Politics

By Mike Scarcella

July 2 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday blocked Philadelphia from enforcing a new city law that would have prohibited federal law enforcement agents from wearing masks, ruling the city cannot dictate how they conduct operations amid a national debate over masked immigration agents carrying out arrests.

U.S. District Judge Chad Kenney, at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, issued a preliminary injunction barring Philadelphia from enforcing key provisions of the law against federal officers before they are scheduled to take effect on Tuesday.

Philadelphia’s mask ban was enacted earlier this year as part of a larger “ICE Out” legislative package passed by the Philadelphia City Council. It would bar officers from wearing masks or concealing identifying information, require visible badges and marked vehicles, and expose officers to civil and criminal penalties.

“This type of direct regulation of the federal government by a municipality is blatantly impermissible,” wrote Kenney, a Trump appointee.

Philadelphia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Justice Department in a statement welcomed the court’s ruling and said the department “will keep fighting jurisdictions that try to obstruct President Trump’s immigration enforcement with policies that endanger agents and public safety.”

The lawsuit is part of a growing legal fight over efforts by states and cities to restrict the use of masks by federal officers, particularly those involved in immigration enforcement operations that have drawn criticism from local officials and immigrant rights advocates.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Virginia blocked a new law there restricting law enforcement from wearing masks. In February, a federal judge in Los Angeles halted a California state law that bans federal officers from wearing masks while on duty. The Justice Department in April sued in federal court in New Jersey to block a similar law there.

In Philadelphia’s case, Kenney said the city likely cannot impose requirements on federal officers because the U.S. Constitution prevents municipalities and states from controlling how federal agencies carry out their work.

“Endorsing the City of Philadelphia’s position would mean that each of those municipalities could decide whether to pass their own laws regulating how, when, where, and whether federal law enforcement officers can conceal their identities,” he wrote.

The Trump administration contended the forced disclosure of officers’ identities could endanger agents, undermine undercover operations and interfere with investigations. Philadelphia said there were exceptions in the law that would allow officers on surveillance and undercover operations to wear masks.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella in Washington; editing by Nate Raymond and Nick Zieminski)

source

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) – A former U.S. Olympic canoeist has been indicted on a charge of felony destruction of property for allegedly vandalizing the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, court records showed on Thursday.

The indictment accuses David Hearn, 67, of “maliciously” breaking or destroying lining material on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool on June 19, causing more than $1,000 in damage. The charge, brought in local Superior Court in Washington, D.C., carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. 

President Donald Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly blamed problems with the pool following a $14.7 million renovation on vandals.

These have included blooms of algae and detached chunks of pool liner on the 2,000-foot-long (610-meter-long) pool that runs from the Lincoln Memorial nearly to the Washington Monument on Washington’s National Mall.

Trump has shown a personal interest in the project, and critics said the green-tinted water and peeling blue coating were emblematic of wider mismanagement by his administration. 

The incident happened days after crews finished a Trump-ordered project to lay down new liner that Trump called “American flag blue” in time for celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence on July 4.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, a Trump ally, said during a news conference that Hearn “forcefully and violently” pulled on the pool liner on June 19 and shouted at a National Park Service employee who confronted him. Park Police arrested him.

“This was a deliberate act to damage the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall that members of the National Park Service actually have worked hard to restore,” Pirro told reporters.

Lawyers for Hearn said he is innocent and accused the Trump administration of using the case to provide “political cover” for mismanagement of the project.

“These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American,” Hearn’s lawyers, Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, said in a statement. “This indictment reflects the Administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures.”

Hearn previously acknowledged reaching into the pool while cycling in the area and told U.S. media outlets that he tugged on a partially detached piece of liner, but did not remove anything. 

Pirro said Hearn damaged about two square feet of the liner (0.2 square meters).

Trump saidthat vandals made 250- to 350-foot-long cuts (76- to 107-meter-long) in the bottom of the pool, but has not provided evidence to back up those claims.

Asked about Trump’s claims on Thursday, Pirro said someone caused extensive damage to the pool, but that investigators are still searching for those responsible. 

The Department of the Interior has previously said at least six people were arrested on suspicion of vandalism following the renovation. Hearn is the first to face criminal charges.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Editing by Franklin Paul and Cynthia Osterman)

source

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, July 2 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday lifted a judge’s order requiring President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstall dozens of exhibits that it removed from national parks on topics such as slavery and climate change.

A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold a judge’s order requiring the National Park Service to reinstall exhibits that it removed under the Republican president’s directive targeting displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

Boston-based U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley last month concluded that the displays were removed from the nation’s parks as part of the administration’s unlawful effort to “rewrite the nation’s history with a white-out pen.” 

Kelley reached that conclusion in a lawsuit by groups representing park conservationists, historians and scientists who accused the administration of engaging in a concerted censorship campaign aimed at erasing aspects of American history that did not conform with Trump’s ideals.

But a panel of the 1st Circuit composed only of judges appointed by Democratic presidents agreed to put Kelley’s ruling on hold while the administration appeals it. The court said the government was likely to prevail on appeal because the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that the policy would irreparably harm them while the litigation played out.

Brooke Menschel, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the liberal advocacy group Democracy Forward, called the ruling a disappointing but “temporary procedural setback,” as the court did not decide the question of whether the administration’s actions were lawful.

“Unfortunately, for now, the decision allows the administration to continue removing and altering interpretive materials that are critical for millions of visitors to understand our nation’s history,” Menschel said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement it has “encouraged Americans to visit our cultural and historic sites and engage in meaningful conversations about the moments that have shaped our country.”

DOZENS OF REMOVED EXHIBITS

At least 51 exhibits from 37 sites have been removed or discarded from parks nationwide in order to comply with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s implementation of an executive order Trump signed in March 2025.

Trump’s executive order took aim at what he called a “revisionist movement” that portrayed the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” and directed changes be made to parks nationwide.

Among those removed was an exhibit at the President’s House in Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park describing the ownership of enslaved people by George Washington, the first U.S. president.

The lawsuit challenging their removal was filed in February by groups including the National Parks Conservation Association and the American Association for State and Local History.

Kelley, who was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden, had said that without a preliminary injunction they would suffer “aesthetic, recreational and informational harms.”

But the appeals court said those groups had put forward only a single member of their organizations who had claimed she would suffer any specific harm without an injunction, based on an absence of park material that could educate her children.

“As the Department points out, however, the plaintiffs do not allege that any material has yet been removed from the parks that the member identifies as the ones that she has specific plans to visit this summer,” the court said.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)

source

ATLANTA (AP) — The FBI has asked its field offices across the country to dedicate more than 200 staffers to its investigation of the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County.

A memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press calls for the FBI to “surge” 260 investigative analysts and staff operations specialists to the effort, which it described as a “priority investigation.”

It said each of them is to conduct a check of an estimated 708 records by July 17. While the memo does not describe the investigation, people familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal decision-making confirmed the request was to help with the Georgia 2020 election investigation.

FBI agents in January seized hundreds of boxes containing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election in Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and includes most of the city of Atlanta. A Fulton County spokesperson declined to comment citing a pending investigation. The contents of the memo were first reported by MS NOW.

President Donald Trump and his allies have made false claims that widespread election fraud cost him the 2020 election. Georgia’s votes in the 2020 presidential race were counted three times, including once by hand, and each count affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win.

The Justice Department has previously said it is investigating “irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County.”

___

Durkin Richer and Tucker reported from Washington.

source

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) – When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling defending the Federal Reserve from political interference, it not only prevented President Donald Trump from firing one of the central bank’s governors, it also highlighted growing unease among the justices about the use of their ever-expanding emergency docket.

Three of the four conservative justices who dissented in Monday’s ruling involving the Fed’s Lisa Cook also criticized the five justices who were in the majority for making such a consequential decision using the court’s procedure designed for emergencies — and short-circuiting lower courts in the process. 

That prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to defend the landmark action using this pathway in the Cook case as a matter of “prudence” on which people can disagree. Roberts authored the 5-4 ruling, joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices.

Critics for years have raised concerns about the court’s increasing willingness to decide major issues using the emergency docket — also called the “shadow docket” or “interim docket” — saying it lacks transparency and accountability to the public, and gives short shrift to complex and high-stakes legal disputes.

This docket lets the justices render decisions before lower courts have decided the legal merits of a case, generally bypassing the Supreme Court’s regular procedures that involve extensive briefing, oral arguments, months of deliberation and lengthy written rulings. Emergency orders typically are made rapidly and often provide no explanation or rationale. 

Now another concern is emerging. As more and more emergency decisions usher in vast changes to the law, and even alter the court’s own precedents, the justices appear divided over just how powerful this process is becoming, and how to wield it appropriately.

The justices completed their latest nine-month term on Tuesday and entered a summer recess. Their next term begins in October.

A TELLING RESPONSE

“What I find really telling is that Roberts felt he had to respond to it. He didn’t have to. The opinion could have just decided the case,” said Bradley University law professor Taraleigh Davis, an expert on the emergency docket, referring to the complaint by the dissenting justices.

“He felt the pressure of the complaint enough to put a principle on paper for the first time,” Davis added. “And the principle he lands on, that it’s a matter of prudence, is, honestly, pretty honest about the fact that there is no rule. There is no formula.”

Formerly used only rarely, the court in recent years has transformed the emergency docket into a powerful force in American life, employing it to especially dramatic effect since Trump returned to office in January 2025. 

The court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, backed Trump in numerous emergency decisions that let him implement contentious policies impeded by lower courts while legal challenges continued to play out.

Its emergency decisions have let Trump fire federal employees, take control of independent agencies, ban ​transgender people from the military, proceed with aggressive immigration raids and deport migrants to countries where they have no ties, among other actions. 

The conservative justices have wielded this power in multiple ways, largely siding with Trump, a Reuters analysis has shown. 

Among the emergency actions during the latest term that court observers argue revised existing law, the justices allowed states to redraw the boundaries of U.S. House of Representatives districts in the hopes of benefiting Republicans in elections and weighed in on the rights of parents of transgender children.  

THE REBECCA SLAUGHTER CASE

Using the emergency docket, the court also boosted Trump’s power to fire independent federal regulators, allowing him last September to remove Democratic Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. It similarly let Trump fire other agency officials during its previous term. 

Dissenting in several of those decisions, liberal Justice Elena Kagan said a 1935 precedent of the court that had insulated federal regulators from such at-will firings by a president should have barred Trump’s actions. Kagan asserted that the emergency docket should not be used to overrule precedent or revise existing law. 

On Monday, the court overruled that precedent — a decision that expands presidential powers — in a 6-3 ruling formally affirming the legality of Trump’s move to fire Slaughter. 

It issued its ruling on the Fed’s Cook on the same day. The court denied Trump’s emergency request that it block decisions by lower courts preventing him from removing Cook based on unproven mortgage fraud allegations that she denies. But the court made clear that its decision did not rule out the possibility of Trump prevailing in his efforts to remove Cook in the future after the allegations are vetted.

No other president since the Fed’s founding in 1913 ever tried to fire a Fed official. Trump’s attempt threatened to undermine the Fed’s cherished independence. 

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote in dissent that the court should not have issued such a comprehensive ruling on Cook given that the case was at an early stage and that novel legal issues were involved. Alito noted that the dispute reached the Supreme Court on the emergency docket just 21 days after the litigation began last year. 

Those problems “counseled in favor of a light touch by this court,” Alito wrote. 

Echoing this criticism, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in dissent, “While a modest approach would have been appropriate, the court chooses to go big. Its opinion sets precedent on a series of important issues, with implications that extend well beyond this case.”

Roberts responded to the criticism, writing: “How much to say on our interim docket … is not reducible to any mechanical formula; it is ultimately a matter of prudence, upon which reasonable minds can (and often do) disagree.”

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that unlike in other consequential emergency-docket cases, the court spent more time considering this one and took the rare step of hearing oral arguments.

PARENTAL RIGHTS CASE

The complaints by the conservative dissenters mirrored those made by two of the court’s liberal justices in another emergency docket decision called Mirabelli v. Bonta in March. 

In that case, the court blocked a series of California laws that can limit the sharing of information with parents about the gender identity of transgender public school students without ​the child’s permission, siding with Christian parents who challenged these protections.

The ruling extended protections under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment right to due process, recognizing the right of parents to receive this information. 

“These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” the ruling stated. 

In dissent, Kagan, joined by fellow liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, criticized the “terse, tonally dismissive ruling designed to conclusively resolve the dispute.” Kagan wrote that it will be seen as a judgment on the legal merits, not an interim order, effecting a major development in U.S. law on a politically charged issue.

“Today’s decision shows, not for the first time, how our emergency docket can malfunction,” Kagan wrote.

‘BROADER PROBLEMS’

“The problems with Mirabelli are illustrative of the broader problems of the court’s use of its emergency docket to decide significant questions of constitutional law,” Yale Law School professor Douglas NeJaime said. 

“Parties are denied the opportunity to fully brief and argue a case, lower courts are denied the opportunity to fully consider the merits in the first instance, and the law changes in ways that are not always clear and that leave state actors, lower courts, and ordinary Americans with an insufficient basis on which to move forward,” NeJaime said. 

The rulings in the Cook and Mirabelli cases reflect the court’s ongoing dilemma over how much explanation the justices should attach to emergency orders. Most emergency actions are bare-bones, limited to deciding a policy’s status — enforceable or not — pending a challenge to its legality.

Barrett, part of the majority in the Mirabelli case, defended the ruling and the decision to offer legal rationale. 

“Interim applications routinely require the court to balance the lock-in risk of saying too much against the transparency cost of saying too little,” Barrett wrote in a separate opinion.

Roberts, meanwhile, in the Cook ruling reminded Barrett and the other dissenters in that case of her statement in the Mirabelli case.

“It’s not surprising there are internal disagreements on this, as it’s a hard issue,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin said. “It can be problematic to both say too much or to say too little.”

Somin said the court cannot easily fix the problem.

“I would lean towards giving more explanation for decisions rather than less, and only using the shadow docket in cases where there is a very compelling reason,” Somin said. “Of course, what counts as a compelling reason is likely to divide people with different ideologies and judicial philosophies.”

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

source

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – The fifth-largest public school district in Kansas said on Wednesday it disagreed with the Trump administration’s accusation that it violated federal law in its transgender policies.

Here are details:

• President Donald Trump’s administration said on Tuesday it will bring enforcement action against the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools over its ‌transgender policies that could include judicial proceedings and loss of federal funding.

• “KCKPS respectfully disagrees with the federal agencies’ conclusions and maintains that the district has acted in good faith and in accordance with applicable federal and state laws,” KCKPS said in a statement.

• The U.S. Education Department alleged the school ​district’s policy not to disclose a student’s transgender status ​even to parents violated the Family Educational Rights ⁠and Privacy Act.

• “KCKPS remains committed to complying with all applicable federal and state laws, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,” the district, which serves over 21,000 students across nearly 50 school sites, said.

• Trump has attempted to freeze ​federal funding for ​universities, colleges and school districts over a range of issues like transgender ⁠policies, climate initiatives, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza and diversity initiatives.

• Trump has in particular issued multiple executive ​orders to limit transgender rights in sports ​participation.

• Rights groups say Trump’s actions violate academic freedom, free speech and due process.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in WashingtonEditing by Nick Zieminski)

source

By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ended Donald Trump’s quest to narrow who can be considered a citizen if born in the United States, a harsh loss for the Republican president. But just one day before, it handed him a form of power that the dissenting justices said even English monarchs of the past did not possess.

The top U.S. judicial body issued rulings on Tuesday in three important cases, as it brought to a close another momentous nine-month term heavily focused on legal disputes involving Trump and his administration. 

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, dealt Trump three big losses during the term – on tariffs, birthright citizenship and his bid to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. But it also continued to back his aggressive use of executive authority, vastly expanding the power of the presidency. 

“The Trump administration has pushed a robust vision of executive power, which the court has largely embraced,” George Mason University law professor Robert Luther III said.

‘SERIOUS DISRUPTION’

In his second term as president, Trump has pushed to expand his powers in domestic affairs and foreign policy, drawing numerous legal challenges. 

When these cases have reached the Supreme Court, it generally has been highly deferential to Trump, avoiding direct confrontation with the norm-shattering president on all but his most audacious assertions of executive authority.

“The exceptions to that general trend are cases in which the president’s position was so far removed from any conceivable legal justification that the Supreme Court was unwilling to follow quite that far … or in which the Supreme Court seemed to fear serious disruption to the markets or broader economy,” Syracuse University College of Law professor Jenny Breen said.

The Supreme Court’s workload this term has been marked to an unusual degree with cases involving the president, with much of the action occurring on an emergency basis on its so-called shadow docket. In such cases, the justices often make rapid and highly consequential decisions outside their regular process, without ‌extensive briefing and ⁠oral arguments held in public and typically with little explanation of their legal rationale. 

The conservative majority backed Trump in most of these cases, letting him implement key policies while challenges to their legality played out in lower courts. 

In such cases during this term, the court let him carry out aggressive immigration raids that can target individuals based on their race or language, cut National Institutes of Health grants for research related to racial minorities or LGBT people, and bar passport applicants from selecting the sex reflecting their gender identities for the document.

Beyond emergency cases, the court has also resolved cases in Trump’s favor in the traditional manner, after extensive deliberation, briefing and arguments, including by acceding to Trump’s efforts to restrict immigration. The court often has deferred to the president on matters such as immigration and national security. 

Last week, the court’s conservatives gave Trump and his administration three victories, over the dissent of the liberal justices, making it easier to deport people, or refuse them entry, including those who have legal status in the United States. Among those rulings, the court let the administration strip hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants of a humanitarian legal status protecting them from deportation.  

HUMPHREY’S EXECUTOR

On Monday, the court’s conservatives delivered a watershed ruling that some legal experts said boosts Trump’s power under the U.S. Constitution more than any prior ruling in the history of the Supreme Court. They freed Trump to fire leaders at independent government regulators, placing the levers of the government’s executive power firmly in his hands. In the process, the court overturned a precedent dating to 1935, in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, that had insulated such officials from at-will firings by a president.

Overturning Humphrey’s Executor for years had been a priority of the U.S. conservative legal movement. Critics of the move said the court’s action will lead to further politicization of federal agencies that Congress had sought to entrust to nonpartisan experts, as well as to broader partisan swings in American regulatory policy.

The dissenting liberal justices said the ruling handed too much power to the president, allowing him even to act in defiance of laws. The court “gives the president a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Cornell Law School professor Gautam Hans said the decision “represents the triumph of decades of conservative advocacy.”

“Whatever losses the administration has had, they are probably quite happy with that prize,” Hans said.

EMBRACING TRUMP’S LEGAL POSITIONS

Some legal experts also emphasized that the Supreme Court adopted the Trump administration’s legal positions in certain major cases in which the president was not an original party to the dispute, but rather assumed an “amicus,” or friend of the court, role. These included in a landmark decision in April that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

That 6-3 ruling, powered by the conservative justices, made it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under that historic 1965 civil rights law. The ruling opened the door for Republican-led Southern states to dismantle Democratic-held majority-Black and majority-Latino districts ahead of the midterms. Black and Latino voters tend to support Democratic candidates.

Trump’s fellow Republicans seek to retain control of Congress in the November midterm elections.

MAJOR LOSSES

Although the justices were largely deferential to Trump, two searing defeats he sustained this term revealed its reluctance to strengthen the president’s hand over the economy.

In a 6-3 decision in February authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, the court struck down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs that he pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies.

The loss prompted Trump to lash out in remarkably personal terms at the six justices who ruled against him, including two of his own appointees — Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

“I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you wanna know the truth, the two of them,” Trump said, referring to the pair.

In another painful defeat, the court on Monday refused to let Trump fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, standing firm to preserve central bank independence.

Despite these losses, Trump’s record at the midway point of his second term is far more favorable than that of his Democratic predecessor President Joe Biden, who the court dealt a sustained and a historic series of defeats.

“This court had essentially the same composition of justices during President Biden’s term but was more likely to rule against his major exertions of presidential power,” Breen said. “Of course every case presents different legal arguments, but the comparison is striking.”

The court on Tuesday ruled that Trump’s executive order seeking to deny birthright citizenship to the children of certain immigrants violated language in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that confers citizenship to those born in the United States who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

George Mason University’s Luther called the birthright citizenship ruling “wrongly decided” and “a catastrophic loss.”

“Its consequences will be felt throughout the country for decades to come,” Luther said of that decision. “But the Trump administration has largely been rewarded for pursuing an ambitious vision of executive power, and I encourage them to continue because it’s generally been rewarded for doing so.”

(Reporting by John Kruzel and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

source

By Trevor Hunnicutt

MEDORA, North Dakota, July 1 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump dedicated a museum honoring Theodore Roosevelt on Wednesday, invoking the Republican president’s legacy and linking it to his own vision for America ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary.

The trip to remote western North Dakota also featured the debut of a refurbished Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar that will serve as Air Force One, as well as a ride in the Badlands aboard a “Freedom 250” train bedecked with red, white and blue bunting and emblazoned with 1776-2026.

Trump’s embrace of patriotic celebrations leading up to the Fourth of July holiday comes as Americans remain sharply divided over his leadership amid voter concerns about the cost of living and the Iran war ahead of the November midterm elections.

Speaking at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, Trump praised Roosevelt’s energy and adventurous life while drawing contrasts with political opponents.

Trump said Roosevelt’s chest swelled with pride at American optimism and confidence. “The biggest word I think for him was pride. He was a proud man. But I’m a proud man. I’m proud of our country,” Trump said.

Trump criticized Democrats, including democratic socialists who have won a string of recent primary elections in New York, Colorado and elsewhere.

“We’re not going to let communists get in our way,” he said. “It’s a very unattractive lot.”

Trump’s motorcade to the library was accompanied by horseback riders dressed like Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders,” the nickname given to the military unit Roosevelt led up Cuba’s San Juan Hill in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.

Roosevelt, a native New Yorker, was a rugged conservationist who served as president from 1901 to 1909. Trump has long spoken admiringly of Roosevelt, who expanded the nation’s reach, helping to push Spain out of the Americas and claiming the Panama Canal.

After the deaths of Roosevelt’s wife and mother on the same day in 1884, he spent time in the North Dakota Badlands to grieve and heal.

The library dedicated to him opens in North Dakota on Saturday. The 96,000-square-foot (8,919-square-meter) facility overlooks a national park named for Roosevelt because of the formative years he spent in the nearby Badlands, an arid region known for dramatic rock formations.

FIRST FLIGHT

Before leaving Washington early on Wednesday, Trump told reporters he was excited for the inaugural flight of the new Air Force One, which features a red, white, dark blue and gold paint scheme he selected.

The plane has drawn scrutiny due to the cost and rapid pace of renovations, as well as the unusual acceptance of a luxury jumbo jet from a foreign country. Trump has dismissed criticism of the arrangement, and the Air Force has said the plane is up to presidential standards.

Asked about the cost to taxpayers, Trump said the gifted plane cost “very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way.”

“We’re very proud of this, the country is very proud of it,” Trump said, adding the older Air Force One “didn’t look appropriate for our country.”  

“They made it appropriate for a president, that means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on, very complex stuff,” Trump said.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Bo Erickson and Idrees Ali; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman and Chizu Nomiyama)

source

By Luc Cohen

July 1 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed restrictions on mail-in voting, finding that they violated a settlement with a leading civil rights group that required expedited mail-in ballot handling.

The decision by Washington-based U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan marked the second defeat in the courts in as many weeks for U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to severely restrict mail-in voting ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, with his Republican Party locked in a tight battle to maintain control of both houses of Congress. 

Trump has long said, without providing evidence, that mail-in voting is prone to fraud. The assertion is one pillar of his years-long campaign to undermine faith in U.S. elections, along with the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud. 

The Postal Service in May proposed a rule requiring states to provide lists of voters and adopt new balloting procedures before the mail agency would make deliveries. If states did not comply, the Postal Service would refuse to deliver the ballots. 

Sullivan, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, sided with the NAACP rights group, which argued that the new rule would run afoul of a 2021 legal settlement that required USPS officials to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail through 2028. 

Neither the USPS nor the Justice Department, which represents the administration in court, immediately responded to requests for comment. 

Sullivan’s ruling prevented the Postal Service from implementing the proposed regulations, which stemmed from Trump’s March executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and requiring the USPS to only deliver ballots to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. 

In a separate decision on June 25, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked Trump from implementing the entire executive order ahead of the midterms.

The judge sided with a coalition of Democratic-led states in ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in trying to overhaul procedures for elections, which since the republic’s founding in 1789 have been run by states and local governments. 

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul and Cynthia Osterman)

source

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – Former CIA Director John Brennan sued on Wednesday seeking to force the U.S. Justice Department to preserve records related to federal investigations examining his role in a U.S. intelligence community assessment that Russia boosted President Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016.

The records and communications will be necessary for Brennan’s anticipated legal challenges to a potential indictment, including to bolster claims that any future prosecution was vindictive and started at Trump’s behest, Brennan’s lawyers argued in a court filing in Washington federal court.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami has been examining whether Brennan, who led the CIA during former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration, made false statements to Congress in discussing the intelligence assessment and is part of a larger long-running criminal conspiracy against Trump’s constitutional rights.

Brennan has called the investigation politically motivated and his lawyers have accused the Trump administration of improper tactics in the probe.

Trump has long railed against efforts to tie his 2016 campaign to Russia, calling it the “Russia Hoax” and demanding prosecutions for officials involved. 

“While we cannot comment on the existence, or lack thereof, of an investigation, it is certainly rich that John Brennan is accusing anyone of a ‘retribution campaign,’” a Justice Department spokesperson said.

The lawsuit seeks to take advantage of growing skepticism in the courts about DOJ investigations targeting critics and perceived political adversaries of Trump. Judges have shown a growing willingness to intervene early in investigations, blocking subpoenas this year in probes involving former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Democratic officials in Minnesota.

Brennan’s complaint argues that internal DOJ records and communications are at risk of being lost because of the Trump administration’s use of ephemeral messaging apps like Signal and because officials have not complied with federal recordkeeping laws.

Those materials would be crucial to Brennan’s attempts to dismiss a future indictment, his lawyers argue. The lawsuit seeks a court order directing DOJ to preserve a wide variety of material related to the two investigations before any indictment is brought.

“A careful examination of the prosecutors’ emails, texts, instant messages, internal memoranda and the like would enable a court to determine whether their decisions were based on legitimate law enforcement concerns or on a desire to selectively and/or vindictively prosecute Director Brennan,” the complaint reads.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

source