Education department ‘will be much smaller’ under Trump order, but continue some functions, White House says
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Department of Education will be dramatically downsized by the executive order Donald Trump will sign today, but continue administering student loans and Pell grants, as well as enforcing some civil rights laws.
Abolishing the department, as Trump and his conservative allies say they want to do, will require an act of Congress. Its unclear if the president will push for that, or if there are the votes to make it happen.
“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Leavitt said. “When it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education. But we don’t need to be spending more than $3tn over the course of a few decades on a department that’s clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students.”
She added that “any critical functions of the department … will remain”, such as enforcing laws against discrimination and providing funding for low-income students and special education.
Key events
The non-partisan Campaign Legal Center said the commerce secretary Howard Lutnick violated ethics rules when he encouraged Americans to buy Tesla stock in an interview yesterday.
“Secretary Lutnick’s actions violate the ethics rules that were enacted to hold public officials accountable to the American people. His statement is part of a pattern of behavior showing that Trump’s indifference to ethics is trickling down to his most senior officials,” said Kedric Payne, the center’s vice-president and senior director for ethics.
“The American people deserve a government that prioritizes public good. Most people will conclude that promoting a stock is not tied to any public good and ethics laws agree. The office of government ethics and commerce ethics officials should hold Lutnick accountable and reassure the public that their officials will face consequences if they use their public office to enrich themselves or their allies.”
Lutnick’s plea has not had much effect, at least not yet. Tesla’s share price is down about 0.9% in today’s trading, and more than 38% this year so far:
Politico reports that the American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal judge to order Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national holding a US visa who was arrested by immigration authorities earlier this week and accused of supporting Hamas, returned to Virginia.
That’s the state where Suri was arrested, but he is currently being held in immigration detention in Louisiana, as is Mahmoud Khalil, who the Trump administration is also trying to deport on similar allegations of support for Hamas. Yesterday, a federal judge ordered that Khalil’s case be heard in court in New Jersey instead of Louisiana, where the courts may be more conservative.
Here’s the latest on Khalil’s case:
The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has released a new video outlining $580m in contracts he has cancelled with the help of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”.
Among the cuts is a human resources system program that’s overdue and overbudget, as well as a decarbonization effort for navy ships that he said was part of the “Obama-Biden green agenda”.
As usual, Hegseth took a swing at diversity efforts left over from previous administrations, saying he was cancelling a $9m grant for “equitable AI and machine learning models”.
“I need lethal machine learning models, not equitable machine learning models,” the secretary quipped.
If the Trump administration directs immigration agents to ignore the constitution’s fourth amendment and conduct warrantless searches of homes, it could undermine one of the tools immigrants have to protect themselves from arrest.
So-called Know Your Rights trainings, such as this one from the American Civil Liberties Union, encourage immigrants and people who may be targeted by immigration authorities to understand how the law protects them when police encounter them on the street, or come to their homes.
One of these trainings’ major pieces of advice is for people not to open the door to their residence for law enforcement officers if they do not have a warrant for their address. But if the Trump administration tells their agents they no longer need a warrant if they are searching for migrants covered by the Alien Enemies Act, that technique may no longer work.
Trump administration believes Alien Enemies Act permits warrantless searches – report
Trump administration lawyers have embraced the view that the Alien Enemies Act, which Donald Trump invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang, permits immigration agents to enter homes without a warrant, the New York Times reports.
The fourth amendment to the constitution typically requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant before entering a home, and applies to immigration authorities looking to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally. As part of his plan to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrations, Trump invoked the act last week, and the homeland security department quickly sent three planeloads of suspected members of the gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, where they were jailed. However, many family members of the deported men say their relatives were not in the gang, and a federal judge is currently weighing whether the deportations violated a court order.
Here’s more from the Times about what the Trump administration’s reading of the law could mean:
It remains unclear whether the administration will apply the law in this way, but experts say such an interpretation would infringe on basic civil liberties and raise the potential for misuse. Warrantless entries have some precedent in America’s wartime history, but invoking the law in peacetime to pursue undocumented immigrants in such a way would be an entirely new application, they added.
“It undermines fundamental protections that are recognized in the Fourth Amendment, and in the due process clause,” said Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.
Last week, Mr. Trump quietly signed a proclamation invoking the law, known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It grants him the authority to remove from the United States foreign citizens he has designated as “alien enemies” in the cases of war or an invasion.
His order took aim at Venezuelan citizens 14 or older who belong to the Tren de Aragua gang, and who are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents. “All such alien enemies, wherever found within any territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are subject to summary apprehension,” the proclamation said.
Senior lawyers at the Justice Department view that language, combined with the historical use of the law, to mean that the government does not need a warrant to enter a home or premises to search for people believed to be members of that gang, according to two officials familiar with the new policy.
A department spokesman declined to comment.
Here’s more from the Guardian’s Dara Kerr and Nick Robins-Early about the attack on the Tesla dealership in Salem, Oregon, part of a larger backlash against the electric car manufacturer for Elon Musk’s collaboration with Donald Trump:
In the early morning hours of Donald Trump’s inauguration day, a person wearing a long black cloak and face mask wheeled a cart down an Oregon sidewalk. He was headed toward a Tesla showroom in Salem, and his cart appeared to be loaded with molotov cocktails, according to court documents. One by one, he took out the handmade explosives, lit them on fire and lobbed them at the glass-walled dealership.
By the time Salem police arrived, the showroom window was shattered, a fire was burning on the sidewalk out front, a nearby Tesla sedan was ablaze and the alleged vandal had fled. The whole scene was caught by security footage, according to an affidavit from a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The showroom’s general manager estimated $500,000 in damages, with seven vehicles struck and one completely destroyed.
The vandalism incident is one of dozens to hit Tesla dealerships, cars and the electric vehicle maker’s charging stations across the country since Trump took office. Many bear explicit messages protesting against Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a senior adviser to the president. Musk is the head of the unofficial so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and has made it his prerogative to overhaul the federal government – ordering the firing of tens of thousands of employees, slashing agency budgets and eliminating entire departments. His hardline approach, which takes aim at institutions including the National Weather Service, the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration, has elicited backlash and criticism nationwide.
Justice department charges three individuals over attacks on Tesla cars and charging stations
The justice department has brought charges against three unnamed individuals for using or planning to use molotov cocktails to attack Tesla automobiles and dealerships.
The attacks occurred in Salem, Oregon; Charleston, South Carolina; and Loveland, Colorado, and came as the electric car company led by Elon Musk faces a public backlash for his embrace of Donald Trump, and efforts to dismantle parts of the US government.
“The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” said attorney general Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.”
The charges were not specified, but Bondi said the defendants face a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years. Here are the details shared by the justice department of the attacks:
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One defendant, also armed with a suppressed AR-15 rifle, was arrested after throwing approximately eight Molotov cocktails at a Tesla dealership located in Salem, Oregon.
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Another was arrested in Loveland, Colorado, after attempting to light Teslas on fire with molotov cocktails. The defendant was later found in possession of materials used to produce additional incendiary weapons.
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In Charleston, South Carolina, a third defendant wrote profane messages against Donald Trump around Tesla charging stations before lighting the charging stations on fire with molotov cocktails.
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The Republican Alabama representative Mike Rogers, chair of the House armed services committee, and the Republican Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate armed services committee, have released a joint statement on reports of changes of the US combatant command structure across the defense department.
Together, the lawmakers said:
US combatant commands are the tip of the American warfighting spear. Therefore, we are very concerned about reports that claim DoD is considering unilateral changes on major strategic issues, including significant reductions to US forces stationed abroad, absent coordination with the White House and Congress.
We support president Trump’s efforts to ensure our allies and partners increase their contributions to strengthen our alliance structure, and we support continuing America’s leadership abroad.
As such, we will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress. Such moves risk undermining American deterrence around the globe and detracting from our negotiating positions with America’s adversaries.”
Rachel Leingang
A Minnesota state lawmaker who is accused of trying to buy sex from an underage girl resigned from the state senate on Thursday before his colleagues were set to vote to expel him.
Justin Eichorn, a Republican, was charged with a felony in federal court Wednesday for attempted coercion and enticement of a minor after responding to online sex ads and trying to arrange a meetup with a 17-year-old.
Eichorn, 40, was arrested on Tuesday. The charges include details about Eichorn’s alleged conduct. A similar state charge filed on Wednesday was dropped in favor of the federal charge.
Police in Bloomington, Minnesota, carried out a sex sting operation, placing ads, including photos, posing as a young woman on two websites known for human trafficking, according to an affidavit from FBI special agent Matthew Vogel. The ad claimed the woman was 18 and said: “cum $pend time with me.”
For the full story, click here:
The day so far
Donald Trump is gearing up to at 4pm ET sign an executive order to begin the closure of the Department of Education. The agency was created by Congress, and can’t be done away with without its approval, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order will result in the department becoming “much smaller”. Meanwhile, we expect further court filings in the legal battle over the suspected Venezuelan gang members deported to El Salvador. The judge handling the case set a noon deadline, which has now passed, for the government to offer details of their deportations, or invoke a national security exemption. We’ll let you know if anything new about this case is made public.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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Immigration agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national with a valid visa doing research at Georgetown University, and are trying to deport him for alleged support of Hamas.
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Tim Walz, who Kamala Harris picked as her running mate, sees an ominous future for the country under Trump, but also opportunities for Democrats to regain their popular support.
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Trump pushed the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, something presidents typically do not do. Yesterday, the central bank held rates steady while forecasting weaker economic growth.
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