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Category: Law/Crime

Trump vowed to fight crime in Minneapolis. Then federal prosecutions plunged

Trump vowed to fight crime in Minneapolis. Then federal prosecutions plunged

Reuters reports: The Trump administration blitz that flooded Minnesota with immigration agents also dramatically slowed other federal investigations and prosecutions into an array of serious crimes, a Reuters review of federal court records found. New gun and drug prosecutions stalled. Several top prosecutors quit. Some federal agents disappeared from drug task forces and gang cases. Others took the unusual step of bringing their investigations to state authorities. U.S. President Donald Trump touted the immigration operation as an urgent crime-fighting effort,…

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After SCOTUS destroyed the Voting Rights Act, Southern states rush to pass Jim Crow voting maps

After SCOTUS destroyed the Voting Rights Act, Southern states rush to pass Jim Crow voting maps

Ari Berman reports: Just a week after the Supreme Court effectively destroyed the key remaining provision of the Voting Rights Act, Tennessee on Thursday is set to become the first Southern state to pass a new redistricting map eliminating a majority-Black district. The hastily drawn map abolishes the state’s last Democratic district by splitting the city of Memphis, which is more than 60 percent Black, into three districts: all of them predominantly white Republican held seats that stretch hundreds of…

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Kash Patel’s personalized bourbon stash

Kash Patel’s personalized bourbon stash

Sarah Fitzpatrick writes: One of J. Edgar Hoover’s greatest reforms at the FBI was his embrace of fingerprinting. During the 1930s, visitors to the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., received souvenir fingerprint cards featuring his name. The men who succeeded him as FBI director were more discreet and judicious, mindful of the cult of personality that had developed around Hoover. They generally avoided giving out branded swag. But then came Kash Patel. President Trump’s FBI director has a great deal…

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Trump’s deportation campaign has harmed scores of kids with tear gas, pepper spray

Trump’s deportation campaign has harmed scores of kids with tear gas, pepper spray

By Lisa Song, Maya Miller and Melissa Sanchez, with research reporting by Mariam Elba This story was originally published by ProPublica The children were walking to school in Broadview, Illinois, or leaving a shopping center in Columbus, Ohio. They were at home in Minneapolis, or sitting in a stroller in Chicago, or at an afternoon protest in Portland, Oregon, alongside dogs on leashes and older people pushing walkers. They were mostly going about their days when federal immigration agents shot…

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John Roberts believes in an America that doesn’t exist

John Roberts believes in an America that doesn’t exist

Jamelle Bouie writes: Descriptive representation, as it is known, is not perfect; race alone does not guarantee that a lawmaker will act in the interest of his or her community. But the record suggests that in places where racial polarization is the norm, where the legacy of Jim Crow segregation shapes the political and social landscape, the opportunity provided by a majority-minority district can mean the difference between some representation and none at all. For the Roberts court, however, these…

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FBI investigating leaks to journalist who wrote explosive article on Kash Patel: Sources

FBI investigating leaks to journalist who wrote explosive article on Kash Patel: Sources

MS NOW reports: The FBI has launched a criminal leak investigation focusing on an Atlantic magazine journalist who wrote a deeply unflattering account last month of Director Kash Patel’s work habits, two people familiar with the matter told MS NOW. The sources said the so-called insider threat investigation is highly unusual because it did not stem from a disclosure of classified information and because it is focused on leaks to a reporter. The agents involved are part of an insider…

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A radical court just called Trump’s abortion bluff

A radical court just called Trump’s abortion bluff

Naomi Cahn and Sonia M. Suter write: On Friday, the archconservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued a stunning nationwide injunction that directly affects one-fourth of all abortions in the United States. The opinion rejected an Food and Drug Administration regulation allowing people to buy mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortion and miscarriage management, by mail. This ruling applies nationally, even in states that haven’t banned abortion. On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a temporary hold,…

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Judge mulls contempt over DHS’ ‘patently false’ allegation in deportation case

Judge mulls contempt over DHS’ ‘patently false’ allegation in deportation case

Politico reports: A federal judge said Monday that the Trump administration had put her security at risk by posting a “patently false” allegation that she knowingly released an ICE detainee with an international warrant for murder. Justice Department attorney Kevin Bolan profusely apologized to Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose for the press release posted last week by the Department of Homeland Security, which Bolan acknowledged “simply was not true.” Bolan said that he didn’t tell the judge about…

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DOJ is growing bolder yet, cutting legal corners to get Trump the headlines — and revenge — he wants

DOJ is growing bolder yet, cutting legal corners to get Trump the headlines — and revenge — he wants

Quinta Jurecic writes: The Justice Department is entering a hyperaggressive new era, cutting legal corners in service of getting President Trump the headlines—and revenge—he wants. Last month, Trump pushed out Attorney General Pam Bondi, reportedly because he was unhappy with her failure to secure legal victories against his enemies. Todd Blanche, for now the acting attorney general, seems to be campaigning for Trump’s nomination to replace Bondi: On his watch, the department has announced a spate of new prosecutions and…

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Mirroring Gaza, Israel is destroying towns and villages in southern Lebanon

Mirroring Gaza, Israel is destroying towns and villages in southern Lebanon

NPR reports: The center of the village lies in ruins. A row of single-story shops blown out, goods scattered on the ground, glass shattered along the sidewalk. Homes and buildings are crumpled into themselves, unrecognizable. The mosque is blackened and burned, the minaret split in two. A Lebanese civil defense emergency vehicle is crushed next to the rubble, its windshield smashed. Mansouri, a small village in the undulating hills of Lebanon’s south is about six miles from the country’s ‘s…

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The Roberts Court is defending white supremacy

The Roberts Court is defending white supremacy

Adam Serwer writes: For the conservative editor and columnist James Jackson Kilpatrick, the Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation was an atrocity. Brown v. Board of Education, he wrote in the 1950s, was a “revolutionary act by a judicial junta which simply seized power.” He warned in 1963 that the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act would destroy “the whole basis of individual liberty.” And in a 1965 National Review cover story, he argued that in order to “give…

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Supreme Court paves the way for largest-ever drop in Black representation in Congress

Supreme Court paves the way for largest-ever drop in Black representation in Congress

NPR reports: A historic drop in representation by Black members of Congress may be on the way after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision Wednesday to further weaken the Voting Rights Act. Now that the high court’s conservative majority has reinterpreted longstanding provisions against racial discrimination under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Republican calls for new rounds of map drawing for the House of Representatives have already begun. How much of that redistricting can be done in time…

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The Supreme Court’s conservatives just issued the worst ruling in a century

The Supreme Court’s conservatives just issued the worst ruling in a century

Richard L. Hasen writes: Wednesday’s 6–3 party-line decision in Louisiana v. Callais will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century. All six Republican-appointed justices on the court signed onto Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters, while pretending they were merely making technical tweaks to the act. This decision will bleach the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and local…

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Tom Steyer could be California’s next governor — and he wants to arrest Stephen Miller

Tom Steyer could be California’s next governor — and he wants to arrest Stephen Miller

Zack Beauchamp interviewed California gubernatorial candidate, Tom Steyer: In the plan you have on your website, there’s a very interesting line about not just arresting ICE agents but imposing criminal liability on “their leaders.” So do you think if you were governor and your policy were enacted that it would be right for California state agents to arrest, say, Stephen Miller if he showed up there and was shown to be responsible for some of these things that you believe…

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Fear and opportunity: Immigration scams surged as Trump’s sweeps lured desperate people to eager defrauders

Fear and opportunity: Immigration scams surged as Trump’s sweeps lured desperate people to eager defrauders

By Naisha Roy, Northwestern University, and Francesca D’Annunzio and J. David McSwane, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica As an asylum-seeker living in the U.S., Jasmir Urbina worried as she watched violence break out amid the military-style immigration sweeps across the country. Then she read about legal residents being arrested at immigration court and wondered when federal agents would set their sights on her city. Urbina had fled Nicaragua in 2022 and legally resided with her husband, a…

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Appeals court rules against ICE’s mandatory detention policy

Appeals court rules against ICE’s mandatory detention policy

Politico reports: A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s bid to lock up the majority of people it is seeking to deport without an opportunity for release on bond — even if they have no criminal records and have resided in the country for decades. In a 3-0 ruling, a panel of the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found that ICE’s policy was based on a flawed, implausible and unprecedented interpretation of decades-old laws. But more…

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