Thursday, February 6, 2025
■ Today's Top News
"Instead of kowtowing to Israel and doing the bidding of its genocidal government, the president should act in the interests of our nation," said one critic.
By Jessica Corbett
Amid global outrage over U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to take over the war-torn Gaza Strip, the Republican also faced criticism on Thursday for his executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court.
"Bullying the International Criminal Court is a desperate tactic to intimidate those who uphold international law and seek accountability for Israeli war crimes in Gaza," said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national executive director Nihad Awad in a statement.
"It's a 'lawless Israel first' policy that further damages the reputation of the United States, which has already been harmed greatly by our nation's complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza," he continued. "Instead of kowtowing to Israel and doing the bidding of its genocidal government, the president should act in the interests of our nation."
According to NewsNation, which first reported on Trump's order, it was "originally set to be signed Tuesday and pushed back due to a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," the subject of an ICC arrest warrant over Israel's assault on Gaza.
"It is obvious that President Trump wants no oversight of his actions or those of the far-right Israeli government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu."
The ICC in November also issued related warrants for former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri. Neither Israel nor the United States—which arms Netanyahu's government—are parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the tribunal for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
The court "has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel," Trump's order claims. "The ICC has, without a legitimate basis, asserted jurisdiction over and opened preliminary investigations concerning personnel of the United States and certain of its allies, including Israel, and has further abused its power by issuing baseless arrest warrants targeting" Netanyahu and Gallant.
"The ICC's recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the armed forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest," the order adds, citing a 2002 U.S. law that opponents call the Hague Invasion Act, which empowers the president to use military force to free any American or citizen of an ally held by the court.
"Americans want more oversight on those in power, not less," Awad argued. "From his firing of independent U.S. inspector generals to this order, it is obvious that President Trump wants no oversight of his actions or those of the far-right Israeli government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. American greatness relies on check and balances, never on one man's whims."
During Trump's first term, he sanctioned ICC officials and revoked the chief prosecutor's visa. His new order, NewsNation reported, "will put financial and visa sanctions on individuals and family members who help the ICC investigate U.S. citizens or allies."
According to NBC News, a White House fact sheet on the order says that "the ICC was designed to be a court of last resort," and "both the United States and Israel maintain robust judiciary systems and should never be subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC."
Charlie Hogle, staff attorney with ACLU's National Security Project, said in a statement that "victims of human rights abuses around the world turn to the International Criminal Court when they have nowhere else to go, and President Trump's executive order will make it harder for them to find justice. The order also raises serious First Amendment concerns because it puts people in the United States at risk of harsh penalties for helping the court identify and investigate atrocities committed anywhere, by anyone. This is an attack on both accountability and free speech."
Netanyahu and Gallant's visits to the U.S. this week have been met with protests and calls for their arrests.
Punchbowl News' Max Cohen reported that Netanyahu met with and pressured U.S. senators to pass a federal ICC sanctions bill that was advanced early last month by the House of Representatives' Republican majority and 45 Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Cohen said, "reiterated Dems are eager to get a bipartisan compromise and Netanyahu agreed there should be a compromise."
This post was updated with additional details after the White House released the executive order.
"These changes are an invitation to foreign actors to interfere in American affairs," warned one former DOJ prosecutor. "Even worse, it's an invitation to Americans to help them do it."
By Brett Wilkins
On her first day in office Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi—a former lobbyist for foreign governments and wealthy special interests that have come under scrutiny by the Department of Justice she now leads—dissolved teams tasked with investigating foreign lobbying and threats posed by corporate misconduct.
Bondi signed 14 directives on Wednesday, including measures to revive enforcement of the federal death penalty, investigate Department of Justice (DOJ) officials who prosecuted President Donald Trump, defund sanctuary cities, and end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs.
She also issued a memo disbanding the Foreign Influence Task Force and limiting criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) "to instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors."
Aaron Zelinsky, a former DOJ national security prosecutor, toldBloomberg Law that "taken together, these changes are an invitation to foreign actors to interfere in American affairs."
"Even worse, it's an invitation to Americans to help them do it," he added.
As Sludge's Donald Shaw noted Thursday:
Bondi is a former foreign agent herself. In 2019, the lobbying firm Ballard Partners registered through FARA to work for the government of Qatar to provide "advocacy services relative to U.S.-Qatar bilateral relations, [including] guidance and assistance in matters related to combating human trafficking." Bondi was designated one of the key personnel on the Qatar contract, for which Ballard Partners was paid $115,000 per month.
Ballard Partners, where Bondi was employed until her confirmation, is currently registered to work as a foreign agent lobbyist for Japan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the FARA database. In her ethics agreement with the Office of Government Ethics, Bondi pledged that she would not "participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which I know Ballard Partners is a party."
By restricting FARA enforcement to traditional espionage, Bondi is narrowing the application of a law that has been used for prominent political corruption investigations and prosecutions. Last year, the Department of Justice charged Democratic House Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) with taking bribes and acting as a foreign agent of Azerbaijan, and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez [N.J.] was convicted and sentenced to 11 years for bribery and conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Egypt."
Bondi issued another memo Wednesday reorienting the DOJ Criminal Division's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit to "prioritize investigations related to foreign bribery that facilitates the criminal operations of cartels and [transnational criminal organizations], and shift focus away from investigations and cases that do not involve such a connection."
Another eyebrow-raising memo from Bondi demanded "zealous advocacy" of Trump's policy agenda by DOJ attorneys, whom she falsely called "his lawyers."
"It is the job of an attorney privileged to serve in the Department of Justice to zealously defend the interests of the United States," she wrote. "Those interests, and the overall policy of the United States, are set by the nation's chief executive, who is vested by the Constitution with all executive power."
Reacting to that memo, MSNBC legal analyst and former Florida state's attorney Katie Phang wrote on the social media site Bluesky that "lawyers still have ethical obligations that stand separate and apart from what a client wants them to do."
Law Dork publisher Chris Geidner summed up the memo as a warning to "accept and defend Donald Trump's policies, or you might be fired."
One observer wrote: "Skull. Measuring. Freaks."
By Eloise Goldsmith
Marko Elez, a 25-year-old staffer with Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has resigned from his role after The Wall Street Journal inquired over his ties to a social media account that advocated for a "eugenic immigration policy," among other racist views, the outlet reported Thursday.
Elez was stationed at the Treasury Department, where he reportedly had direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government. Earlier Thursday a district court judge placed limits on Elez's and a fellow DOGE staffer's ability to share the sensitive Treasury data.
Elez also worked for Musk at SpaceX, Starlink, and X, according to the Journal.
The X account, which was deleted in December, used the handle @nullllptr—a misspelling of a keyword in the C++ programming language, the Journal reported. However, the account previously went by the username @marko_elez, according archived posts the outlet reviewed. The person using the @nullllptr account also described themselves as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink.
"Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool," @nullllptr posted over the summer, and in September: "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." The account also called for a rollback of the Civil Rights Act.
In response to the Journal's reporting, journalist Edward Ongweso Jr. wrote on X: "Skull. Measuring. Freaks."
"Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors," said one environmentalist.
By Eloise Goldsmith
The Trump administration plans to place over 100 workers who are employed with the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on administrative leave, according to Wednesday reporting from The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources.
Other outlets have since reported on the development, including The Washington Post, which wrote Thursday that Trump appointees at the EPA told staff that they plan to close the office.
This move targeting the EPA, one the latest efforts by the Trump administration to drastically reshape federal agencies, was panned by multiple environmental organizations, who accused the White House of turning its back on vulnerable communities.
"The EPA's environmental justice office was created to challenge the historic pattern of pollution disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color," said Chitra Kumar, managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kumar was also formerly an official with the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
"Once again, the Trump administration is sidelining both science and the nation's most overburdened people," she added.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly working to "remake" the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, which defends the U.S. government's environmental actions in court and brings cases against individuals who violate federal environmental law. The Washington Post reported that Trump appointees at the Department of Justice said they plan to fire roughly 20 workers at the division, "among other actions that have sent morale there plummeting."
The Office of Environmental Justice within the division has already "been eliminated," and the five people working in that office have already been put on administrative leave, according to the outlet.
And in one of her first acts as U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi undid a Biden-era directive ordering the Department of Justice to emphasize enforcement of environmental laws in disadvantaged and low-income communities.
Trump administration attacks on what the White House deems "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" (DEIA) initiatives were expected. On his first day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating the end of all federal DEI programs, goals, mandates, and plans. The order also specifically called for the termination, "to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and 'environmental justice' offices and positions."
"By shuttering these offices, Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors," said Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous in a Thursday statement. "Trump has been on the job for less than a month, but every single day he is making our communities less safe."
Like Kumar at the Union of Concerned Scientists, senior VP of environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council Matthew Tejada (also an alum of the EPA's environmental justice office) said that the country's most vulnerable communities would lose out.
"Shuttering the environmental justice office [at the EPA] will mean more toxic contaminants, dangerous air, and unsafe water in communities across the nation that have been most harmed by pollution in the past," said Tejada. "Trump EPA is turning its back on those who need a cleaner environment more than anyone. This is a disgrace."
"We will not stand by and allow the impact that dismantling the Department of Education would have on the nation's students, parents, borrowers, educators, and communities."
By Brett Wilkins
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday led five members of Congress in a warning against the Trump administration's plan to "unilaterally dismantle" the Department of Education and demanded answers from the acting head of the agency about recent moves "to put federal workers on administrative leave, coerce employees into leaving their jobs, provide access to students' sensitive data, and illegally freeze vital funding."
"Over the course of two weeks, the Trump administration issued sweeping executive orders and sought to broadly and illegally freeze federal financial assistance," the lawmakers—Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)—wrote in a letter to acting Education Secretary Denise Carter.
"Federal employees have been targeted, in some cases for simply following the law. Elon Musk is attempting to shut down the work of entire agencies while gaining access to some of the federal government's most far-reaching and sensitive data systems. Media reports indicate a similar effort may be underway at the Department of Education," the lawmakers noted.
The letter continues:
The Department [of Education] has been a target of President [Donald] Trump and his unelected advisers since even prior to his inauguration. And recently, the department has put workers on administrative leave for attending trainings promoted by former Secretary Betsy DeVos, once touted among results achieved by the department, and coerced employees into leaving their jobs. Workers at the department—like those across the government—have been made to fear their jobs will be reclassified so that they lose employment protections. Some staff from the entity referred to as the Department of Government Efficiency have reportedly gained access to internal department data systems, including financial aid systems that include personally identifiable information on millions of students. These actions appear to be part of a broader plan to dismantle the federal government until it is unable to function and meet the needs of the American people.
"We will not stand by and allow this to happen to the nation's students, parents, borrowers, educators, and communities," the lawmakers stressed. "Congress created the department to ensure all students in America have equal access to a high-quality education and that their civil rights are protected no matter their ZIP code."
"We urge you to provide information on the steps the department is taking to ensure the continuity of programs that Americans depend on, the ability of the department to effectively administer programs for their intended purposes without waste, fraud, and abuse, and the safeguards in place to protect student data privacy," the legislators added.
Specifically, the letter asks for a list of officials "who have been granted access to personally identifiable or sensitive information," an "explanation of all steps the department has taken to protect" such data, the names of "all individuals placed on administrative leave or terminated" since Trump took office and all department communications to such employees, and confirmation that the department "has not frozen, paused, impeded, blocked, canceled, or terminated any awards or obligations since January 20."
The lawmakers' letter came on the same day that nearly 100 Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote to Carter requesting a meeting to discuss "reports that the Trump administration has plans to illegally dismantle or drastically reduce" the Department of Education via executive order.
Both letters came ahead of next week's scheduled Senate confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon, a top fundraiser for Trump's campaign whom the president subsequently nominated for education secretary. McMahon—a billionaire who led the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term—is expected to face tough questions from Democratic senators about what one campaigner called her "documented history of enabling sexual abuse of children and sweeping sexual violence under the rug" during her tenure as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO.
The very future of the Department of Education is uncertain, as Trump has repeatedly vowed to abolish the agency, which was established during the administration of President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
"I told Linda, 'Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job,'" Trump quipped earlier this week.
"I'll bet Elon and the DOGE boys can't find Medicare Advantage," quipped one economist. "You know these people were not hired on merit."
By Jake Johnson
Privatized Medicare Advantage plans overbill the U.S. federal government by up to $140 billion per year as they make patients appear sicker than they actually are to rake in more taxpayer money.
It didn't take a team of inexperienced engineers combing through the complex and sensitive inner workings of government payment systems to reach that conclusion, but that's reportedly what Elon Musk's lieutenants are now doing at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with the stated goal of locating and combatting "fraud."
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives of the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) have gained "access to key payment and contracting systems" at CMS with an eye toward "pinpointing what they consider fraud or waste."
Precisely what Musk and his lackeys see as fraud, and whether pervasive Medicare Advantage overbilling fits their definition, is unclear. In a post to his social media platform on Wednesday, Musk claimed—without elaborating or providing any evidence—that CMS is "where the big money fraud is happening."
But critics expressed doubt that Medicare Advantage, a huge cash cow for private insurers that's supported by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, will become a focal point of Musk's austerity blitz.
"You don't have to search payment systems for Medicare fraud, you could turn to the latest published report from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission which helpfully lists $83 billion in annual fraud payments," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote Wednesday. "The unnecessary overpayments are all made to private insurers in Medicare Advantage, the privatization of Medicare. We found the money!"
"Alternatively, if you're hunting for Medicare fraud you could go to the office of Senator Rick Scott," Dayen added, referring to the Florida Republican whose healthcare firm committed large-scale Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
Last month, Dayen noted that a crackdown on Medicare Advantage is "an unlikely avenue for DOGE" given that Mehmet Oz—who campaigned for the U.S. Senate on a plan dubbed "Medicare Advantage for All"—is poised to lead CMS.
Nor has Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is on track for Senate confirmation to lead the department that oversees CMS, expressed any interest in tackling Medicare Advantage fraud. During his confirmation hearing last week, Kennedy failed to correctly answer basic questions about Medicare, including Medicare Part C—also known as Medicare Advantage.
Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, quipped Thursday that "I'll bet Elon and the DOGE boys can't find Medicare Advantage."
"You know these people were not hired on merit," he added.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Baker pushed back on the view that "Musk and his crew somehow want a world without government," writing that in reality they simply "don't want government social programs that help people who are not rich."
"Musk's view is that the government should only be there to make him and his fellow billionaires richer," Baker wrote. "We could have a much more efficient insurance system if we had Medicare for All, but that would wipe out the private insurance industry. Instead, we are going the other way and whittling down traditional Medicare and increasing costs by pushing people back to private insurers with Medicare Advantage."
"It is absurd that people on the left have allowed the Musk billionaire libertarians of the world to pretend they are anti-government," Baker added. "They just want a government that only serves their interest rather than society as a whole."
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