The Conversation -- March 27, 2025
Marie: Earlier today, I linked a Washington Post story on Kristi Noem's field trip to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, where Noem's Department (HHS) had secretly flown people under cover of darkness and likely in violation of a judge's order. The Post reporters cover Noem's performance at CECOT, but Jonathan Last of the Bulwark does a better job. I urge you to read Last's essay. Here's a bit of it:
"Liberal regimes have standards for the treatment of prisoners. These standards are codified under the Geneva Conventions, which the United States has signed and ratified. Among the standards dictated by the Geneva Conventions is this: Prisoners may not be publicly exploited for purposes of propaganda. Another standard of liberal governments is that people who present themselves through legal pathways as refugees fleeing oppression are vetted and provided due process, not disappeared into foreign gulags. And yet here we are. A high-ranking American official visits a prison on foreign soil which we are using to warehouse enemies of her regime. She appears in a fitted long-sleeve tee and active-wear slacks. There is a ballcap on her head and a pound of makeup smeared across her plasticized face. A gold Rolex Daytona — worth more than some of these men will make in their entire lives — sits proudly on her dainty wrist. Every piece of this visual is carefully engineered.... [Behind her, prisoners] have clearly been posed by the jailers, forced to hold position so that they can be useful props for the American woman so that she can manufacture propaganda for her regime.... We are now the bad guys." Thanks to RAS for the lead. ~~~
~~~ Josh Kovensky of TPM: “The Trump administration commenced orchestrating the removals long before Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, and did so in a way that seems to have been designed to evade judicial oversight.... Not only did the government deprive those removed of their right to a hearing before an impartial judge, TPM’s reporting shows that federal officials went to extraordinary lengths to conceal weeks of preparations for the removals.... The judge who ordered a halt to the removals remarked on the issue at a hearing last week, observing that ICE had to have had 'advance notice of this proclamation because it’s impossible that this could have happened in a few hours.'” Thanks to RAS for the lead.
Cut HHS Staff → Bigger Tax Breaks for Rich Americans. Lauren Weber, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Department of Health and Human Services is cutting nearly a quarter of its workforce and consolidating several of its departments, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Thursday, a sweeping reduction of the agency that protects Americans’ health, oversees Medicare and Medicaid and ensures the safety of the nation’s food and drugs. The moves will save the department about $1.8 billion annually, the agency said in a news release, by reducing staff from 82,000 to 62,000. Half of those 20,000 employees took buyouts and early retirement, while 10,000 will lose their jobs.”
~~~ Three cheers for that American reporter who put MTG in her place. Way to ask a follow-up question. Finally!
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Houthis and the Blowhards
Jeff Goldberg & Shane Harris of the Atlantic Hit Send: “... statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.... A CIA spokesperson asked us to withhold the name of John Ratcliffe’s chief of staff, which Ratcliffe had shared in the Signal chain, because CIA intelligence officers are traditionally not publicly identified. Ratcliffe had testified earlier yesterday that the officer is not undercover and said it was 'completely appropriate' to share their name in the Signal conversation. We will continue to withhold the name of the officer. Otherwise, the messages are unredacted.” Thanks to laura h. for this gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: It doesn't take a national security expert to look at Drunk Pete's "What, When, Where, Who and How" message and realize that had this message been read in real time by, say, Iran, that U.S. military personnel and equipment would have been severely compromised and that the "Target Terrorist" would have moved out of harm's way. It seems ludicrous to claim that running this thread over a non-secure commercial app is no big deal.
Marie: Take a look at this photo. You probably remember it. ~~~
Now think about how this compares to the Signal chat Drunk Pete and the gang had re: the March 15 attack on Houthi targets during which, according to local reports, killed 53 people, including women & children. Two things in particular strike me: (1) The group met in a secure facility. According to Pete Souza, the White House photographer who took the now-famous photo, the top security brass were gathered in a tiny conference room within the Situations Room complex during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Turkey. (2) The POTUS was in the room.
If you read Jeff Goldberg's first story (gift link) on the Houthi attack, then you know that the participants did NOT include the POTUS* in the chat group, even though they were, on the 15th, having a real-time discussion of the attack. Further, you also know that the chat participants were not even certain of what Trump wanted the DOD to do. They read in Stephen Miller -- perhaps he's the Trump Interpreter -- and he wrote, “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light....” That is, none of them dared even go to Trump to ask him to clarify his order, much less to discuss the ramifications with him. This is not the way you expect Cabinet members to interact (or not) with a normal POTUS. Bottom line: instead of being in a secure facility with the POTUS to discuss and follow the attack, these bozos were guessing what to do on a publicly-available app that malign actors might have been listening in on, too. ~~~
~~~ Patrick Beuth, et al., of Der Spiegel (English translation): "Private contact details of the most important security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. Der Spiegel reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials. To do so, the reporters used commercial people search engines along with hacked customer data that has been published on the web. Those affected by the leaks include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn.... There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.
"As such, the reporting has revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices. It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike." Thanks to RAS for the link. That's right. It doesn't take someone with the expertise of, say, Elon's "awesome" cyberstalker friend & DOGE software guy BigBalls, to secretly join Waltz's chat thread. ~~~
~~~ And This. Mike Bedigan of the Independent: “Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Waltz ... left sensitive information public on his personal Venmo account, according to a report. Waltz — along with other high-ranking officials including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — opened his account to the public with a list of 'friends' and other details that could potentially be exploited by foreign intelligence services, Wired reported. The Venmo account was clearly listed under the name 'Michael Waltz' and bore a photo of Waltz with a list of the names of people known to be associated with him.... Last July Wired also reported that Vance had left his Venmo account public, revealing a contacts list including members of the infamous right-wing Project 2025, government officials, former Yale contemporaries, and far-right media figures.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: One would assume that the Trump administration (well, any administration) would vet the digital presence -- devices, social media, apps, email contacts, etc. -- of at least top officials and staff who handle sensitive material. Obviously not. So there are certainly many staff whose digital footprints are vulnerable to security breaches.
Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “In the days since the editor in chief of The Atlantic revealed he had been inadvertently included in a group chat of top U.S. officials planning a military strike on Houthi militants in Yemen, senior members of the Trump administration have offered a series of shifting, sometimes contradictory and often implausible explanations for how the episode occurred — and why, they say, it just wasn’t that big a deal. Taken together, the statements for the most part sidestep or seek to divert attention from the fundamental fact of what happened: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Signal, an unclassified commercial app, to share sensitive details about an imminent attack in an extraordinary breach of national security....
[Here's Donald Trump's take:] “[Mr.] Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the fervor over the Atlantic’s article was 'all a witch hunt.'... 'I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you,' he said, after complaining that 'Joe Biden should have done this attack on Yemen.'... [Mr. Biden's] administration led allied nations in several attacks on Houthi sites in Yemen in 2024. Mr. Trump has insisted that no classified information was shared among the members of the group, including the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg — and that it wasn’t uncommon for members of the government to use Signal for official business. But he has also spent a lot more energy disparaging Mr. Goldberg and The Atlantic than defending his national security officials. 'I happen to know the guy is a total sleazebag,' Mr. Trump said of Mr. Goldberg on Tuesday, speaking to reporters from the Cabinet Room.... 'The Atlantic is a failed magazine, does very, very poorly. Nobody gives a damn about it.'...
The White House has insisted that the information shared on Signal was not a 'war plan,' as the headline on the initial story called it, but an 'attack plan.' National security experts say this is very likely a distinction without a difference.” This is a fair summary of the semantic contortions the chatroom participants have executed in lieu of owning up to their dangerous, incompetent culpability. The link, therefore, is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Ben Blanchet of the Huffington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday downplayed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s role in sharing highly sensitive matters of national security to a group chat that included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. 'Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, despite screenshots showing the defense secretary sharing plans for U.S. strikes in Yemen with the Signal chat earlier this month. Trump continued, 'Hegseth? How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with it. Look, look — it’s all a witch hunt.'” Here's Politico's story: "I always thought it was Mike."
~~~ Marie: I suppose for the most part Trump's denials and deflections are standard operating prevarication from a world-class liar who cares less about national security secrets than any U.S. president in history (see Trump, Stolen Classified Documents Criminal Case). But if you've caught any clips of his making excuses for the Signalgate 18, it also appears that he does not know what's going on -- that chat threads and encrypted apps and government-approved methods, etc. are just too much for him. So it's all Joe Biden's fault.
Here's JayDee at Quantico yesterday, suited up for an encounter with reporters wanting to know about that group chat. (He did not respond when a reporter shouted a question at him.) ~~~
Julian Barnes & Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “Members of ... [Donald] Trump’s cabinet insisted at a House committee hearing on Wednesday that there was nothing wrong with using a consumer messaging app to discuss U.S. military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen.... Democrats ... appeared in lock step as they confronted one of the most notable blunders Trump administration officials have made since taking office. In question after question, the members of the Democratic caucus hammered away at the issue of the chat group.... The hearing became contentious at many moments. An exchange between Representative Jimmy Gomez, Democrat of California, and [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe briefly devolved into a shouting match as Mr. Gomez asked witnesses whether 'Pete Hegseth had been drinking before he leaked classified information.'... Some of the most effective questioning came from Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who is a combat veteran.... With an aide holding up posters behind him, Mr. Crow described the Houthis’ advanced air-defense systems and then said it was outrageous that the administration was not accepting responsibility for the leak. 'It is a leadership failure, and that’s why Secretary Hegseth, who undoubtedly transmitted classified sensitive operational information via this chain, must resign immediately,' he said.”
Disclosure would compromise the operation and put lives at risk. Next to nuclear and covert operations, this information is the most protected. -- Mick Mulroy, Pentagon official in the first Trump administration, on Hegseth's posting of launch times "likely taken from a document outlining the real time battle sequence"
There was no classified information as I understand it. -- Donald Trump, Tuesday
That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know. I’m not sure, you have to ask the various people involved. -- Donald Trump, Wednesday when asked if classified material was discussed in the chat ~~~
~~~ Marie: Devlin Barrett of the New York Times backs up what I wrote in the Comments yesterday when I speculated about how Team Signalgate was skirting responsibility for discussing classified information on an unsecure chat app: “To many of the people who worked in the classified world of military and intelligence operations, you don’t need a fancy red folder or special government markings to know the plans for an upcoming attack are highly classified. Senior administration officials, however, are staking their reputations on the often bureaucratic nature of classified information.... Administration officials have noted that it is up to the Defense Department to decide which details of its own work are classified. And since the head of that department, Mr. Hegseth, has declared the information not classified, it therefore is not, they have contended. Going back to at least the Reagan administration, however, the government has considered information about 'military plans, weapons or operations' to be classified.” ~~~
Here's Chris Hayes overview of the story as of last night: ~~~
~~~ Hayes goes over how screwed-up the "colossal failure" was: ~~~
Garrett Graff breaks down the revelations from the debacle into five scandals: "1) A massive leak of sensitive information.... 2) Perjury to Congress.... 3) A clear (and clearly criminal) violation of the Federal Records Act.... 4) A government IT scandal.... 5) Some light war crimes." Graff's explanations of each scandal he's defined are interesting. For instance, "This IT and cybersecurity scandal, by the way, is consistent with an administration that’s playing too fast and too loose with serious IT questions and secure communications systems: Just last week came word that Elon Musk has installed Starlink across the White House complex, which for anyone who understands the security of networks in a place like the White House, is just insanity." Graff goes on to observe that the Goldberg story revealed that "Donald Trump isn’t that engaged in the policy of his administration, JD Vance is weak and powerless, and the only one that matters is Stephen Miller.... Miller — who, mind you, is not a national security official who would be normally involved in a military strike overseas — is the one who shuts down the debate over whether the action moves ahead: Miller, in fact, is only added to the group after people aren’t sure of the president’s wishes.... JD Vance is powerless."
Jose Olivares of the Guardian & Agencies: “... top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a 'significant political problem' if not addressed properly. 'This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,' the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.... The Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the armed services committee, told the Hill he would be asking the defense department’s inspector general to investigate the scandal.”
Ana Swanson, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on Wednesday that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts that were imported into the United States, a move that is likely to raise prices for American consumers and throw supply chains into disarray as the president seeks to bolster U.S. manufacturing. The tariffs will go into effect on April 3 and apply both to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States and to imported parts that are assembled into cars at American auto plants. Those tariffs will hit foreign brands as well as American ones, like Ford Motor and General Motors, which build some of their vehicles in Canada or Mexico. Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States are imported, as well as nearly 60 percent of the parts in vehicles assembled in the United States. That means the tariffs could push up car prices significantly when inflation has already made cars and trucks more expensive for American consumers.
“During remarks at the White House, Mr. Trump said the tariffs would encourage auto companies and their suppliers to set up shop in the United States.... But the auto industry is global and has been built up around trade agreements that allow factories in different countries to specialize in certain parts or types of cars, with the expectation that they would face little to no tariffs. That has been particularly true for North America, where national auto sectors have been stitched together by trade agreements since the 1960s.” The CBS News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Joe Stanley-Smith & Francesca Micheletti of Politico: “European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen responded quickly to a decision by ... Donald Trump to slap a 25 percent tariff on auto imports. The tariffs, which Trump said will take effect April 3, are a heavy blow for the European car industry and represent the largest escalation yet in Trump’s multi-fronted trade war, which is expected to have severe global economic consequences. 'I deeply regret the US decision to impose tariffs on European automotive exports,' von der Leyen said in a statement released late Wednesday evening. 'Tariffs are taxes — bad for businesses [and] worse for consumers equally in the US and the European Union.'... While von der Leyen's language was guarded, she left little doubt that the EU is prepared to retaliate.... 'As a major trading power and a strong community of 27 Member States, we will jointly protect our workers, businesses and consumers across our European Union.'”
⭐Cut Health Research Funding → Bigger Tax Breaks for Rich Americans. Carl Zimmer & Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has canceled funding for dozens of studies seeking new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and other pathogens that may cause future pandemics. The government’s rationale is that the Covid pandemic has ended, which 'provides cause to terminate Covid-related grant funds,' according to an internal N.I.H. document viewed by The New York Times. But the research was not just about Covid. Nine of the terminated awards funded centers conducting research on antiviral drugs to combat so-called priority pathogens that could give rise to entirely new pandemics.... Describing all the research as Covid-related is 'a complete inaccuracy and simply a way to defund infectious disease research,' the official said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has said that the N.I.H. is too focused on infectious diseases, the official noted. The funding halts were first reported by Science and Nature. The cancellations stunned scientists who had depended on the government’s support.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I don't know why we need all that research stuff with the white lab coats and the fancy microscopes and all when we can just ask RFKJ for his remedies for every present and future pathogen.
⭐Cut Healthcare Funding → Bigger Tax Breaks for Rich Americans. Apoorva Mandavilli, et al., of the New York Times: “The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu.... For some, the effect was immediate. In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there.... On Tuesday, some state health departments were preparing to lay off dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists.” The NBC News story is here.
⭐Let a Million Children Die → Bigger Tax Breaks for Rich Americans. Adam Taylor & Emmanuel Martinez of the Washington Post: “The United States is planning to terminate more than $1 billion in funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, an international organization that offers lifesaving vaccinations for millions of people each year in some of the world’s poorest countries, according to information in a document the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) sent to Congress this week. The surprise cuts to Gavi 'would have a disastrous impact on global health security, potentially resulting in the deaths of more than 1 million children over five years and endangering lives everywhere from dangerous disease outbreaks,' said Sania Nishtar, a Pakistani doctor and chief executive of the organization. The halt in funding was set out in a lengthy spreadsheet detailing cuts to USAID. Gavi said it was not given any warning about the termination of its U.S. funding, which it said came as the organization was negotiating with the White House and Congress.... As of last year, the U.S. was the third-largest funder of Gavi, behind Britain and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, according to calculations by KFF.”
David French of the New York Times: “The MAGA movement is attacking the American judiciary. The evidence is everywhere.... The second Trump term is substantially different from Trump’s first term in a key respect — the people around him have developed actual legal theories and policy ideas to buttress, direct and channel Trump’s impulses.... These ... make Trump’s second term far more dangerous to the Constitution than his first.... As [Stephen] Miller put it in a press briefing last month, 'The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.' He is the only elected official who represents the whole of the American people, and he embodies the people’s general will.... As a result, Miller argued, he is the best expression of American popular will, and Article II of the Constitution ... gives the president the power to hire staff to 'impose that democratic will onto the government.'... According to this reasoning, the executive branch is the most democratic branch of government and the most powerful.... The Trumpist argument is dangerous precisely because it is partly right. Like many Trumpist critiques of the status quo, there are grounds for complaint, but their proposed cure is worse than the disease.... Trumpists are hoping to replace a flawed system with a broken system.”
Richard Hasen, in an NBC News opinion piece: "By design, presidents have no power over the conduct of federal elections.... Donald Trump’s recent executive order on election administration aims to flip that, trying to take power from both an independent bipartisan federal agency and from the states, in an affront to principles of federalism. This dangerous power grab signals further democratic backsliding"
Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: “Under ... [Donald] Trump, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped nearly a dozen enforcement cases brought during the Biden administration, ending lawsuits against banks and lenders for a variety of financial practices that the watchdog agency no longer considers illegal. But on Wednesday, the bureau went a step further: It is seeking to give back $105,000 that a mortgage lender paid to settle racial discrimination claims last fall. In an especially strange twist, the case — against Townstone Financial, a small Chicago-based lender — was brought during Mr. Trump’s first term by Kathleen Kraninger, the director he appointed to run the consumer bureau. Russell Vought, who became the agency’s acting director last month, said it had'used radical “equity” arguments to tag Townstone as racist with zero evidence, and spent years persecuting and extorting them.'”
Brianna Sacks, et al., of the Washington Post: “Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and other Trump administration officials expressed support in meetings this week for dramatically diminishing the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the aim of all but eliminating the embattled agency’s role in disaster recovery by Oct. 1.... The closed-door push to abolish or substantially cut FEMA’s authorities ... comes barely two months ahead of the start of the Atlantic hurricane season.... FEMA’s existence and functions are written into laws, so it’s unclear how the administration could halt them without congressional approval, said [Rep. Jared] Moskowitz [D-Florida], formerly Florida’s emergency management director.... Moskowitz and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida) this week introduced a bill to establish FEMA as an independent, Cabinet-level agency that is no longer part of DHS. The goal, Moskowitz said, is to free the agency from a sprawling bureaucracy and help it move with more agility.”
Mary Beth Sheridan & Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: “Kristi L. Noem, the U.S. homeland security secretary, threatened Wednesday to send more immigrants from the United States to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador that has become a black hole for Venezuelans spirited out of the United States with no judicial hearing.... Noem [visited El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, and] met Wednesday evening with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele 'to strengthen bilateral cooperation on security and migration,' according to a post on X from the U.S. Embassy there. She also signed an agreement to improve information-sharing on fugitives.”
The footage of Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest — a student here legally — is disturbing. Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views. This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court. -- Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell ~~~
~~~ Jenna Russell, et al., of the New York Times: “An international student in a graduate program at Tufts University was taken into federal custody on Tuesday outside an off-campus apartment building.... The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen, had a valid student visa as a doctoral student at Tufts, according to a statement from her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai. Ms. Ozturk, who is Muslim..., was detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security near her apartment in Somerville, Mass., Ms. Khanbabai said. 'We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her,' the lawyer said. 'No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of.'... Records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed that a person with Ms. Ozturk’s name was being held in a Louisiana detention center on Wednesday.
“Late on Tuesday, Judge Indira Talwani of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts had ordered the government not to move Ms. Ozturk out of the state without advance written notice to the court. It was not immediately clear on Wednesday whether the government had provided written notice.... Ms. Ozturk was listed as one of several authors of an opinion essay published last March in the Tufts student newspaper. The essay criticized university leaders for their response to demands that Tufts 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide' and divest itself from companies with ties to Israel.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: The CBS News story is here. The NYT article includes a one-minute video of masked ICE agents grabbing a frightened Ozturk as she was walking along a sidewalk. The CBS News story includes a WBZ Boston report that contains in-color footage of Ozturk's arrest as well as a report and video footage of the demonstration for Ozturk that took place Wednesday. ~~~
~~~ Molly Farrar of Boston.com: “Thousands rallied in Somerville[, Massachusetts,] Wednesday after a Tufts University graduate student, native to Turkey and outspoken about Palestinian rights, was arrested by federal immigration agents Tuesday night. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Fulbright Scholar pursuing her PhD at the university’s Child Study and Human Development department, was detained by ICE agents outside an off-campus apartment building in Somerville. Her lawyer said she was 'maintaining valid F-1 status' while at Tufts.”
Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court in Washington on Wednesday kept in place, for now, a block on the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants accused of being members of a violent street gang. By a 2-to-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Venezuelan migrants were likely to succeed in their claims that the government cannot use the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to summarily transfer them to a prison in El Salvador without a hearing. 'The government’s removal scheme denies plaintiffs even a gossamer thread of due process, even though the government acknowledges their right to judicial review of their removability,' Judge Patricia A. Millett wrote.” The linked decision is via the court, so not firewalled. Politico's report is here.
Lisa Rein & Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post: “The Social Security Administration on Wednesday abruptly backed off planned cuts to phone services for disabled and some elderly Americans applying for benefits amid an uproar from advocates. The originally proposed changes — scheduled to take effect Monday but now delayed to April 14 — would have directed all people filing claims to first verify their identity online or in person, removing a phone option in place for years. Advocates said the shift would make it impossible for many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills to apply. Now, those applying for Medicare, disability benefits and supplemental income help can continue to file claims and authenticate their identity by phone, according to a news release the agency issued late Wednesday. However, others filing for retirement or survivor benefits — or requesting direct deposit for their checks — will still be bound by rules announced by the agency earlier this month: These transactions require online or in-person identity verification except in rare situations, such as when someone is terminally ill.”
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel of the Washington Post: “The Education Department on Wednesday reopened applications for some of its most affordable student loan repayment plans but offered no timeline for processing them, a move that could create a massive backlog. The department had shut down an application for all income-driven repayment plans in February after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit expanded an injunction blocking President Joe Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education program, commonly known as Save.... The Trump administration said shutting down the application was necessary to comply with the court order.... The order, however, did not direct the department to bar borrowers from accessing the two plans or Income-Based Repayment (IBR), which Congress created under a separate statute.”
Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld federal restrictions aimed at curtailing access to kits that can be easily assembled into homemade, nearly untraceable firearms. In a 7-to-2 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, one of the court’s conservatives, the justices left in place requirements enacted during the Biden administration as part of a broader effort to combat gun violence by placing restrictions on so-called ghost guns. The ruling in favor of gun regulations is a departure for the court, which has shown itself to be skeptical both of administrative agency power and of gun regulations. Two conservative justices — Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas — each filed dissents. The Biden administration enacted rules in 2022 tightening access to the weapons kits, after law enforcement agencies reported that ghost guns were exploding in popularity and being used to commit serious crimes.” (Also linked yesterday.)
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Pennsylvania. Marie: Yesterday, I linked a story about a Pennsylvania special election for a state senate seat, which Democratic James Malone won, even though the district has been thoroughly Republican for decades. Maybe one of the reasons Malone won was that Republicans in the district have annoyed voters by making it quite difficult to vote. Contributor Jeanne votes in the district and she wrote yesterday that Republicans "took out our only drop box for ballots [and moved them] down at the governmental center.... When we go in, there are five or six cops in attendance and a security doorway, wands, and a treadmill for our purses and belts. So, so 'insecure' said the professional liars. Other elections, we have had to park and go in, paying for parking, but this time there were temporary signs saying four spots were for ballot drop-off. Naturally, only my ballot can be in my hand, and husband's must be in his hand."
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