Daily Beast: Pam Bondi Toys With Axing DOJ’s Public Corruption Unit

The Justice Department is considering scrapping a key safeguard that prevents politically motivated prosecutions of Congress members.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is reportedly considering doing away with a critical Justice Department safeguard designed to prevent politically motivated prosecutions of elected officials, according to multiple officials familiar with a proposal circulated last week.

The change would remove the requirement of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section (PIN), a Watergate-era department responsible for reviewing and approving prosecutions of public officials and signing off on federal prosecutors’ indictments of lawmakers. Instead, Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys would have the power to bring corruption charges without centralized oversight.

PIN also handles voting-related matters. In the case of a contested election, they would determine how the DOJ would intervene.

The damage has mostly been done already as the office effectively has been gutted:

Since Trump took office, PIN has already been hollowed out, as have other DOJ offices. The 30 prosecutors working in the office at the end of the Biden administration have been cut to fewer than five. Several have resigned, been reassigned, or were fired after clashing with Bondi and other Trump appointees.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pam-bondi-toys-with-axing-dojs-public-corruption-unit

Raw Story: ‘Wholesale overthrow’: Expert furious as Trump lawyer replaces ‘American hero’ librarian

The Trump administration announced Monday that it was replacing longtime Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden — fired last week for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — with Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche.

Blanche is currently second-in-command at the Department of Justice, and will also serve as acting Librarian of Congress, according to Politico.

He famously defended Trump in his 2023 “hush money” case in which the then-former president was convicted on 34 felony counts.

A loser of a lawyer taking over the Library of Congress?

https://www.rawstory.com/library-of-congress-2671937161

Alternet: ‘A flagrant violation of the law’: Michigan AG blasts ’embarrassing and disturbing’ Trump admin

Public health and infectious diseases know no borders, Nessel said, warning that the decision to shutter regional health programs, close CDC labs and close all 10 of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services’ regional offices jeopardizes public health in every community.

“Also it’s just a flagrant violation of the law. Disregards the separation of powers, and it places this new burden now, of course, on the states, because there are certain things that you rely upon the federal government to do, especially in terms of coordinating efforts between the states,” Nessel said.

In addition to their case on the mass firings, Nessel and 23 other attorneys general filed suit against Kennedy and the DHHS for terminating almost $11 billion in critical public health grants across the country.

https://www.alternet.org/a-flagrant-violation-of-the-law-michigan-ag-blasts-trump-admin

Reuters: Judge orders temporary halt to Trump administration’s government overhaul

President Donald Trump’s administration must temporarily halt its sweeping government overhaul because Congress did not authorize it to carry out large-scale staffing cuts and the restructuring of agencies, a federal judge said on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco sided with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments, and blocked large-scale mass layoffs known as “reductions in force” for 14 days.

“As history demonstrates, the President may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” said Illston.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge-orders-temporary-halt-trump-administrations-mass-layoff-plans-2025-05-10

Independent: Trump team ordered to move Tufts student from Louisiana ICE jail after it couldn’t ‘take a position’ on her free speech

A New York-based federal appeals court has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to transfer Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk from an immigration detention center in Louisiana to Vermont.

The case of Ozturk, a Turkish international student and former Fulbright scholar working towards her doctorate in child development, is among several high-profile cases at the center of the Trump administration’s targeting of international students for their advocacy for Palestine during Israel’s war in Gaza.

In March, Ozturk’s visa was revoked and she was arrested and detained by plain-clothes federal agents outside her apartment in Massachusetts in what her lawyers argue is a retaliatory attempt to deport her over an op-ed she wrote in a student newspaper.

The government has one week to transfer her, according to Wednesday’s order, which arrived less than 24 hours after a hearing in which government attorneys failed to say whether they even agree with the administration’s position that her pro-Palestine speech is not constitutionally protected.

Appellate Judge Barrington Parker, who was appointed by George W. Bush, pressed Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether Ozturk’s statements — and statements from another international student who was arrested for support for Palestine — amount to protected speech.

“Your honor, we haven’t taken a position on that,” Ensign replied.

“Help my thinking. Take a position,” Parked fired back.

“I don’t have authority to take a position,” Ensign said.

She has been held behind bars for six weeks while her health deteriorates for writing an op-ed,” she told a three-judge appeals court panel Wednesday. “Detention is not the norm with respect to visa revocation, as we had here. The executive branch made a specific decision to detain Ms. Ozturk that was motivated by her speech.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-team-ordered-to-move-tufts-student-from-louisiana-ice-jail-after-it-couldn-t-take-a-position-on-her-free-speech/ar-AA1Ellat

CBS News: Department of Transportation is latest federal agency expecting layoffs

Employees at the Department of Transportation are bracing for layoffs, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to cut the federal workforce.

During a town hall meeting last week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy informed DOT employees that the layoffs — referred to as reduction in force, or RIF — are expected soon, DOT officials confirm to CBS News.

An employee attending the town hall said Duffy did not offer specifics about which agencies or employees would be affected. The Department of Transportation said the final number of cuts would depend on how many employees first take a buyout offer. 

The cuts could happen as soon as the end of the month.  

Never mind all the recent aviation incidents and the Newark airport meltdown!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/department-of-transportation-layoffs-federal-agencies

Associated Press: NYPD shared a Palestinian protester’s info with ICE. Now it’s evidence in her deportation case

New York City’s police department provided federal immigration authorities with an internal record about a Palestinian woman who they arrested at a protest, which the Trump administration is now using as evidence in its bid to deport her, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The report — shared by the NYPD in March — includes a summary of information in the department’s files about Leqaa Kordia, a New Jersey resident who was arrested at a protest outside Columbia University last spring. It lists her home address, date of birth and an officer’s two-sentence account of the arrest.

It remains unclear how immigration authorities were able to learn about Kordia’s presence at the protest near Columbia last April. At the demonstration, police cited Kordia with disorderly conduct. But the charge was dismissed weeks later and the case sealed.

City law generally prohibits police from sharing information about arrests with federal immigration officials, although there are exceptions for criminal investigations.

On March 14, an NYPD officer generated a four-page report on Kordia and shared it with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nypd-shared-a-palestinian-protester-s-info-with-ice-now-it-s-evidence-in-her-deportation-case/ar-AA1E4U8X

Irish Star: Trump’s tacky gold-plated Oval Office compared to heinous dictator’s palace

President Donald Trump’s remodeling of the Oval Office, which includes a vast amount of gold fixtures covering everything from portraits to curtain rods to even the ceiling, is being compared to a notorious Middle Eastern dictator who was famously a big fan of gold.

Users on X responded to a picture of the Oval Office saying the decor looked like it was “courtesy of the Sadam Hussein home collection.”

One user posted comparison photos of Trump’s various properties over the years next to photos of Hussein’s palace writing “There is indeed a strange and remarkable similarity between the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump and the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein when it comes to luxurious interior designs.”

Trump has long been compared to many dictators around the world, in more ways than just his choice of decor. He famously said during his campaign for president that if elected he’d be a “dictator on day one.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-tacky-gold-plated-oval-office-compared-to-heinous-dictator-s-palace/ar-AA1E5kbT

ICT: A town refuses to give up the school’s Native American mascot — and gets Trump’s support

King Donald should respect the Tenth Amendment and butt out! It’s a local matter.

As a high school hockey player, Adam Drexler wore his Massapequa Chiefs jersey with pride.

But as the Chickasaw Nation member grew up and learned about his Indigenous roots, he came to see the school’s mascot — a stereotypical Native American man wearing a headdress — as problematic.

Now his Long Island hometown has become the latest flashpoint in the enduring debate over the use of Indigenous imagery in American sports: The Trump administration launched an investigation Friday into whether New York officials are discriminating against Massapequa by threatening to withhold funding. The town has refused to comply with a state mandate to retire Native American sports names and mascots.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/a-town-refuses-to-give-up-the-school-s-native-american-mascot-and-gets-trump-s-support/ar-AA1E4TFm

Antisemitism vs. prosemitism?

Apparently this is “prosemitic” behavior and is thus deemed acceptable by the Trump regime:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DI4pr5mI9h5

And here’s an unfortunate woman who was mobbed by a bunch of prosemitic thugs in an apparent case of mistaken identity:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1001773155428119

But since the thugs are all anti-antisemitic, i.e. prosemitic, that must be cool.