, at a time when the legislative branch has been shamefully supine and the public has been alarmingly complacent, the federal courts represent the last best hope—at least, until the midterm elections—of combatting Trump’s outrages against the Constitution.

Lately, the federal judiciary has responded with impressive speed and fortitude to Trump’s fusillade of executive orders and other actions. Judges across the country—appointed by Democratic and Republican Presidents alike, even Trump himself—have rebuffed the Administration on its attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, its effort to bar trans people from serving in the military, its crackdown on law firms whose attorneys and clients Trump dislikes, the moves by the Department of Government Efficiency to obtain personal information stored in government databases, and more. Though the courts have not invariably ruled against Trump, the Administration’s record so far is, to use one of the President’s favorite words, sad.

But it was not at all clear—in fact, it was disturbingly uncertain—how the Supreme Court would respond to this onslaught of cases. The conservative Justices may not all be fans of this particular President, but they are generally inclined to an expansive view of executive power. This is the Court that just last year gave us Trump v. United States, with its inflated concept of Presidential authority and extensive grant of Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. And, in the few cases challenging Trump’s executive orders that have made their way to the Court, its messages have been repeatedly—and, I believe, deliberately—muddled. The Justices give and they take, sometimes within the same opinion, as in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was deported to a prison in his home country in what the Administration admits was an error. Earlier this month, the Court said that an order by a federal judge “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” Then it left a loophole big enough for the Trump Administration to disregard the directive, making a distinction between whether the lower court could order the Administration to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return or merely “facilitate” it, and instructing the lower court to “clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

Similarly, in an earlier chapter of the dispute that resulted in the Abrego Garcia order, over the use of the Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelan migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison, the Court found that those detained under that order “must receive notice . . . within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek” court review. But it also said that the migrants had brought their cases to the wrong place (the District of Columbia, rather than Texas, where they were being held) and in the wrong legal form, sparking an angry dissent from the liberal Justices, which was joined in part by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. “The Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Now, finally, clarity plus backbone. What happened? In all likelihood, the Trump Administration’s behavior became too much for the Court to ignore—that is, with the exception of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who dissented. In the first phase of the case, the liberal Justices had no difficulty recognizing what the Administration was up to, with its clandestine effort to rush the Venezuelan detainees out of the country before courts could intervene, followed by its flouting of a court order to have the planes carrying them return to the United States. Yet the Administration persisted with its disobedient, if not contemptuous, behavior. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in the Oval Office with Trump and the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele, last week, misstated the Court’s ruling in the Abrego Garcia case. (“The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him . . . we would facilitate it: meaning, provide a plane,” she said.) In that same meeting, Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, falsely claimed that the ruling was a nine-to-nothing win. By then, Administration lawyers had returned to the lower court to argue that all the Justices meant by “facilitate” was “taking all available steps to remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here.” In other words, the government was doing nothing. The Justices, most of them, must now understand: we are not dealing with an Administration that deserves the benefit of the doubt. And so, when A.C.L.U. lawyers raced to the high court with an emergency petition indicating that another group of Venezuelan migrants was receiving the scantiest semblance of due process—notices of removal in English only, with no information about how to contest designations as “enemy aliens” and no suggestion that there was any opportunity for judicial review—their pleas had new resonance. The ensuing 1 A.M. order represented the Administration reaping the results of its own bad-faith arguments and behavior with the Court.

Except, of course, for the two most Trump-inclined Justices. Alito, in a dissent joined by Thomas, accused the majority of providing “unprecedented and legally questionable relief.” In a particularly disingenuous passage, Alito quoted a government lawyer who assured a lower court that no deportations were planned for Friday or Saturday. In fact, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign had said, “I’ve spoken with D.H.S. They are not aware of any current plans for flights tomorrow, but I have also been told to say that they reserve the right to remove people tomorrow.” That is hardly comforting, especially considering that the government’s position is that once detainees are out of the country, they’re out of luck. Still, even Alito took pains to note the government’s responsibility. “Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law,” he wrote. The Court “should follow established procedures,” and the Administration “must proceed under the terms of our order” requiring due process for Venezuelans whom the Administration claims are “enemy aliens.” It is hard to see how even Alito and Thomas could argue that the Administration was faithfully following the Court’s instructions in its lead-up to a new round of deportations. It had people loaded on buses headed for the airport when the lawyers filed their request for emergency intervention.

Maybe I am being overly optimistic here. This could be the high-water mark of the Supreme Court’s resistance. The Justices have disappointed before and no doubt will again. And in the Venezuelan case, the protection the Court granted isn’t permanent—it will last only “until further order.” But after weeks of mixed and muted messaging, the Court has spoken, finally, with clarity and strength, in support of the rule of law. We should take heart that at least one branch of government has the courage to do so. ♦"

The Supreme Court Finally Takes On Trump | The New Yorker

King Leopold II - The Horrors of King Leopold II in the Congo Documentary

Trump gets UNEXPECTED SURPRISE from El Salvador

Monday, April 21, 2025

Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Threats to Cut Funding - The New York Times

Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Threats to Cut Funding

"Harvard’s lawsuit comes after the administration sought to force the university to comply with a list of demands by cutting billions in federal funding the school receives.

A brick university building with white columns.
The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass.Sophie Park for The New York Times

Harvard, the world’s wealthiest university, sued the Trump administration on Monday, fighting back against its threats to slash billions of dollars from the school’s research funding as part of a crusade against the nation’s top colleges.

The lawsuit signaled a major escalation of the ongoing fight between higher education and President Trump, who has vowed to “reclaim” elite universities. The administration has cast its campaign as a fight against antisemitism, but has also targeted programs and teaching related to racial diversity and gender issues.

Earlier this month, it sent Harvard a list of demands that included auditing professors for plagiarism, reporting to the federal government any international students accused of misconduct, and appointing an outside overseer to make sure that academic departments were “viewpoint diverse.”

Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, accused the government in a statement on Monday of trying to wield “unprecedented and improper control.” Dr. Garber said the consequences of the government’s actions would be “severe and long lasting.”

The Trump administration has claimed that Harvard and other schools have allowed antisemitic language and harassment to remain unchecked on their campuses. Monday’s lawsuit noted that the government had cited the university’s response to antisemitism as justification for its “unlawful action.”

Dr. Garber, in his statement, said that “as a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism.” But he said that the government was legally required to engage with the university about the ways it was fighting antisemitism. Instead, he said, the government has sought to control “whom we hire and what we teach.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, accuses the government of unleashing a broad attack as “leverage to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard.” It also references other major universities that have faced abrupt funding cuts.

The lawsuit names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary; Linda M. McMahon, the education secretary; Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration; Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi; and several other administration officials.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the past week, the Trump administration has also threatened to eliminate visas for international students at Harvard after the university refused to accede to administration demands.

And government officials are planning to freeze an additional $1 billion in research funding to Harvard, according to two administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The officials said the funding was mainly from the National Institutes of Health, which is the nation’s primary agency for biomedical and public health research.

Harvard officials have said the funding freeze will have a significant impact on the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which receives nearly half of its total budget from federal research grants. The school announced major budget cuts this past week.

Using claims of antisemitism as a cudgel, the Trump administration has threatened to investigate dozens of colleges, and has already moved to withhold billions in federal funding from several of them, including Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern and Princeton.

Harvard notified the administration in a letter on April 14 that it would refuse to comply with demands that it said were unlawful. That prompted the Trump administration to impose a funding freeze. The freeze resulted in immediate stop-work orders, affecting the school’s federally funded research projects studying tuberculosis, A.L.S. and radiation poisoning.

“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Dr. Garber wrote in a message to the community this month.

Harvard’s letter on April 14 was in response to a list of demands that an antisemitism task force, appointed by the Trump administration, had submitted to Harvard three days earlier. Some members of the administration had said that the list of demands was sent by mistake. But on Monday, Dr. Garber said that “their actions suggest otherwise.”

The 51-page lawsuit accused the Trump administration of flouting the First Amendment by trying to restrict what Harvard’s faculty could teach students. “The classroom is peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas’ that the First Amendment is designed to safeguard,” the complaint argues, quoting from a 1969 Supreme Court opinion upholding the First Amendment rights of high school students.

The complaint also argues that the government “cannot identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, science, technological and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives.”

Some faculty members who had urged Harvard to resist the administration’s encroachment expressed elation at the university’s decision to sue.

Ryan Enos is a political science professor who helped to write a letter, signed by more than 800 faculty members, imploring the university to fight Mr. Trump’s demands in court. He said Harvard’s decision to sue “should be a larger signal not just to education but civil society that what the Trump administration is doing is unlawful.”

On campus, students reacted ecstatically to Dr. Garber’s email announcing the lawsuit.

Lorenzo Ruiz, a sophomore from Texas, said the level of school spirit matched the pride that Harvard students show during the school’s annual football game against Yale. “The university has really managed to tap into and inspire not only the support of students, but a massive segment of the nation that is deeply concerned by federal meddling,” he said.

Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, a large association of universities, said: “We applaud Harvard for taking this step and look forward to a clear and unambiguous statement by the court rebuking efforts to undermine scholarship and science.”

To represent the university, Harvard turned to two lawyers with ties to Mr. Trump and the administration. One of them, William A. Burck, has served as an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization. The other, Robert K. Hur, worked in the Justice Department during Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Hur was also appointed as special counsel to investigate President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s handling of classified documents.

Harvard’s litigation matched the approach that many higher education officials and lawyers unaffiliated with the university had expected in recent days.

In many respects, and beneath lofty language about First Amendment protections, Harvard’s complaint can be boiled down to its view that the Trump administration plowed past longstanding timelines and procedures for disputes about civil rights issues.

Harvard officials appear to be banking on the hope that the government’s tactics will steer the case toward a speedy resolution. The university’s lawsuit included a plea to the Federal District Court in Massachusetts for an order “expediting the resolution of this action.”

Reporting was contributed by Vimal Patel, Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder and Miles J. Herszenhorn.

Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education."

Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Threats to Cut Funding - The New York Times

Pope Francis Had Health Issues That Increase Stroke Risk - The New York Times

Francis Had Health Issues That Can Increase the Risk of Stroke

"The declaration of death said the pope had Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, along with bronchiectasis, a chronic lung condition.

A dense crowd dressed in winter clothes stands outside an ornate building during daytime.
Mourners gathering at St. Peter’s Square for a rosary in honor of Pope Francis on Monday.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

The Vatican said on Monday that Pope Francis died of a stroke, followed by a coma and the collapse of his cardiovascular system.

A stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain is disrupted, either because of a clot or bleeding in the brain. The declaration of death said Francis had Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, both of which can increase the risk of stroke. He also had a chronic lung condition called bronchiectasis, which can weaken and enlarge the airways and leave them more susceptible to infection.

When an infection occurs in a patient with bronchiectasis, “what can sometimes happen is things go from bad to worse,” said Dr. Burton Dickey, a pulmonary and critical care physician at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. What might start out as a minor airway infection can extend into the tiny air sacs where the lungs and blood exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, causing pneumonia. The pope was recently hospitalized for five weeks with pneumonia.

That, in turn, can increase the tendency for blood clots to form — and, therefore, increase the likelihood of stroke, Dr. Dickey said. A large stroke can lead to a coma, as occurred with Francis.

In a statement announcing the cause of death, the Vatican said that the stroke had led to “cardiocirculatory collapse,” which occurs when the heart and lungs can no longer function.

This is the final event in any death, explained Dr. Michelle Kittleson, a professor of cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

There are several ways that a stroke might lead to cardiocirculatory collapse, she said. A stroke can affect the parts of the brain that control heart function or it could cause brain swelling that creates pressure and moves brain tissue, leading the body to shut down.

In some patients, Dr. Kittleson said, a stroke could occur alongside or precipitate a heart attack, which itself can lead to the collapse of the cardiocirculatory system."

Pope Francis Had Health Issues That Increase Stroke Risk - The New York Times

Trump barrels ahead with NIGHTMARE scheme

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Hegseth Said to Have Shared Attack Details in Second Signal Chat

Hegseth Said to Have Shared Attack Details in Second Signal Chat

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive information about strikes in Yemen on a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The chat, named “Defense Team Huddle,” was created by Hegseth before his confirmation and included about a dozen of his top aides. The revelation of this second Signal chat, along with the recent firings of two of Hegseth’s senior advisers for leaking information, has raised questions about his adherence to security protocols and management of the Pentagon.

The defense secretary sent sensitive information about strikes in Yemen to an encrypted group chat that included his wife and brother, people familiar with the matter said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wearing. a blue suit and blue striped tie.
The information that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared on the second Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen, according to some of the people familiar with the chat.Eric Lee/The New York Times

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.

Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.

Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.

Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.

The previously unreported existence of a second Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny.

Unlike the chat in which The Atlantic was mistakenly included, the newly revealed one was created by Mr. Hegseth. It included his wife and about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary, and was named “Defense | Team Huddle,” the people familiar with the chat said. He used his private phone, rather than his government one, to access the Signal chat.

The continued inclusion following Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation of his wife, brother and personal lawyer, none of whom had any apparent reason to be briefed on operational details of a military operation as it was getting underway, is sure to raise further questions about his adherence to security protocols.

The chat revealed by The Atlantic in March was created by President Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, so that the most senior national security officials across the executive branch, such as the vice president, the director of national intelligence and Mr. Hegseth, could coordinate among themselves and their deputies ahead of the U.S. attacks.

Mr. Waltz took responsibility for inadvertently adding Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, to the chat. He called it “Houthi PC small group” to reflect the presence of members of the administration’s “principals committee,” who come together to discuss the most sensitive and important national security issues.

Mr. Hegseth created the separate Signal group initially as a forum for discussing routine administrative or scheduling information, two of the people familiar with the chat said. The people said Mr. Hegseth typically did not use the chat to discuss sensitive military operations and said it did not include other cabinet-level officials.

Mr. Hegseth shared information about the Yemen strikes in the “Defense | Team Huddle” chat at roughly the same time he was putting the same details in the other Signal chat group that included senior U.S. officials and The Atlantic, the people familiar with Mr. Hegseth’s chat group said.

The Yemen strikes, designed to punish Houthi fighters for attacking international cargo ships passing through the Red Sea, were among the first big military strikes of Mr. Hegseth’s tenure.

After The Atlantic disclosed that Mr. Hegseth had used Mr. Waltz’s Signal group to communicate details of the strikes as they were being launched, the Trump administration said he had not shared “war plans” or any classified information, an assertion that was viewed with tremendous skepticism by national security experts.

In the case of Mr. Hegseth’s Signal group, a U.S. official declined to comment on whether Mr. Hegseth shared detailed targeting information but maintained that there was no national security breach.

“The truth is that there is an informal group chat that started before confirmation of his closest advisers,” the official said. “Nothing classified was ever discussed on that chat.” 

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, did not respond to several requests for comment before this article was published.

After it was published, Mr. Parnell responded on social media. “Another day, another old story — back from the dead,” he wrote. “There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story.”

The “Defense/Team Huddle” Signal chat until recently included about a dozen of Mr. Hegseth’s top aides, including Joe Kasper, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, and Mr. Parnell.

The chat also included two senior advisers to Mr. Hegseth — Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick — who were accused of leaking unauthorized information last week and were fired.

Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Selnick were among three former top Pentagon officials who proclaimed their innocence in a public statement on Saturday in response to the leak inquiry that led to their dismissals.

On Sunday, another former Defense Department official, John Ullyot, who left the department last week, said in an opinion essay for Politico that the Pentagon “is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership” and suggested that Mr. Trump should remove him.

When Mr. Goldberg released details of what Mr. Hegseth put into the Signal chat created by Mr. Waltz regarding the upcoming strikes in Yemen, Mr. Trump defended him and said he had done nothing wrong.

In a statement, Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, did the same after the latest revelation. “No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same nonstory, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared,” Ms. Kelly said.

Some congressional Democrats said it was fresh proof that Mr. Hegseth should be removed.

“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and a combat veteran.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, added: “If true, this incident is another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military service member is required to follow.”

While the Signal chat created by Mr. Waltz for senior officials was criticized for sharing details of a military operation on an encrypted but unclassified app, the participants — other than Mr. Goldberg of The Atlantic, who appears to have been added accidentally — were senior government officials with reason to track the progress of the attack.

But some of the participants in the group chat created by Mr. Hegseth were not officials with any apparent need to be given real-time information on details of the operation.

Jennifer Hegseth has drawn attention for the access her husband has given her. Mr. Hegseth brought her into two meetings with foreign military counterparts in February and early March where sensitive information was discussed, a development first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Parlatore, who has been Mr. Hegseth’s personal lawyer for the last eight years, was commissioned as a Navy commander in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps about a week before the Yemen strikes were initiated.

In an interview before rejoining the military, Mr. Parlatore told The New York Times that he would work with Mr. Hegseth’s office to improve training for the military’s uniformed lawyers.

Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil works inside the Pentagon as a liaison to the Department of Homeland Security and as a senior adviser to the defense secretary.

One person familiar with the chat said Mr. Hegseth’s aides had warned him a day or two before the Yemen strikes not to discuss such sensitive operational details in his Signal group chat, which, while encrypted, is not considered as secure as government channels typically used for discussing highly sensitive war planning and combat operations.

It was unclear how Mr. Hegseth, a veteran and former Fox News host who before his confirmation in January had never previously served in a high-level government position, responded to those warnings.

Many of those in Mr. Hegseth’s inner circle during his first months in the Pentagon were combat veterans with deep experience in the military but little firsthand knowledge of how the government operates at the highest levels.

Several of these staff members encouraged Mr. Hegseth to move the work-related matters in the “Defense | Team Huddle” chat to his government phone. But Mr. Hegseth never made the transition, according to some of the people familiar with the chat who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced earlier this month that he would review Mr. Hegseth’s Yemen strike disclosures on the Signal chat that included top Trump aides.

“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the secretary of defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” the acting inspector general, Steven Stebbins, said in a notification letter to Mr. Hegseth.

It’s not clear whether Mr. Stebbins’s review has uncovered the Signal chat that included Mr. Hegseth’s wife and other advisers.

Mr. Stebbins started the review in response to a joint bipartisan request from Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

Beyond the controversy of the Signal chat, Mr. Hegseth’s office has been shaken by the sudden firings of Mr. Caldwell, Mr. Selnick and Colin Carroll, all top advisers to the defense secretary. They were escorted from the Pentagon last week after being accused of leaking sensitive information.

The dismissals and turmoil around the inspector general’s investigation have raised tensions and prompted talk of more resignationsaccording to current and former defense officials.

Among those considering leaving are Mr. Kasper, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, who helped lead the leak investigation that resulted in his colleagues’ dismissal but has not been implicated in wrongdoing, according to senior defense officials.

In the wake of the report in The Atlantic disclosing the first Signal chat, Mr. Hegseth and other senior administration officials repeatedly denied that any classified information was shared among the participants.

“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters. At a Senate hearing, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, echoed Mr. Hegseth’s assertion that no classified information was shared.

But other former senior defense officials said texts describing launch times and the type of aircraft being employed before a strike would be classified information that, if leaked to the enemy, could have jeopardized pilots’ lives.

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades.

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.

A version of this article appears in print on April 21, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Defense Head Said To Send War Plan To Second Group.“

Inside the Urgent Fight Over the Trump Administration’s New Deportation Effort

Inside the Urgent Fight Over the Trump Administration’s New Deportation Effort

“The Trump administration is facing legal challenges over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants. The ACLU, representing the migrants, argues that the administration is violating a Supreme Court ruling requiring due process for migrants removed under this wartime powers law. The administration asserts the deportations are necessary for public safety, but the ACLU contends the government is evading judicial review.

The push to deport a group of Venezuelans raises questions about whether the government is following a Supreme Court order requiring that migrants receive due process.

News of notices being handed out to migrants at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, warning of impending deportations prompted a flurry of legal actions this week.Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

On Thursday evening, lawyers helping Venezuelan immigrants most at risk of being removed under an 18th-century wartime powers act received an ominous alert: U.S. immigration officials were handing out notices at a detention facility in Texas, informing migrants that they were considered enemies under the law and would be removed from the country.

“I am a law enforcement officer authorized to apprehend, restrain and remove alien enemies,” read the notice, a copy of which was filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Accordingly, under the Alien Enemies Act, you have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States.”

The notice said the migrant could make a phone call but did not specify to whom. The single-page notice also did not mention any way to appeal the order.

The Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants must receive advance notice that they are subject to removal under the rarely invoked wartime powers law — and that they must have an opportunity to challenge their removal in court.

News of the notices being handed out at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, warning of impending deportations prompted a flurry of legal actions by the A.C.L.U. on Friday in several courts. Early Saturday, the Supreme Court stepped in with unusual speed, ruling that no flights could depart.

“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the court said. It is unclear when the justices will make a ruling on whether deportation flights can continue.

The lack of clear information from the government about the latest deportation operation raised new questions about whether the Trump administration was trying to sidestep the Supreme Court’s previous decision, which called for any migrant removed under the wartime law to have a chance to challenge their removal.

The move comes a month after the Trump administration executed a similar operation and deported more than 200 migrants to a prison in El Salvador, claiming that many of them were “alien enemies” and members of a Venezuelan gang. A New York Times investigation found that very few of them had clear, documented links to the group.

Their removal kicked off an enormous legal fight in which a federal judge threatened a contempt investigation into whether the Trump administration had violated his order directing officials to stop the planes of Venezuelan migrants.

Lawyers for the migrants said the administration appeared to be mobilizing an effort to swiftly deport another group under the wartime powers act. In recent days, they said, migrants in detention centers across the country were moved to the facility in Anson — a region that is not currently subject to a court order barring the use of the law in deportations. Once there, the migrants began receiving notices of removal.

The Trump administration said the deportations were not only appropriate but essential to protecting the public.

“We are confident in the lawfulness of the administration’s actions and in ultimately prevailing against an onslaught of meritless litigation brought by radical activists who care more about the rights of terrorist aliens than those of the American people,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday.

Later that day, the administration asked the Supreme Court to “dissolve” its temporary block on deporting the Venezuelans and to allow lower courts to weigh in on the matter before intervening further.

“We’ve already seen the administration try to exploit every iota of wiggle room that the Supreme Court’s April 7 ruling created,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University. “It’s hard to imagine it won’t try again with the ruling from overnight.”

Immigrant rights advocates said they had been forced to move quickly because the Trump administration had repeatedly shown it was not affording migrants due process.

“If the government believes that its peacetime use of this wartime law is lawful, and that it hasn’t mistakenly tagged anyone as a gang member, then it should be fine with a court reviewing its actions,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead A.C.L.U. lawyer arguing for the migrants in the case. “When the stakes are this high, the last thing our government — and our Justice Department in particular — should be doing is seeking to evade judicial review.”

The newest legal fight kicked off earlier in the week, when the A.C.L.U. learned some Venezuelans might be deported from the Bluebonnet facility.

The group, which has sought to halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in cases across the country, raced to file a lawsuit on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Abilene, Texas, on behalf of two Venezuelans at the detention center.

Lawyers for the Justice Department responded by telling Judge James Wesley Hendrix — “unequivocally,” he later wrote — that the administration had no plans to deport the men.

Judge Hendrix declined to issue an order on Thursday shielding them from being removed. He also said he was not yet prepared to grant the A.C.L.U.’s request to extend protections to all the other Venezuelan migrants being held in Anson.

That evening, the A.C.L.U. received multiple calls that the notices were being handed out to immigrants at the facility, where migrants had been sent from across the country in recent days, according to Mr. Gelernt.

Last week, a judge in the Southern District of Texas had issued an order blocking the government from using the wartime power to deport people. But the Bluebonnet facility lies under the authority of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where no such order is in effect.

The A.C.L.U. lawyers said they had emailed the government on Thursday at 6:23 p.m. Central asking whether the government had distributed notices to Venezuelans at the facility, according to a court filing from the group.

Thirteen minutes later, they said, government lawyers told them they would circle back with more information.

Instead, when Justice Department lawyers replied more than an hour later, they said only that the two migrants the A.C.L.U. was representing in court in Texas had not been given notices.

Frustrated, the A.C.L.U., responded that it was inquiring about the status of all migrants in the facility.

More than two hours later, at 8:41 p.m., the government wrote, “We are not in a position at this time to share information about unknown detainees who are not currently parties to the pending litigation.”

Inside the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, migrants were scrambling, calling their family members and warning them that it appeared the government was planning to deport them immediately.

One man called his wife to say Venezuelans in the facility were being given notices accusing them of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to a document the A.C.L.U filed in court. He sent her a video posted on TikTok in which men in red jumpsuits crowded around a cellphone, saying they had been given a document ordering their swift removal from the United States because they were “alien enemies” and represented a terrorist threat.

One of the men, identifying himself with the last name Prieto, said there had been no order for his deportation and that his immigration documents were in order. “I have American children,” he said. “They brought me here, and I’m innocent. They arrested me without any warrant.”

He added, “For nothing, for nothing they brought me here.”

One migrant called Karene Brown, his immigration lawyer in New York, and told her that on Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials gave him a sheet in English, which he could not read, Ms. Brown said in a court declaration.

Her client was informed by I.C.E. “that these papers were coming from the president and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” she wrote in the declaration.

By Friday, the pace of the legal fight picked up.

The A.C.L.U. filed a second emergency motion to Judge Hendrix, saying the deportations were “imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow.”

The lawyers were so concerned time was running short that they took the extraordinary step of giving the judge a 1:30 p.m. deadline to respond. After that, they went over his head to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

The Fifth Circuit was not the only court they tried.

By Friday afternoon, the A.C.L.U. had also asked for help from the Supreme Court and from Judge James E. Boasberg in Federal District Court in Washington, who had issued the first order pausing deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

Judge Boasberg set an emergency hearing for 6:15 p.m., asking the lawyer representing the Justice Department, Drew C. Ensign, what the administration’s plans were for the Venezuelan migrants at Bluebonnet.

Mr. Ensign said there would be no flights on Friday. Saturday, however, was another matter. That was cold comfort for Mr. Gelernt, the A.C.L.U. lawyer.

“That doesn’t give us much confidence that there won’t be planes,” he told the judge.

Mr. Gelernt expressed concern that if the Venezuelans at Bluebonnet were deported to El Salvador, there would be little recourse to get them back. He noted the administration’s refusal to seek the return of a Salvadoran immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to the country last month.

Judge Boasberg said he was troubled by the situation but there was little he could do, given that the Supreme Court had told him he could not issue orders from Washington affecting immigrants in Texas.

“I find it very concerning,” he told Mr. Gelernt. “But at this point, I just don’t think I have the ability to grant relief to the plaintiffs.”

Some six hours later, the Supreme Court justices stepped in and did so themselves.

Abbie VanSickle contributed reporting from Washington, and Isayen Herrerafrom Caracas, Venezuela.

Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump. 

Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times.“

Saturday, April 19, 2025

More than 400 anti-Trump rallies planned in another wave of US protests

More than 400 anti-Trump rallies planned in another wave of US protests

“Over 400 anti-Trump rallies are planned across the US this weekend, organized by 50501, which aims to protect democracy and attract 11 million participants. The group, which has staged four events since Trump’s inauguration, seeks to build momentum for future protests and influence political discourse.

Organizers have called for 11 million people across country to participate this weekend in effort to ‘protect democracy’

A person holds a sign that says "eat the rich" as they approach a government building
‘Hands Off’ demonstrations were held across the country, including here in Austin, Texas, on 5 April 2025, to protest Donald Trump's policies and Elon Musk. Photograph: Sandra Dahdah/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

The US will witness its second wave of protests in a fortnight on Saturday as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump’s presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into action at the ballot box.

More than 400 rallies are anticipated across the nation loosely organized by the group 50501, which stands for 50 protests in 50 states, one movement.

It is the fourth protest event to be staged by the group since Trump was inaugurated on 20 January. Previous events included a “No Kings Day” on President’s Day, 17 February, a theme adopted before Trump referred to himself as a king in a social media post days later.

Organizers have called for 11 million people to participate in the latest rallies, representing 3.5% of the US population.

Such a figure would likely the surpass the numbers who took part in the “Hands Off” rallies staged on 5 April, when 1,200 demonstrations were staged across the US to register opposition to Trump’s assault on government agencies and institutions, spearheaded by the president’s chief lieutenant, the tech billionaire Elon Musk and his unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) unit.

Indivisible, the progressive movement behind the “Hands Off” events said it was it was seeking to send a message to opposition politicians and ordinary voters that vocal resistance to Trump’s policies was essential. It also said it was seeking to build momentum that would lead to further and larger protests.

Heather Dunn, a spokesperson for 50501, said the goal of Saturday’s protests is “to protect our democracy against the rise of authoritarianism under the Trump administration”.

She called the group a “pro-democracy, pro-constitution, anti-executive overreach, nonviolent grassroots movement” that was nonpartisan.

“We have registered Democrats, registered independents and registered Republicans all marching because they all believe in America, because they all believe in a fair government that puts people before profits,” she told the Washington Post.

Academics who have tracked the slide of democracy into authoritarianism say protests can be part of a wider of strategy to reverse the trend.

“Oppositions to authoritarian governments have to use multiple channels always,” said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University and co-author, with Daniel Ziblatt, of How Democracies Die. “They have to use the courts where those are available. They have to use the ballot box when that’s available, and they have to use the streets when necessary – that can shape media framing and media discourse, which is very, very important.”

In Washington DC on Saturday, protests are scheduled to take place outside vice-president JD Vance’s home, on the grounds of the Washington Naval Observatory, as well as in Lafayette Square. A march is planned starting nearby the George Washington monument that will head towards the White House in support of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran man with US protected status wrongly deported to El Salvador from Maryland, according to court rulings“