Attention to the Unseen

Reuters reports: Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said. In an email…

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Russell Berman writes: Buried within one of the dozens of executive orders that President Donald Trump issued in his first days in office is a section titled “Terminating the Green New Deal.” As presidential directives go, this one initially seemed like a joke. The Green New Deal exists mostly in the dreams of climate activists; it has never been fully enacted into law. The next line of Trump’s order, however, made clear he is quite serious: “All agencies shall immediately…

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By Doug Bock Clark This story was originally published by ProPublica A Republican judge has spent more than two months trying to overturn his narrow defeat for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat by arguing that around 60,000 ballots should be tossed out. But many residents have only recently learned that their votes are in danger of not being counted and say they have done nothing wrong. ProPublica has heard from dozens of voters who expressed astonishment and anger at…

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Michael J. Kelly writes: After sundown Friday, a new crack appeared in the wall of America’s rule of law. A wall that protected us for two and a half centuries, but that’s showing signs of strain. It is axiomatic that corrupt governments eliminate those responsible for policing corruption. The Friday night massacre of over a dozen inspectors general across the executive branch lays the groundwork for taking over that government from within. The job of an agency or department’s Inspector…

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CNN reports: As President Donald Trump this week sought to rewrite the history of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol, a database detailing the vast array of criminal charges and successful convictions of January 6 rioters was removed from the Department of Justice’s website. The searchable database served as an easily accessible repository of all January 6, 2021, cases prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The US attorney’s office declined to comment. The removal…

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Mother Jones reports: In early January, the Republican majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the State Board of Elections from certifying the victory of Democratic Justice Allison Riggs after she led by 734 votes following two recounts. Riggs’ Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, had asked the court to overturn the election by throwing out more than 60,000 ballots. On Thursday, the court rejected Griffin’s extraordinary request to appoint him the winner—for now—and sent the case back to the lower…

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Harvard Law Today reports: The Constitution is clear: Those born on American soil, even to undocumented parents, are citizens of the United States, says Gerald Neuman ’80, the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School. Almost immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in on January 20, the second-term president issued a series of executive orders, including one touching on birthright citizenship — a constitutional provision that guarantees that those born within the boundaries…

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Politico reports: A prominent federal judge on Wednesday ripped President Donald Trump’s mass clemency for Jan. 6 rioters, saying the justification he offered in his proclamation — to correct an “injustice” and trigger a “national reconciliation” — was “flatly wrong” and a “revisionist myth.” “No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in an eight-page order in the case of two Jan. 6 defendants who…

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BBC News reports: One of the people who served jail time for taking part in the US Capitol riot four years ago has refused a pardon from President Donald Trump, saying: “We were wrong that day.” Pamela Hemphill, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 60 days in prison, told the BBC that there should be no pardons for the riot on 6 January 2021. “Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of…

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The Washington Post reports: A lawsuit claiming billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” violates federal transparency rules was filed within minutes of President Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday, kicking off a legal battle over a key aspect of the incoming administration’s agenda. In a 30-page complaint obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its filing, the public interest law firm National Security Counselors says that the nongovernmental DOGE panel is breaking a 1972 law that requires advisory committees to the…

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Rolling Stone reports: In the last few days of Joe Biden’s presidency, Steven Donziger hopes Biden will pardon him — as do dozens of progressive lawmakers in Congress, as well as human rights and environmental activists across the world. Donziger’s story is unique. “I’m the only person in the country to be criminally prosecuted by a private corporation,” Donziger tells Rolling Stone. As a lawyer, he helped secure a historic judgment against the oil giant Chevron on behalf of 30,000…

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