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By Jasper Ward

WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Florida’s Catholic bishops are calling on U.S. President Donald Trump to halt immigration enforcement activities until after the Christmas holidays.

“Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families. Now is not the time to be callous toward the suffering caused by immigration enforcement,” the bishops wrote on Monday to Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

In response, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said on Tuesday, “President Trump was elected based on his promise to the American people to deport criminal illegal aliens. And he’s keeping that promise.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis did not immediately comment. 

Trump has carried out an aggressive immigration campaign over the last year, apprehending and deporting migrants who he says are dangerous criminals. 

His administration has also rescinded policy that limited immigration arrests near sensitive locations, including churches, hospitals and schools, and deployed federal agents across the U.S. to ramp up such arrests.

While the administration insists it is targeting criminals, government data shows that it has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.

Despite signs the public is questioning the crackdown, the administration is planning to expand it in the new year.

The appeal by the Florida bishops comes more than a month after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a rare condemnation of the Trump administration immigration crackdown and advocated for “meaningful immigration reform.” And in October Pope Leo decried mistreatment of immigrants.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington. Editing by Donna Bryson and Alistair Bell)

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By Andrew Chung and Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to let Donald Trump send National Guard troops to the Chicago area as the Republican president expands the use of the military for domestic purposes in a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions, a policy critics call an effort to punish adversaries and stifle dissent.

The justices let stand for now a judge’s order blocking the deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops in a legal challenge brought by Illinois officials and local leaders. The U.S. Justice Department had sought to allow the deployment while the case proceeds.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court’s majority held in an unsigned order.

The order said the president’s authority to take federal control of National Guard troops likely only applies in “exceptional” circumstances.

Three conservatives on the court said they dissented from the order: Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump “promised the American people he would work tirelessly to enforce our immigration laws and protect federal personnel from violent rioters” and that “(n)othing in today’s ruling detracts from that core agenda.”

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called the ruling “an important step in curbing the Trump Administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.”

HIGH COURT RULING A RARE SETBACK FOR TRUMP

It was a rare setback for Trump’s administration at the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and has frequently backed his broad assertions of presidential authority since his return to the White House.

The National Guard serves as state-based militia forces that answer to state governors except when called into federal service by the president.

Trump ordered troops to Chicago, the third-largest U.S. city, and to Portland, Oregon, following his earlier deployments to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C. 

The case has been characterized by starkly different portrayals of the protests against Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement in and around Chicago.

Trump and his allies have described Democratic-led cities as lawless, crime-ravaged and plagued with vast, violent protests.

His administration has said troops are needed to protect federal property and personnel at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility that has become a flashpoint for Chicago activists opposed to Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Democratic mayors and governors, along with other Trump critics, have said these claims are a false account of the situation and a pretext for sending troops, accusing Trump of abusing his power.

FEDERAL JUDGES SKEPTICAL OF ADMINISTRATION’S VIEW

Federal judges have expressed skepticism over the administration’s dire view of protests that local law enforcement officials have called limited in size, largely peaceful and manageable by their own forces – far from the “war zone” conditions described by Trump. 

Trump has relied on a law that lets a president deploy state National Guard troops to suppress a rebellion, repel an invasion or if he is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Illinois and Chicago sued after the administration federalized 300 Illinois National Guard troops and also ordered Texas National Guard troops into the state, calling the actions unlawful. Officials have since announced the administration was sending home hundreds of National Guard troops who were dispatched to Portland from California, and to Chicago from Texas. 

Chicago-based U.S. District Judge April Perry temporarily blocked the move on October 9, finding that the claims of violence during protests at an immigration facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois, where a small group of demonstrators had gathered daily for weeks, were unreliable.

Perry, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, found that there was no evidence of rebellion or that the law was not being enforced, faulting officials for “equating protests with riots and a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting or doing violence.”

A National Guard deployment would “only add fuel to the fire,” Perry said. 

A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift Perry’s order blocking the deployment, concluding that “the facts do not justify the president’s actions in Illinois.” Two of the three judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including one by Trump.

The Justice Department told the Supreme Court that the assessment by local officials of the protests was “implausibly rosy,” and that federal agents “have been forced to operate under the constant threat of mob violence.”

Lawyers for Illinois and Chicago told the justices that the local protests have “never hindered the continued operation” of the Broadview facility, and that state and local authorities have responded to every request for assistance and contained any sporadic disruption. 

Officials from Portland and Oregon are pursuing a separate legal challenge to Trump’s planned deployment to that city. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked that deployment in a November 7 ruling. The administration has appealed that ruling.

The Supreme Court in October asked the administration as well as Illinois and Chicago to provide written arguments over how to interpret the words “regular forces” in the law at issue in the case. 

In an October 10 written ruling, Perry said that historical sources indicate that “regular forces” means only members regularly enlisted in the military, including the Army and Navy, as opposed to the National Guard.

Trump’s administration “made no attempt to rely on the regular forces before resorting to federalization of the National Guard,” Perry said, adding that there are other limits on the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

   The administration repeatedly has sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung, Jan Wolfe, John Kruzel, Nate Raymond and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Will Dunham and Howard Goller)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has released tens of thousands more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a tranche that included multiple mentions of President Donald Trump but added little new revelatory information to the long-anticipated public file on the late financier and convicted sex offender.

The release is the most voluminous so far and comes after a massive public campaign for transparency into the U.S. government’s Epstein investigations.

Many of the mentions of Trump in the file came from news clippings, though it includes an email from a prosecutor pointing out the flights that Trump took on Epstein’s private jet during the 1990s.

The two men were friends for years before a falling out. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The Justice Department issued a statement Tuesday that some documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump made shortly before the 2020 election — and said one document, purported to be a letter from Epstein to Larry Nassar, a sports doctor convicted of sexually abusing Olympic athletes, had been deemed fake.

Here are some takeaways:

Among the mentions of Trump in the latest batch of the Epstein files is a note from a federal prosecutor from January 2020 that said Trump had flown on the financier’s private plane more often than had been previously known.

An assistant U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York said in an email that flight records the office received on Jan. 6, 2020, showed that Trump was on Epstein’s jet “many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).”

The prosecutor who flagged the Trump mentions in the flight logs said they did so because lawyers “didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road.”

His travels on Epstein’s plane spanned the time that would likely be covered in any criminal charges against Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump was listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, and on at least four of those flights, Maxwell was also there, according to the email.

On one of those eight flights, in 1993, Trump and Epstein were the only two passengers listed in the flight logs. On another flight, the three passengers listed in records are Epstein, Trump, and a redacted individual, who was 20 years old at the time. Two other flights included two women — whose names were redacted in follow-up emails — identified as potential witnesses in a Maxwell case.

Several additional Trump trips on Epstein’s plane had been previously disclosed during Maxwell’s criminal proceedings.

Asked for comment about the email, the White House pointed to a Justice Department statement saying Monday’s release contained “unfounded and false” claims against the president submitted to the FBI shortly before the 2020 election, but they were nevertheless being released for full transparency.

Later Tuesday, the department said on social media that the FBI had confirmed the purported Nassar letter “is FAKE” based on the handwriting, Virginia postmark and return address, which did not include Epstein’s jail or inmate number, both required for outgoing mail.

“This fake letter serves as a reminder that just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual,” the department said in a post on X.

The latest release also showed that Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s southern Florida club, was served with a subpoena in 2021 for its employment records. The disclosure came as part of an email chain in which lawyers for the Southern District of New York and an attorney in touch with representatives for the Trump Organization discussed the employment status of someone whose name was redacted.

Trump complained that the files were a distraction from the work he and other Republicans are doing for the country.

Speaking during an unrelated event at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, the president blamed Democrats and some Republicans for the controversy.

“What this whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has,” Trump said.

He also expressed frustration about the famous people shown with Epstein in photos released by the Justice Department — people who he said may not have known him but ended up in the shot anyway.

“You probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago. And they’re, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others,” Trump said.

Well-known people shown in the files include former President Bill Clinton, the late pop star Michael Jackson and singer Diana Ross. The mere inclusion of someone’s name or images in files from the investigation does not imply wrongdoing.

The latest release also includes files that put the U.K.’s former Prince Andrew back in the headlines.

Among those documents is correspondence between Maxwell and someone who signs off with the initial “A.”

The email exchange includes other references that suggest Maxwell’s correspondent may be Andrew. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The August 2001 email from someone identified only as “The Invisible Man,” said he is “up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family,” an apparent reference to the Scottish estate where the royal family has traditionally taken their late summer holidays.

“A” writes: “How’s LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”

The writer says he has left “the RN” and refers to the challenges of looking after “the Girls.” Andrew retired from the Royal Navy in 2001 and has two daughters.

Andrew, one of King Charles III’s younger brothers, was stripped of the right to be called a prince and his other royal titles and honors in October, amid continued publicity about his links to Epstein and concerns about the potential damage to the rest of the royal family. He is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Andrew has repeatedly denied committing any crimes, including having sex with Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that she was trafficked by Epstein and had sex with Andrew when she was 17.

The documents also reveal months of sometimes testy negotiations as U.S. federal prosecutors tried but ultimately failed to secure Mountbatten-Windsor’s testimony. Talks foundered amid complaints that each side had made misleading statements to the press and a seeming inability to bridge the differences between the U.S. and British legal systems.

Trump tried for months to keep the records sealed before relenting to political pressure, including from some fellow Republicans, though he eventually signed a bill mandating the release of most of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein.

Monday’s overnight release was the biggest dump yet, including nearly 30,000 more pages.

It includes news clippings, varied tips to law enforcement and surveillance videos from the New York jail where Epstein was held before taking his own life in 2019. Much was already in the public domain.

The law called for the files to be released within 30 days, but the Justice Department has instead released them in stages starting Friday. Officials have said they’re going slowly to protect victims, though some women assaulted by Epstein have spoken out publicly to call for greater transparency.

And the administration is facing fierce accusations that it is withholding too much information. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the tens of thousands of files released still left “more questions than answers.” He pointed to a 2019 FBI email that mentions 10 people under investigation as possible co-conspirators but contains few additional details.

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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

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