Tag Archives: Kristi Noem

Newsweek: Trump administration asks Supreme Court for new emergency order

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The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to let it move forward with ending protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants. The Justice Department is seeking to block a San Francisco judge’s ruling that found the administration acted unlawfully when it terminated Temporary Protected Status for the group.

A federal appeals court declined to halt U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s decision while the case proceeds.

In May, the Supreme Court had already overturned another Chen order affecting about 350,000 Venezuelans, without explanation, as is typical for emergency appeals. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the earlier ruling should guide them again.

Why It Matters

The Trump administration has taken a hardline stance on Temporary Protected Status, arguing that the protections are meant to be temporary but have been abused by consecutive administrations. Immigration advocates have countered, saying that conditions in Venezuela and other countries have not improved enough to send people home.

What To Know

Friday’s plea by the Trump administration continues a cycle of court orders and challenges around the attempts by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to end TPS for two groups of Venezuelans.

“This case is familiar to the Court and involves the increasingly familiar and
untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket,” the administration wrote in its submission to the Supreme Court.

The argument is that Chen’s final order in the case rested on the same legal basis that had been stayed by the Supreme Court just months earlier.

This back-and-forth has left around 300,000 Venezuelans in limbo, alongside thousands more in a second group also facing the potential loss of their legal status.

Under TPS, immigrants from designated countries are allowed to remain in the United States without fear of deportation. They are granted permission to work while in the U.S., and can sometimes travel out of the country.

Noem and her predecessors hold the power to grant and revoke TPS per country. Status is renewed every 18 months, and the first Trump administration made similar attempts to revoke it but also faced legal challenges, which continued until President Joe Biden took office in 2021.

Part of Noem’s reasoning is that conditions in Venezuela have improved significantly, meaning it is safe for immigrants to return home. This has not necessarily aligned with the broader Trump administration’s views on the South American nation and its leader, Nicolas Maduro.

Trump Admin Moves to Revoke TPS for Syria

Also on Friday, the DHS moved to revoke TPS for another country: Syria.

In a Federal Register notice, the DHS reiterated that conditions had improved in the country, indicating that TPS was no longer necessary. Protections are set to lapse on September 30, 2025.

Protections were first introduced in 2012, at the height of the unrest in the Middle East at the time.

What People Are Saying

The Trump administration, in its filing to the Supreme Court Friday: “Since the statute was enacted, every administration has designated countries for TPS or extended those designations in extraordinary circumstances. But Secretaries across administrations have also terminated designations when the conditions
were no longer met.”

Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, told Newsweek on August 29: “We, more than 8 million Venezuelans, just didn’t leave the country just because it’s fun, it’s because we had no choice…Venezuelans with TPS are not a threat to the United States.”

What Happens Next

The Supreme Court must now decide whether to take up the appeal.

Trump administration asks Supreme Court for new emergency order
In May, the Supreme Court already overturned another lower court order affecting about 350,000 Venezuelans.

https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-donald-trump-immigrants-deportation-venezuela-migrants-2132804

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. judge blocks Trump administration from ending legal status for Venezuelans and Haitians

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President Donald Trump’s administration is illegally seeking to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians to their conflict-stricken nations, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.

The people affected by the ruling have been living in the United States under temporary protected status, or TPS, granted to undocumented immigrants with no serious criminal record who would be endangered by war, natural disasters or other conditions in their homeland. Trump opposes TPS and contends it has been used to protect members of criminal gangs.

But U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said removing the protections from Venezuelans and Haitians would return them to “conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”

“For 35 years, the TPS statute has been faithfully executed by presidential administrations from both parties, affording relief based on the best available information obtained by the Department of Homeland Security in consultation with the State Department and other agencies, a process that involves careful study and analysis,” the judge wrote. “Until now.”

He did not say how many immigrants were covered by the ruling, but advocacy groups said it would protect hundreds of thousands from each nation. Chen had previously halted the deportation of 350,000 Venezuelans with TPS status, but the Supreme Court froze his order in May and allowed the administration to seek their deportation.

Friday’s ruling “provides immediate relief to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who should not have been subjected to this lawless policy in the first place,” said their attorney, Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor. “Sadly, today’s ruling comes too late for many Venezuelans who were detained and deported under that policy because the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect without giving any reasons. We are hopeful the rule of law will now prevail.”

In Friday’s decision, Chen said Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, terminated TPS for both groups of migrants as soon as she took office, with “no meaningful review,” reversing extensive findings and decisions by her predecessors. He said it was the first such action in the program’s 35-year history.

The judge said Noem had made unfounded assertions that “Venezuela didn’t send us their best” but instead sent “criminals.” She referred to Venezuelan migrants as “dirtbags” in a Jan. 29 Fox News interview. Chen also cited Trump’s campaign claims that Haitian migrants were eating household pets in Ohio.

Such statements are evidence that the administration’s actions were “based on racial, ethnic, and/or national origin animus,” said Chen, who was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama.

S.F. judge blocks Trump administration from ending legal status for Venezuelans and Haitians

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/tps-protections-21033502.php

Tag24 News: Kristi Noem fires dozens of FEMA staff over “massive” cybersecurity fail

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fired two dozen employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency following a major cybersecurity breach.

The 24 employees include FEMA Chief Information Officer Charles Armstrong and Chief Information Security Officer Gregory Edwards.

According to Noem, the Department of Homeland Security’s [DHS] internal network was accessed by a “threat actor,” compromising sensitive information and putting department operations “at risk.”

“Fortunately, this problem was caught before any American citizens were directly impacted,” a DHS statement issued on Friday revealed. “Despite this failure and neglect, no sensitive data was extracted from any DHS networks.”

The statement went on to gush over Noem, claiming that she was the “only” reason that the security vulnerability was discovered because she ordered a review into FEMA’s operations and IT systems.

“The entrenched bureaucrats who led FEMA’s IT team for decades resisted any efforts to fix the problem,” DHS claimed. “Instead, they avoided scheduled inspections and lied to officials about the scope and scale of the cyber vulnerabilities.”

Taking to social media, Noem claimed that FEMA’s IT leadership had “failed on every level” and said that “their incompetence put the American people at risk.”

“When DHS stepped in to fix the problem, entrenched bureaucrats worked to prevent us from solving the problem and downplayed just how bad this breach was,” Noem raged on X.

“These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens’ personal data, so I terminated them immediately.”

Kristi Noem fires dozens of FEMA staff over “massive” cybersecurity fail

https://www.tag24.com/politics/politicians/kristi-noem-fires-dozens-of-fema-staff-over-massive-cybersecurity-fail-3416036

Newsweek: ICE detains dad of four “awaiting green card interview”

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A Russian immigrant said to be awaiting a green card interview is being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after Russian authorities allegedly issued an Interpol request for his arrest, according to a GoFundMe set up by his family.

Aleksei Levit—who escaped persecution in his home country some eight years ago, including a purported assassination attempt, per the GoFundMe—is being held at the Dodge Detention Center in Juneau, Wisconsin, according to ICE records.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told Newsweek: “Aleksei Levit, an illegal alien from Russia, entered the United States on March 13, 2017, on a B2 tourist visa. He overstayed the visa and remained in our country illegally.

“Over the past eight years, he never applied for a green card. ICE arrested him on July 31, 2025, and placed him in removal proceedings. All of his claims will be heard before a judge. Under President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem, criminals are not welcome in the U.S.”

Newsweek reached out to Levit’s wife via the GoFundMe page.

Why It Matters

Levit’s case spotlights the Trump administration’s broader illegal immigration crackdown, which includes apprehending nonviolent individuals who lack the proper credentials to remain in the United States.

His family claims he was never provided with green card interviews for the majority of the last decade.

In February, a lawsuit was filed against ICE representing 276 immigrants from ex-Soviet countries, including Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan, who claimed that they were detained and locked up for extended periods of time, violating federal law and internal policies, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.

In June, ICE reported its arrest of a 39-year-old, Tajikistan-born Russian national in Philadelphia who was wanted overseas for being suspected of being a member of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.

What To Know

Levit and his Slinger, Wisconsin-based family, which includes his wife and four children (ages 8, 6 and 4-year-old twins), fled Russia over eight years ago to seek asylum in the U.S. due to Levit “facing persecution for refusing to participate in corrupt practices,” according to a GoFundMe started by his wife. It’s unclear from where that claim is derived.

As of Wednesday morning, $1,650 had been raised of its goal of $5,500.

The husband and father has been detained for over three weeks. Photos show him wearing a hard hat and safety gear as part of his job. The job title was never mentioned.

“As a dedicated public servant, he always upheld the values of honesty and integrity,” the GoFundMe states. “However, this commitment came at a devastating cost. Our family was forced to leave behind a life we cherished, filled with love and hope, as threats, searches and even an assassination attempt made it clear that our safety was in jeopardy.

“The fear for our lives pushed us to start anew in a foreign land, without connections and with limited English. We faced countless challenges, losing everything multiple times, yet we persevered.”

“For over eight years, we have been waiting for our Green Card interviews, living and working legally, and contributing to our community,” the page says.

The crowdfunding campaign alleges that Levit was taken into custody “in handcuffs and chains, without explanation” as he left for work one day. It also alleges that Russian authorities issued an Interpol request for his arrest, seeking to deport him back to a country “where he would face certain death or imprisonment for his beliefs.”

“The Russian government is relentless in its pursuit of those they deem undesirable, and they have taken away my beloved husband and the father of our four young children,” says the GoFundMe. “Throughout our time in the U.S., we had an attorney who was supposed to guide us and represent us, but on that fateful day he abandoned us, leaving us without support when we needed it most.

“We lost all the money we had paid him, and now we find ourselves in desperate need of funds to hire a new attorney.”

They added that “without legal representation, the odds are stacked against us,” saying that individuals in his position who lack counsel “almost always lose.”

What People Are Saying

On Tuesday, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson told Newsweek: “A green card is a privilege, not a right, and under our nation’s laws, our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR) presenting at a U.S. port of entry with criminal convictions may be found inadmissible, placed in removal proceedings, and subject to mandatory detention.”

What Happens Next

Levit’s future remains unknown as the family continues to attempt to hire legal representation in his case.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-immigration-green-card-detention-father-russia-2120121

Independent: Trump team has fined immigrants who didn’t self-deport $6 billion — and now it’s coming to collect

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Department of Homeland Security threatens lawsuits and massive tax bills to collect balances ‘owed’ by thousands of immigrants

Immigrants have been racking up as much as $1,000 a day in fines if they disregard orders to deport, totaling more than $6 billion that the Trump administration now intends to collect.

Since Donald Trump returned to office, the Department of Homeland Security has issued roughly 21,500 fines, part of a pressure campaign to encourage millions of people to leave the country with a promise that the government would waive the fees against them.

In recent weeks, the government has threatened immigrants with lawsuits, debt collectors and massive tax bills if they don’t pay those penalties, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The new system, put in place by the Trump administration in June, means immigrants are not only at risk of arrest and forced removal from the U.S. but also crushing financial debt that is virtually impossible to escape. One immigration attorney told the WSJ that it amounts to “psychological warfare.”

DHS has issued past-due notices for unpaid fines with growing interest and threatened to garnish tax refunds, deploy private collection agencies and alert credit bureaus to delinquent payments owed by targeted immigrants, many of whom are low-wage workers, according to WSJ.

The agency has also suggested it could report unpaid fines to the IRS, which could then treat the balance as taxable income.

The message from Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “is clear: if you’re in the country illegally, leave now or face the consequences,” a senior DHS official said in a statement to The Independent.

Under rules introduced in June, DHS officers can send letters threatening fees on noncitizens over failure to deport, and all rights of appeal could be eliminated if they fail to reply within 15 days.

The process is permitted under a law passed by Congress in 1996 as part of a wider immigration package. But over the last three decades, threats of fees — which can now reach up to $998 a day — have rarely been enforced. Officers instead focused on removal, rather than adding another layer of punishment.

But that changed under Trump, largely because the process for sending out threatening fines with potentially financially disastrous results is much easier, according to the American Immigration Council, an immigration policy research group.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has vowed to recoup “funds owed to Americans.”

“As part of the effort to fulfill President Trump’s agenda, Treasury’s Debt Collection Service is actively working with ICE to secure payment for all civil fines and penalties owed by illegal aliens to the U.S. government,” Bessent said on social media.

According to TV ads and social media announcements from DHS, immigrants who choose to “self-deport” will “not have to pay these fines.”

Instead, immigrants are offered “financial assistance up to $1,000” and “a free flight home,” as well as “the potential opportunity to return to the United States the legal, right way,” according to the agency.

Immigrants can do so using the CBP Home app, formerly the CBP One app, a Joe Biden-era product that allowed more than 1 million immigrants to begin their immigration process before reaching the country. The Trump administration has revoked legal status for all immigrants who entered the country with that app.

A senior DHS official told The Independent that “iIlegal aliens should use the CBP Home app to fly home for free and receive $1,000 stipend, while preserving the option to return the legal, right way.”

“It’s an easy choice: leave voluntarily and receive [a] $1,000 check or stay and wait till you are fined $1,000 [a] day, arrested, and deported without a possibility to return legally,” the official said.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has called that promise “a deeply misleading and unethical trick.”

Under current law, anyone living in the U.S. for more than six months without legal permission cannot return as an immigrant for at least three years. Immigrants who were in the country for more than a year could be blocked from reentering for at least 10 years.

Immigrants with a record of deportation also are more likely to face lengthy waiting periods, or outright denials, when applying for future visas.

Noem has claimed that more than 1.6 million immigrants have “left” the country within the first 200 days of the administration.

In May, a Honduran woman who has lived in the U.S. for two decades was hit with nearly $2 million in fines for failing to leave the country after receiving a removal order in 2005.

“I live with anxiety… I can’t sleep… I don’t feel,” the 41-year-old mother-of-three U.S. citizens told CBS News.

Another woman — a mother-of-four in New York who has been living in the U.S. for 25 years and trying to get her removal order tossed so she can get a green card — had considered self-deporting out of fear that the Treasury Department would repossess her house, according to WSJ.

She faces more than $2 million in overdue penalties, with growing daily interest. She could also be subject to administrative costs totaling at least 32 percent of her fine, or more than half a million dollars, according to DHS.

To carry out the president’s plans for mass deportations, the Trump administration has pushed to “de-legalize” millions of immigrants who were granted humanitarian protections and other protective orders to legally live and work in the country.

More than 1 million people are at risk of being removed from the U.S. after the administration revoked Temporary Protected Status for several countries.

Another 1 million immigrants who entered legally through the CBP One app also are at risk of being arrested and removed, while thousands of people with pending immigration cases are being ordered to court each week only to have those cases dismissed, and find federal agents waiting to arrest them on the other side of the courtroom doors.

Those reversals have radically expanded a pool of “undocumented” people to add to Trump’s deportation numbers.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/migrants-self-deport-fines-trump-administration-b2815156.html

CBS News: Kilmar Abrego Garcia taken into ICE custody amid new deportation threat

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia taken into ICE custody amid new deportation threat
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was taken into custody Monday by immigration authorities following his release from jail in Tennessee. His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, says Garcia has filed a lawsuit challenging deportation without a fair immigration trial and full appeal rights.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/kilmar-abrego-garcia-taken-into-ice-custody-amid-new-deportation-threat/vi-AA1LbmYt

I’ve lost track of where this poor guy supposedly is — is he in jail or out of jail today?

Daily Beast: Karoline Leavitt Shares Post Blaming ‘Demonic Forces’ for Minneapolis Shooting

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Trump’s press secretary shared the post to her Instagram Stories.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a post to Instagram that asked people to pray for the victims following the tragic shooting at a Minneapolis church that claimed the lives of two children. However, not all is what it initially seems.

A look at the full post, originally made by The Conservateur, a conservative lifestyle magazine, reveals a second slide that blames a “demonic force” for the shooting.

The full post reads, “There is a demonic force moving when a transgender maniac sprays bullets at pews of Catholic school children. Shame on the progressive leaders and lawmakers who make this about the man in the White House, the second amendment or so-called trans bigotry.”

“This is a corruption of minds to commit horrific acts of violence. We pray for the victims, their families, and the entire annunciation community during this grueling time. And yes, prayers do count and do work.”

Language similar to that used in the post has been liberally deployed by Trump allies and supporters in the hours since the shooting, which took place at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Following the discovery that the shooter may have been transgender—FBI Director Kash Patel identified the shooter as a male, but legal documents requesting a name change show the shooter identified as female—MAGA was quick to suggest a correlation between their gender identity and the shooting and begin blaming “the trans agenda.”

Commentator Matt Walsh was one such figure, posting on X that “now is precisely the moment when trans militants are the MOST dangerous. They’ve lost. The game is over. Now they’re more desperate than ever,” and that it was “time to have a national conversation about common sense restrictions on transgenders.”

Bo Loudon, Barron Trump’s best friend, tweeted, “America does NOT have a “gun problem.” America HAS a transgender problem. Transgenderism needs to be labeled as a MENTAL ILLNESS!”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared a statement to social media, confirming that the shooter was a 23-year-old “claiming to be transgender”.

The statement continued, “This deranged monster targeted our most vulnerable: young children praying in their first morning Mass of the school year. This deeply sick murderer scrawled the words ‘For the Children’ and ‘Where is your God?’ and ‘Kill Donald Trump’ on a rifle magazine.”

“This level of violence is unthinkable. Our deepest prayers are with the children, parents, families, educators, and Christians everywhere. We mourn with them, we pray for healing, and we will never forget them.”

We have confirmation that the shooter at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, MN was a 23 year-old man, claiming to be transgender.

This deranged monster targeted our most vulnerable: young children praying in their first morning Mass of the school year. This deeply sick…— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) August 27, 2025

Despite claims from conservatives that transgender people are overrepresented in mass shooting events, a report from the Violence Prevention Project identified just one trans shooter out of over 200 who carried out mass shootings between 1999 and 2024—Audrey Hale, who killed six people in a 2023 shooting at a Nashville elementary school. 192 of the 200 shooters included in the report were men.

Karoline Leavitt Shares Post Blaming ‘Demonic Forces’ for Minneapolis Shooting
Trump’s press secretary shared the post to her Instagram Stories.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/karoline-leavitt-shares-post-blaming-demonic-forces-for-minneapolis-shooting

Daily Beast: Trump Takes Revenge Against FEMA Workers Who Warned He’s Risking Disaster

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FEMA employees were abruptly placed on administrative leave Tuesday—just 24 hours after they signed an explosive open letter warning Donald Trump that the agency is being dragged back to its pre-Katrina dark ages.

The letter, signed by 191 current and former FEMA staffers, was sent to Congress and top officials on Monday. Its message was blunt—the people now running FEMA are inexperienced, politically driven, and dismantling the very programs that keep Americans safe when disaster strikes.

The writers warned that, left unchecked, the agency could stumble into catastrophe. By Tuesday evening, FEMA’s administrator’s office had fired back with suspension letters.

The employees were told they would remain in “non-duty status” but keep their pay and benefits, effectively being benched for speaking out.

The letter also cited decisions made by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi “ICE Barbie” Noem as a reason the agency could fail to manage disaster responses.

FEMA confirmed that multiple employees were placed on immediate leave, though the exact number remains unclear. Of the nearly 200 signatories, only about 36 revealed their names publicly, The Washington Post and CNN reported.

“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. Change is always hard. It is especially for those invested in the status quo, who have forgotten that their duty is to the American people not entrenched bureaucracy,” a FEMA spokesperson told the Daily Beast.

“Under the Biden Administration, the American people were abandoned as disasters ravaged North Carolina, and needed aid was denied based on party affiliation in Florida. Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems. Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable.”

Former President George W. Bush was heavily criticized for his administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina particularly in New Orleans, where much of the city was left underwater. In its aftermath, Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PKEMRA), which added safeguards to prevent another botched response.

The letter from FEMA employees warns that the Trump administration is rolling back those protections and calls on Congress to intervene. Their demands include shielding FEMA from “further interference” from the DHS, stopping “illegal impoundments of appropriated funding,” and protecting FEMA workers from “politically motivated firings.”

Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, was already under fire in July over the response to flooding in Texas that left about 135 people dead. Critics blamed a new rule she insisted upon, which required her personal sign-off on any contract or grant over $100,000, which delayed the deployment of an Urban Search and Rescue team by at least three days.

At least two FEMA staffers placed on leave had been part of that Texas flood response, The Washington Post reported.

Jeremy Edwards, a former FEMA press secretary who signed the “FEMA Katrina Declaration,” said the number of signatories “signifies the severity of the problem.”

“They are that scared of us being so inadequately unprepared. It speaks a lot to the situation right now,” Edwards told The Post.

The Trump administration also placed about 140 Environmental Protection Agency employees on leave in July after they signed a letter protesting the agency’s management and the treatment of federal workers.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

Trump Takes Revenge Against FEMA Workers Who Warned He’s Risking Disaster
The staff warned that Trump’s policies were putting lives at risk.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-takes-revenge-against-fema-workers-who-warned-hes-risking-disaster

NBC News: ‘They’re going to be brought down’: Trump vows to go after Biden’s advisers

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President Donald Trump on Monday called his predecessor’s team “evil people.”

President Donald Trump on Monday said he would target former President Joe Biden’s circle, calling them “evil people.”

“There were some brilliant people,” Trump said, referring to Biden’s allies in his White House. “But they’re evil people, and they’re going to be brought down. They have to be brought down ’cause they really hurt our country.”

Trump’s threat to have his political opponent’s allies “brought down” marks his latest move to potentially target political adversaries in a pattern that has alarmed critics who paint the president as pursuing retribution and say he is weaponizing the Justice Department — a claim the president has made about the Biden administration.

Biden’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump made the comments during lengthy remarks in the Oval Office, where the president and his allies made a series of claims about the impact of his anti-crime efforts in D.C. and top officials took turns heaping praise on him. While signing executive orders that aim to do away with cash bail, Trump repeatedly focused on the murder rate in the city, saying it had not seen a single person killed in 11 days — a change that he has been brandishing in recent days as he touts his administration’s efforts to address D.C. crime. That push has included federalizing the D.C. police force, deploying the National Guard and stepping up the federal law enforcement presence in the city.

Trump claimed that it has been “many years” since D.C. went a week without a murder. Publicly available crime data from the Metropolitan Police Department, however, indicate that D.C. went 16 days without a murder earlier this year, from Feb. 25 to March 12.

Trump argued that the city’s restaurants are experiencing a “boomtown,” a comment that is uncertain, as restaurant employees in a D.C. neighborhood with a large immigrant community told NBC News last week that business was declining due to Trump’s policies. His deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who attended the signing with Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, claimed that people in D.C. had resumed wearing jewelry and carrying purses because of Trump’s anti-crime push.

“They’re wearing jewelry again. They’re carrying purses again,” Miller said. “People had changed their whole lives in this city for fear of being murdered, mugged and carjacked. It is a literal statement that President Trump has freed 700,000 people in this city who were living under the rule of criminals and thugs.”

At the start of the operation, though, crime in D.C. was down 26% compared to last year. Many city residents, too, have slammed the deployments and said it is scaring Washingtonians.

The president has frequently claimed that Democrats weaponized the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies against him, pointing to his criminal indictments related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents, as well as his conviction related to falsifying business records, which were dropped when he was elected to a second term. Trump repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the cases against him.

Democrats have gone after Trump’s comments, arguing that the Trump administration’s several investigations into his political foes constitute the exact weaponization that he claimed they pursued against him.

The Justice Department is investigating Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and New York Attorney General Letitia James on allegations of mortgage fraud.

James led a civil fraud case against Trump, and Schiff served as the lead House manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial. They denied any wrongdoing.

NBC News has also previously reported that the Justice Department is in the initial stages of an investigation into James’ handling of her civil fraud case against Trump, which her attorney likened to a “political retribution campaign.”

Trump also threatened Friday to fire a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, if she did not resign after facing separate accusations of mortgage fraud. Cook said she won’t step down.

On Monday night, Trump said he was removing Cook from her post. Trump has been highly critical of the Federal Reserve for not adjusting interest rates as he would like.

And late last week, the FBI searched the home of former national security adviser John Bolton. A source familiar with the matter told NBC News at the time that the search was part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records.” Bolton did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment Friday.

Also on Monday, Trump left the door open to investigating former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a staunch critic of Trump who was among the Republicans who ran against him for president. Trump was referring to a 12-year-old scandal called “Bridgegate.“

“If they want to look at it, they can,” Trump said, responding to a question about whether the White House planned to investigate Christie. “You can ask Pam. I think we have other things to do, but I always thought he got away with murder.”

On Sunday, after Christie criticized him on ABC News’ “This Week,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social, “For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again?”

Meanwhile, Trump’s allies in Congress have pushed to hear testimony from Biden’s circle about his mental acuity while in office, which Trump and Republicans claim was in decline but was covered up by the former president’s team. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has sought testimony from Biden’s former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor and former White House aides, including his domestic policy adviser, Neera Tanden and his deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini.

‘They’re going to be brought down’: Trump vows to go after Biden’s advisers
President Donald Trump on Monday called his predecessor’s team “evil people.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/-going-brought-trump-vows-go-bidens-advisers-rcna227019

Slingshot News: ‘Claims From Katrina’: Sec. Kristi Noem Reveals Her Department Is 22 Years Behind Schedule On FEMA Aid In House Hearing

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‘Claims From Katrina’: Sec. Kristi Noem Reveals Her Department Is 22 Years Behind Schedule On FEMA Aid In House Hearing
Secretary Kristi Noem revealed that her department is almost 22 years behind schedule in delivering aid to Americans who suffered from natural disasters.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/claims-from-katrina-sec-kristi-noem-reveals-her-department-is-22-years-behind-schedule-on-fema-aid-in-house-hearing/vi-AA1L50Gp