White House denies violating judge’s order with Venezuela flights; Elon Musk’s Doge workers break into non-government agency – key US politics stories from Monday at a glance
The Trump administration claimed to a federal judge on Monday that it did not turn around the deportation flights of hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members over the weekend despite his specific instructions because that was not expressly included in the formal written order.
The administration also said that even if James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, had included that instruction in his formal order, his authority to compel the planes to return disappeared the moment the planes entered international airspace.
An incredulous Boasberg at one stage asked the administration: “Isn’t then the better course to return the planes to the United States and figure out what to do, than say: ‘We don’t care; we’ll do what we want’?”
Here are Monday’s key US politics stories:
The showdown between the administration and James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, reached a crescendo over the weekend after the US president secretly invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport, without normal due process, Venezuelans over age 14 who the government says belong to the Tren de Aragua gang.
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Donald Trump is to speak to Vladimir Putin on Tuesday – with the two expected to discuss territory and control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – after the Russian president last week pushed back on a US-brokered plan for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine with a series of sweeping conditions he said would need to be met.
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The Trump administration is withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine in the latest sign that the White House is adopting a posture favoring Vladimir Putin.
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Employees of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) have entered the US Institute of Peace despite protests from the non-profit that it is not part of the executive branch and is instead an independent agency.
The Doge workers gained access to the building after several unsuccessful attempts Monday and after having been turned away on Friday, a senior US Institute of Peace official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
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Donald Trump claimed, without offering evidence, that pardons signed by Joe Biden were “void, vacant and of no further force and effect” because they were signed with an autopen.
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On Saturday, the Guardian reported that US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message – and that the URL had been changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”. By Monday, however, the site was operational once more – and the URL had returned to its original formulation, with the letters DEI no longer present.
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Leading Democrats demanded an investigation of possible criminal corruption involving Elon Musk. The investigation should involve “the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to cancel a $2.4bn contract with Verizon to upgrade air traffic control communications, and to pay … Musk’s Starlink to help manage US airspace”, senators Chris Van Hollen, Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Mitch Behm, acting inspector general of the transportation department.
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Small-town USA is facing a “significant risk” that the Trump administration is going to abandon key elements of a $42.45bn Biden-era plan to connect rural communities to high-speed internet so that Elon Musk can get even richer, a top departing commerce department official warned in an email.
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A French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.
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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer postponed several stops on a his book tour as he faced intensifying backlash over his vote to support a Republican-drafted spending bill to avert a government shutdown.
The leader of a prominent Jewish group has condemned Leo Terrell, the head of Trump’s official antisemitism taskforce, for sharing a post by a white supremacist.
Ireland’s prime minister has denounced anti-immigration comments made by Conor McGregor as he visited the White House for a Saint Patrick’s Day meeting with Trump.
