The U.S. government on Thursday sued New York City, seeking to block enforcement of several local laws its says are designed to impede its ability to enforce federal immigration laws.
In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, the U.S. government said New York City’s “sanctuary provisions” are unconstitutional, and preempted by laws giving it authority to regulate immigration.
Alina [Bimbo #4] Habba, who has used her job as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor to aggressively target Democrats, is pursuing an investigation into remarks made by Gov. Philip D. Murphy about housing a migrant, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Mr. Murphy said in February that he was prepared to house a woman whose immigration status was unclear at his family’s home in Middletown. F.B.I. agents have since sought to interview at least four witnesses in connection with the comments, two of the people said, with one adding that the governor had been subpoenaed but not questioned.
Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba, the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, is a former personal lawyer for President Trump. She previously announced that she was directing prosecutors in her office to investigate the governor and New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, in connection with the state’s immigration policies.
Two of the people with knowledge of the investigation involving Mr. Murphy’s comments indicated that it was separate from any Justice Department inquiry related to New Jersey’s so-called sanctuary policy, which has been upheld by a federal appeals court. There has been no public sign of that inquiry moving forward.
Mr. Murphy is one of at least four Democratic officials to become entangled in investigations pursued by Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba since she was named to the position in late March.
Mr. Murphy made the remarks during a freewheeling discussion at a New Jersey college, telling an audience there that there was a person in his social orbit “whose immigration status is not yet at the point that they are trying to get it to.”
“And we said, ‘You know what? Let’s have her live at our house above our garage,’” he said. “And good luck to the feds coming in to try to get her.”
The comments set off an immediate outcry. Mr. Trump’s so-called border czar, Thomas Homan, pledged at the time that the administration would not let them go.
“We’ll look into it,” he said.
An aide to Mr. Murphy later clarified that the woman was in the United States legally and had never lived on Mr. Murphy’s property.
The governor’s office declined to comment on the federal inquiry on Friday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office also declined to comment.
A person close to Mr. Murphy said the governor was not aware of any pending investigation against him.
Mr. Trump recently nominated Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba to remain in the job permanently when her time as interim U.S. attorney ends later this month. She would need to be confirmed by the Senate, and New Jersey’s two Democratic senators have been critical of her performance. In a joint statement, the senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, said she had “degraded the office and pursued frivolous and politically motivated prosecutions.”
It was unclear whether they would seek to block her nomination.
Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba had no history as a prosecutor before getting the job, and she has used the traditionally nonpartisan position to pursue several high-profile investigations into Democrats. She is one of several of Mr. Trump’s former defense lawyers to serve in top Justice Department positions, and given her role as the face of federal law enforcement in New Jersey, her actions have drawn particularly fierce scrutiny.
Less than two months into her tenure, Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba charged Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, and Representative LaMonica McIver, after the two Democratic officials clashed with federal immigration agents outside a detention center near Newark Liberty International Airport. Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba moved to drop the trespassing charge her office had filed against Mr. Baraka, who is now suing her for malicious prosecution.
The day she was named interim U.S. attorney, Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba spoke critically of Mr. Murphy while at the White House. She said that there was corruption, injustice and significant crime “right under Governor Murphy, and that will stop.”
More recently, Ms. [Bimbo #4] Habba has adopted a friendlier stance.
On Wednesday, she appeared with the governor at MetLife stadium for a FIFA Club World Cup soccer match, a precursor to the World Cup matches scheduled to take place in New Jersey next summer. The two posed for pictures that Ms. Habba posted on social media.
“Together — across parties, across sectors — we must be committed to keeping our state safe,” she wrote.
An Iran-linked hacking group has threatened to release a batch of emails it said it has stolen from President Donald Trump‘s longtime aides, including adviser Roger Stone and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
Reuters reported Monday that a cyberattack group that hacked the president’s campaign in 2024 claimed it had roughly 100 gigabytes of emails it could leak.
The hackers, operating under the pseudonym Robert, did not provide information about the content of the emails or when they plan to release them, according to the news agency. The group previously released some emails in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election last year.
In online chats with Reuters, they said they also had emails from the accounts of Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan and Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who it was revealed was paid $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement about an affair she says she had with Trump.
A “hostile foreign adversary is threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified material in an effort to distract, discredit, and divide,” the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said late on Monday.
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-hackers-threaten-leak-trump-emails-2092864
Attorney General Pam Bondi [Bimbo #3] has adopted a conspicuously performative approach, willing to execute White House directives with little fuss.
Pam Bondi [Bimbo #3], the attorney general of the United States, circled the Roosevelt Room in late February, handing out bulky white binders labeled “Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a conclave of Trump-allied influencers summoned to the White House for their first visit.
That Ms. Bondi [Bimbo #3], the nation’s top law enforcement official, would prioritize a case of importance primarily to conspiracy theorists was telling. Anxious to appease the restive MAGA base, she hyped the disclosure as “breaking news” on Fox the night before, part of an effort to fulfill President Trump’s campaign promise to reveal new details on the financier Jeffrey Epstein’s misdeeds and death.
It was a dud. There were “no bombshells,” she said, according to one of those invited.
Later, activists on the right lashed out at Ms. Bondi [Bimbo #3]. She responded by blaming others, and then dispatched F.B.I. agents and prosecutors from the Justice Department’s national security division to scour the archives, officials familiar with the situation said. They found little. No one knows when Phase 2 is coming. But it is not likely to amount to much, those people said.
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Since taking office as U.S. attorney general in early February, she has adopted a conspicuously performative approach to survive inside a Trump cabinet that rewards self-promotion, ritualized public flattery and, above all, a willingness to execute White House directives with little fuss.
Over the last few days, Ms. Bondi [Bimbo #3] signed off on Mr. Trump’s acceptance of a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane upgraded to serve as Air Force One donated by the Qatari royal family, which raised a host of ethical and legal questions. As a lobbyist, Ms. Bondi [Bimbo #3] herself received six-figure consulting fees from Qatar.
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But her approach represents a noticeable departure from that of her predecessors at the Justice Department who saw themselves, to varying degrees, as guardians of institutional independence, attentive but not beholden to the presidency.
Colorado officials say President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be wielding its “political power” to give unprecedented help to a former county election clerk who was convicted of allowing Trump supporters to access election equipment after his 2020 defeat.
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Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser wants Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak to block the Justice Department from getting involved. Lawyers from Weiser’s office said the Justice Department has not given any good reason why it should intervene and has just repeated Peters’ arguments.
“Tina Peters was not prosecuted because of any political pressure; she was prosecuted because she broke the law. And just as they did not prosecute her for political reasons, her prosecutors will not accede to any political pressure to give her preferred treatment in sentencing or terms of confinement,” lawyers from Weiser’s office said in a filing.
Sending out armed thugs to intimidate a former employee at his home to remain mum! 🙁
The U.S. Justice Department sent armed U.S. Marshals to deliver a letter warning a fired career pardon attorney about testifying to congressional Democrats, her lawyer said in a letter seen by Reuters on Monday.
“This highly unusual step of directing armed law enforcement officers to the home of a former Department of Justice employee who has engaged in no misconduct, let alone criminal conduct, simply to deliver a letter, is both unprecedented and completely inappropriate,” Michael Bromwich, a lawyer representing fired pardon attorney Liz Oyer, wrote to the Justice Department.’
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Oyer has since told various media outlets that her firing came shortly after she declined to recommend restoring gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, a supporter of President Donald Trump.
