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President’s allies round on district court justice overseeing case of alleged Venezuelan gang members flown to El Salvador and accuse him of overstepping his authority
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Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has asked a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., to replace District Court Judge James Boasberg for allegedly engaging in an “inappropriate exercise of jurisdiction” as he oversees a case challenging the administration’s deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
Judge Boasberg attempted to block Trump’s deportation flights carrying hundreds of people linked to the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador over the weekend, disputing the invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act 1798 and ordering planes already in the air to turn around.
On Monday, he demanded answers as to why that was not done as Trump allies including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and advisers Alina Habba and Stephen Miller hit the airwaves to rebuke the judge for overstepping his authority in challenging an executive order from the president.
The commander-in-chief has meanwhile announced that he is revoking the Secret Service protection afforded to Joe Biden’s children Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden and pledged to release 80,000 pages of unredacted files related to the assassination of John F Kennedy.
On Tuesday, Trump will call his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the Ukraine war.
It sounds like there’s a classic power move in the offing from Vlad here, who appears minded to keep the president waiting to remind him who’s really in charge.
Astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams started their 17-hour journey home on Tuesday after months marooned on the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying them, and Crew 9 mission members Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, undocked from the orbiting laboratory and began the trip to the Earth at 12.05am ET.
They are expected to splash down in the Gulf of America near the Florida coast later today.
Wasting no time in taking credit last night, Trump blamed Wilmore and Williams’ nine-month ordeal on Joe Biden and thanked Elon Musk for sending up the Dragon craft to get them.
Here’s Vishwam Sankaran on the rescue mission.
The president is currently raging on Truth Social against the district court justice who has opposed his El Salvador deportation scheme, accusing him of political bias without evidence and calling for his impeachment.
Here’s what he has to say:
“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he did WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Mark Carney was at Downing Street yesterday where he warned that the president’s jibes were an impediment to fresh talks on a U.S.-Canada trade partnership.
“Canada’s strong,” he added. “We can stand up for ourselves.”
With the U.S. launching strikes against Houthi militants following a vow by the rebels to target American ships, the president is seeking to put renewed pressure on Iran for allegedly backing them.
In a Truth Social post yesterday, the president wrote that, going forward, his administration will consider Houthi acts of aggression against U.S. vessels, interests and allies to be carried out with the direction or support of Iran.
“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump wrote.
His post followed similar rhetoric leveled over the weekend but also signified an escalation as it marked the first time the U.S. threatened military retaliation against the Iranian government over actions taken by the Houthis.
John Bowden has more.
Consumers joining a growing movement across Europe and Canada to boycott American products are saying it’s the only power at their disposal to fight back against Donald Trump’s trade war policies.
The terms “Boycott USA” and “Boycott America” have spiked in online search results in recent weeks since Trump announced new tariffs against other countries, according to Google Trends, with feeling running particularly strong, for obvious reasons, in Denmark, Canada and France.
The U.S. Institute of Peace says employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have entered its headquarters, despite protests from the nonprofit that it is not part of the executive branch and is instead an independent agency.
CEO George Moose reported the forced entry, stating: “DOGE has broken into our building.”
Police were present at the scene in Washington on Monday evening, which took place at the institute’s headquarters across the street from the State Department in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of the city.
The DOGE workers gained access to the building after several unsuccessful attempts on Monday and after having been turned away on Friday, according to reports, but what they were doing or looking for is not immediately clear.
Also on DOGE, The L.A. Times reports that it is seeking to close nearly two dozen environmental offices in California, the organization is claiming to have deleted the names of 3.2m fictional people aged north of 120 from Social Security databases and Musk’s boast that his operatives work 120-hour weeks is being challenged in Fortune magaziner on the basis that they therefore can’t be getting enough sleep.
Further, here’s an interesting messaging note courtesy of Brian Kilmeade on Fox News, who appeared to be attempting to shift the responsibility for DOGE away from Musk and towards the mysterious Amy Gleason after the billionaire’s recent troubles.
Here’s more on the Institute of Peace furore.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the contract to Granite Construction Co., a California-based firm listed on the S&P 600, to extend the president’s unfinished U.S.-Mexico border wall and “close critical openings” after the Biden administration froze the project.
The heavy civil construction contractor has been tasked with extending the wall by seven miles in a section of the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Hidalgo County, Texas.
James Liddell has more.
Also in the Briefing Room yesterday, Karoline Leavitt urged illegal immigrants to “actively self-deport” or risk appearing in “fun” round-up videos and got into a tangle over French history after Raphael Glucksmann, an MEP from that country, suggested the United States should return the Statue of Liberty to Paris since the current administration’s values no longer align with its message.
Here’s more from James Liddell.
The former UFC champion was welcomed by Trump in the Oval Office yesterday in time for St Patrick’s Day, a matter of days after the president referred to him as his favorite Irishman.
McGregor used an appearance in the White House Briefing Room alongside Karoline Leavitt to complain about conditions in his homeland, ranting: “Our government has long since abandoned the voices of the people of Ireland, and it’s high time that America is made aware of what is going on in Ireland.
“What is going on in Ireland is a travesty. Our government is the government of zero action with zero accountability.
“Our money is being spent on overseas issues that have nothing to do with the Irish people. The illegal immigration racket is running ravage on the country. There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop, that have become a minority in one swoop.”
In response to McGregor’s comments, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the fighter’s claims were “wrong” and did not reflect the views of the Irish people.
Deputy premier Simon Harris added that McGregor was not in the U.S. to represent Ireland, that he did not speak for his countrymen and “has no mandate to”.
Here’s Alex Pattle’s report on his visit.
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