Politics

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is taking aim at one of his predecessor’s final acts in office: preemptive pardons for members of the House Jan. 6 select committee.

In a late-night social media post, Trump claimed without evidence President Joe Biden used an autopen to sign the pardons and so he considered them “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.”

Trump, who made retribution against his perceived political enemies a focal point of his 2024 campaign, said the committee members should “fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level” despite no findings of wrongdoing.

Despite his claims, legal experts told ABC News that Trump does not have the power to overturn Biden’s actions.

A president’s clemency power is vested in Article II of the Constitution and is “broad and virtually unlimited,” said Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor at American University and expert on presidential pardons.

Its few restrictions include that it can only apply to federal offenses and can’t interfere with the impeachment powers of Congress.

In 1929, a memo by the solicitor general to the attorney general on pardons held that “neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which Executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced.”

“It is wholly a matter for the President to decide, as a practical question of administrative policy,” the department said. “Nobody but the President can exercise the power, but the power having been exercised the method of making a record and evidence thereof is a mere detail which he can prescribe in accordance with what he deems to be the practical necessities and proprieties of the situation.”

The memo was cited in a federal appeals court ruling just last year that said pardons don’t necessarily have to be in writing.

And while autopens (mechanical devices used to automatically add a signature to a document) have come under scrutiny in the past, the Justice Department as recently as 2005 determined they were constitutional and could be used for a president to sign a bill into law in a study commissioned by then-President George W. Bush.

Former President Barack Obama used an autopen to extend the Patriot Act, avert a fiscal crisis and more during his administration. Other presidents, including Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, are also documented as having used the device or one similar.

“If the autopen is illegal, then many of the actions and regulations that presidents have done for the past four or five decades are null and void. It’s a ridiculous argument,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

“There is nothing in the Constitution that requires that a pardon must be signed without an autopen. Obviously, that is a 20th century invention, and earlier presidents had no access to such technology. Nonetheless, Trump has zero authority to undo a Biden pardon, just as the next president has no authority to undo Trump’s pardons,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law expert at the University of North Carolina.

ABC News has inquired with Biden’s team and the current White House to learn more about their autopen usage but has not received comment.

Aboard Air Force One late Sunday, Trump was asked if any executive order or action from Biden that included an autopen would be considered null.

“It’s not my decision, that’ll be up to a court,” Trump responded, “but I would say that they’re null and void because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place, and somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also suggested, without evidence, that Biden was unaware of his signature being affixed to the pardons.

“Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?” Leavitt said during Monday’s briefing.

Asked specifically if attorneys at the White House told Trump he has the legal authority to undo a pardon because it was signed by autopen, Leavitt said Trump was just “begging the question that I think a lot of journalists in this room should be asking.”

Biden issued the eleventh-hour pardons just hours before Trump’s inauguration. He spoke several times in his final media interviews about how he was considering such an option for people he feared could be targeted in the next administration, such as Liz Cheney or Anthony Fauci.

What would happen if Trump tried to ignore or challenge Biden’s action?

“It could open a Pandora’s box if a sitting president tried to undo a pardon by one of their predecessors. The better rule would be that pardons — whether perceived as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decisions — should be final,” said Crouch.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s three planned book tour events scheduled for this week were abruptly postponed Monday morning because of “security concerns.”

Schumer, promoting his new book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” faced backlash over voting for the House-approved government funding bill that averted a shutdown on Friday. With Democrats’ help, the Senate passed the stopgap bill hours before funding was set to lapse.

Many Democrats, including progressives, had wanted him to vote against the bill and to more strongly protest against President Donald Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ agendas.

Schumer had events planned in Baltimore, New York City and Washington, D.C., this week. Protests were planned outside of all three events.

A spokesperson for Schumer’s book tour told ABC News that “due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.”

Some of the hosts of Schumer’s events, including D.C. bookstore Politics and Prose and Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, also individually cited security concerns for the cancellation.

Schumer has been facing steep criticism from his own party for voting for the funding bill.

After announcing that he would be a no vote on the proposed spending plan — a decision that could have led to a government shutdown — Schumer later said from the floor he would vote yes.

The switch-up earned him the praise of Trump, but the ire of prominent Democrats, and comes as the party struggles to mount a cohesive response to actions by the Trump administration that are reshaping the federal government, immigration policy and other key issues.

Schumer, defending his decision to vote for the funding bill, said in a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday that while he did not approve of what was included in a funding bill, a government shutdown would be worse.

The Senate Minority Leader said that a shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk, who has overseen major cuts to the federal government, more power to make decisions about what to cut, and that the shutdown would cause pain to American families.

“For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift. It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda,” Schumer said.

In a CNN appearance on Friday, Schumer framed the decision as a way to protect the Democratic Party, while downplaying intraparty disagreement over the path he took.

“My job as leader is to lead the party,” Schumer said. “And if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it. I knew I did the right thing, and I knew there would be some disagreements. That’s how it always is.”

Schumer also denied any insinuation he didn’t have the “overwhelming support” of his caucus, suggesting members had thanked him for his position.

Among the groups that had been organizing protests of Schumer’s book tour events was the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (PCCC), which wrote in an email on Sunday, “We need to make an example of Schumer and send a message to all Democratic officials that we want BACKBONE.”

“Now is the time to channel public anger, not hide from it,” PCCC co-founder Adam Green told ABC News on Monday after the events were postponed. “People are serious about Democrats not having a plan to fight Trump.”

Another major Democratic-aligned group, the Indivisible Project, called on Schumer to step aside as leader of the Senate Democrats in a statement on Saturday. Indivisible had also been planning on protesting outside of the Baltimore event.

Schumer “led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender,” Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin wrote in the statement.

Levin praised Schumer for his work in the Senate, but said that his actions had failed both the United States and the Democratic Party.

“Senator Schumer has contributed to and led many important accomplishments that Indivisible is grateful for. But with our democracy on the line, he let us, the country, and the Democratic Party down… Senator Schumer should step aside as leader. Every Democrat in the Senate should call for him to do so, and begin making plans for new leadership immediately,” Levin wrote.

The controversy also comes as recent polling shows Americans feeling disillusioned toward the Democratic Party. An NBC News poll published on Sunday (but taken before the government funding vote) found that only 27% of registered voters feel favorable about the party.

ABC News’ Averi Harper, Isabella Murray and Karen Travers contributed to this report.
 

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s three planned book tour events scheduled for this week have abruptly been postponed as of Monday morning.

Schumer, promoting his new book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” has been facing backlash over voting for the House-approved government funding bill that averted a shutdown on Friday. Many Democrats, including progressives, had wanted him to vote against the bill and to more strongly protest against President Donald Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ agendas.

Schumer had events planned in Baltimore, New York City and Washington, D.C., this week. Protests were planned outside of all three events.

A spokesperson for Schumer’s book tour told ABC News, “Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
 

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump claimed that former President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons of members of the Jan. 6 Select Committee and others were “void, vacant, and of no future force of effect.”

Trump in a post to his Truth Social network went on to say that members of that House committee are “subject to investigation at the highest level” and baselessly accused them of being responsible for their own pardons, without Biden’s knowledge.

Making his claim about the pardons, Trump cited alleged use of an autopen during Biden’s administration.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Sunday that Republicans forced Democratic lawmakers to choose between supporting a continuing resolution or a government shutdown, which would have allowed them to further slash the federal government.

He told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz that in past shutdowns, the executive branch has advocated for the government to reopen, but President Donald Trump’s administration would have taken advantage of one.

“With these MAGA extremists in charge, they don’t necessarily want to come out of shutdown, and they have tools in shutdown contingencies and nonessentialness determinations and riffing and things like that that they can use to destroy the government, just like doggy DOGE is doing, except with a veneer of legitimacy, with the authority of shutdown powers,” Whitehouse said in an exclusive interview.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and nine others in the Democratic caucus voted with Republicans to pass the continuing resolution. Whitehouse voted against it.

Schumer’s support sparked backlash among Democrats, with many calling for a change in leadership.

Here are additional highlights from Whitehouse’s interview:

On the dangers of shutdown

“When you understand how dangerous a shutdown is, it’s even more, sort of, understandable why they would feel that way. And so I think what we need to do is stop the intramural fighting and bleeding as quickly as we can. We are in a fight for our democracy right now, and if we’re having a fight in our dugout, we’re not out on the field, and the other team is scoring runs.”

On what Democrats need to do

“They were both extremely, extremely dangerous options, and my view is that as Democrats, we need to stop the intramural quarreling about who voted what way and get back to work saving our democracy.”

On Democrats who voted for the continuing resolution

“I think that [Schumer] and the other nine colleagues of mine who made that decision made a very conscientious and principled decision after a lot of reflection. I’m not going to throw any of them under the bus for the choice that they made. When you understand how dangerous a shutdown is, it’s even more sort of understandable why they would feel that way.”

On House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ non-answer on Senate Democrats needing new leadership

“That is not my agenda. That is not a helpful narrative right now. I think that obviously there is a lot of distress, back and forth, between the House and the Senate. That is not unheard of before. And one can read Leader Jeffries’ answers as basically, ‘Look, move on, I’m not going to dwell on internal infighting among Democrats,’ and not necessarily like ‘I’m throwing Schumer under the bus.’ They’ve known each other a long time. They’re experienced politicians. We need to pull this back together and get back to work.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The U.S. airstrikes that bombarded Yemen on Saturday targeted and “took out” multiple leaders of the Iranian-backed Houthis, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said Sunday.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Waltz argued to co-anchor Martha Raddatz that these latest strikes differ from the countless strikes the Biden administration launched against the rebel group, which the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

“These were not kind of pinprick, back and forth — what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,” Waltz said. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible.”

Waltz accused Iran of helping the Houthis attack U.S. warships and global commerce. Some 70% of global commerce is now diverting around South Africa to avoid the Houthis, resulting in higher shipping costs and supply chain issues, Waltz said.

“President Trump has found it unacceptable. What we inherited was — was a terrible situation, and this is one of what will be a sustained effort to right that wrong and to reopen global commerce,” Waltz said.

A source told ABC News Saturday that the strikes are not expected to be a single day event. On social media, President Donald Trump warned the Houthis that if their attacks do not stop, “HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”

Trump also issued a warning to Iran, calling on the Islamic Republic to stop supporting the Houthis, and adding: “Do NOT threaten the American People, their President… or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”

Here are highlights from Waltz’s interview:

On the potential for U.S. military action against Iran

“Well, all actions are always on the table with the president. But Iran needs to hear him loud and clear. It is completely unacceptable and it will be stopped. The level of support that they’ve been providing the Houthis, just like they have Hezbollah, just like they have the militias in Iraq, Hamas and others. The difference here is the Houthis have incredibly sophisticated air defenses, and they also have anti-shipping cruise missiles, drones, sea skimming types of attack drones and other ballistic missiles even. They’ve launched dozens of attacks on multiple war ships, dozens of attacks, over 175 on global commerce, sank multiple ships. … We will hold not only the Houthis accountable, but we’re going to hold Iran, their backers, accountable as well. And if that means they’re targeting ships that they have put in to — to help their Iranian trainers, IRGC and others, that intelligence, other things that they have put in to help the Houthis attack the global economy, those — those targets will be on the table, too.”

On Trump urging Iran to engage in nuclear talks

“What the president has completely — has repeatedly said is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. All options are on the table to ensure it does not have one. And that’s all aspects of Iran’s program. That’s the missiles, the weaponization, the enrichment. They can either hand it over and give it up in a way that is verifiable, or they can face a whole series of other consequences. But, either way, we cannot have a world with the ayatollahs with their finger on the nuclear button. We cannot have a situation that would result in an arms race across the Middle East in terms of nuclear proliferation. … Iran has been offered a way out of this to make sure that we don’t have a world that can be threatened by a radical regime, not only our ally Israel, but the entire world that would be threated with a – with – by a radical regime that could destroy, not only Israel, but its neighbors, and have the capability to hit the United States.”

On efforts to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine

“A fundamental aspect of the approach here from President Trump is that, you know, this has to be permanent. That’s what we continue to hear from the Ukrainians, that, you know, we cannot have a situation where this continues to break down. At the same time, we are engaging with the Russians. What we heard from President Putin was that he will absolutely consider a ceasefire. There are some other thing that he would like to see that President Trump’s national security team has — is considering over the coming days. So, this back and forth diplomacy is — is ongoing.”

On whether Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia

“We have to ask ourselves, is it in our national interest? Is it realistic? We’ve talked to the Europeans about this, and the Ukrainians. Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea? And what the strategy of the Biden administration was, was, as long as it takes, as much as it takes, no matter what the timeline is, which is essentially endless warfare, in an environment that we are literally losing hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of months. And could escalate into World War III. … We can talk about what’s right and wrong. And we also have to talk about the reality of the situation on the ground. And that’s what we are doing through diplomacy, through shuttle diplomacy, through proximity talks.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(SANA’A, Yemen) — President Donald Trump announced he ordered the U.S. military to launch “decisive and powerful military action” against the Houthis in Yemen.

“They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”

A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that U.S. air and naval assets hit dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen, including missiles, radars and drone and air defense systems. The official characterized the attacks as an opening salvo against the Houthis and sends a strong message to Iran.

A spokesman for Yemen’s ministry of health said at least nine people have been killed in the strikes and another nine injured. He said most of the casualties were civilians, and the number of those killed and injured will be updated as rescue and recovery efforts continue.

The strikes are the largest and most significant military action that Trump has taken in his second term.

The Houthi attacks were carried out by fighter jets from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, now in the northern Red Sea, as well as Air Force attack planes and armed drones launched from bases in the region, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Trump approved the plan on Friday, the source added.

The strikes Saturday are the result of several high-level White House meetings this week with Trump and top national security aides, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Michael E. Kurilla.

The attacks could intensify in scope and scale depending on the Houthi reaction, a source familiar with the plan said.

The source stressed this is not expected to be a single day event and said that “this will be decisive.”

Earlier in March, the Houthis warned they would resume attacking shipping vessels if Israel’s blockade of aid in Gaza continued.

Trump also had a stark message for Iran, writing that its support for the Houthis must end “immediately.” The president redesignated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization via an executive order in first days in office.

In a message to the Houthis, Trump threatened that if the attacks don’t stop, then “hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before.”

The Biden administration also conducted multiple strikes against the Houthis as they disrupted international shipping lanes in the Red Sea with attacks.

The last U.S. airstrike in Yemen against the Houthis occurred on Jan. 8, while former President Joe Biden was still in office, when a precision strike targeted two underground ammunition bunkers. There had been no other airstrikes since then partly because the Houthis stopped attacking ships during the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

Trump slammed his predecessor, writing, “Joe Biden’s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going.”

Since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Houthis have launched more than 100 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, causing disruptions to global trade through one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The Houthi rebels had initially framed their attacks as a way to pressure Israel to stop the war that was launched following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. But as shippers began to avoid the regions of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the rebel strikes still continued.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Following the Department of Education’s gutting of nearly 50% of its workforce Tuesday evening, educators have expressed deep concern — not only for students’ futures but for their own as well.

Tara Kini, chief of policy and programs at the Learning Policy Institute, told ABC News on Friday the job cuts will have “huge impacts” on teachers.

She pointed to the loss of federal money that previously funded teacher training programs as particularly devastating, especially for programs for teachers of special needs, marginalized and multilingual students.

“The fact that those grants will be able to go out the door means that we’re going to have fewer teachers trained, particularly for high-need subject areas where there are shortages all over the country,” she said.

“We will lose counselors, social workers, behavior specialists — people who ensure safety and stability for students who need it most,” Robert Castleberry, a fifth grade teacher in Kansas and the American Federation of Teachers’ Kansas secretary, said in a statement to ABC News.

“I hope this change by the government doesn’t set educators back years while our states are working to try and figure out how to distribute all those funds,” said Michael Brix, an instructor at the Peoria Public Schools’ Woodruff Career and Technical Center in Illinois and a member of the Peoria Federation of Teachers.

​As President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order proposing to return education power to states, senior Department of Education officials stressed the massive reforms on Tuesday are going to help the department get funding to states in a more cost-efficient way.

“What we are doing now is not working,” the officials said. “It’s just not, so it’s time for change and that’s what’s starting tonight.”

But Kini said the cuts this will exacerbate preexisting issues of teacher shortages and lack of funding that has already been prevalent in America.

“Our schools are already grossly underfunded in Connecticut,” said Jennifer Graves, special education teacher in New Haven, Connecticut, and vice president of New Haven Federation of Teachers. “We are really, really struggling already and constantly working in a deficit model to support not only general education students but especially our most vulnerable populations — our multilingual learners and our students with disabilities.”

As a result, teachers could become more overworked and struggle to accommodate student demands, with Kini speculating that classes could get combined and offer less individualized attention.

“Or they may cut some courses like electives altogether because they don’t have teachers to teach it,” she continued. “They may staff classes with substitute teachers or long-term substitute teachers … who aren’t trained for the job, and none of those options are good for student learning.”

Mike Carvella, a third grade math and science teacher in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, told ABC News during a rally on Friday how students with individualized education plans, or IEPs, can be denied by private schools, causing them to flood the public school system and subsequently affect teachers.

“That’s going to put more kids with IEPs into more underfunded public schools and put more pressure on public school teachers and public school districts to educate kids who are already marginalized and already have learning problems,” he said.

Kini noted the coronavirus pandemic in which teachers faced shortages and were forced to pick up “more of the burden” while simultaneously juggling their own responsibilities.

She also emphasized how vital federal funding programs are for allocating resources to marginalized students.

“The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds teacher training and professional development for special education teachers, and that’s a huge chunk of federal funding that’s going to be impacted. It’s going to impact the numbers of special education positions,” Kini said. “The same is true for Title 1 funding for low-income students and Title 3 funding for multilingual students.”

IDEA is a law that ensures free public education to children with disabilities, including special education and other resources.

The DOE promised that it would continue delivering all statutory programs, including funding for special needs and disadvantaged students, formula funding, student loans and Pell Grants for low-income students.

Yet sources told ABC News that most of the reduction in force affected the Offices for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid, effectively terminating many of the department’s employees who are tasked with investigating discrimination within schools and helping the nation’s students achieve higher education.

Kini spoke to the job cuts at OCR, emphasizing that students will not be protected from unlawful discrimination and explaining how this would consequently force teachers to pick up an additional responsibility and “play more of that watchdog role.”

When asked about the future of teaching, Kini expressed a bleak outlook over the likelihood of young people seeking to pursue education as a career.

“It would be a little bit of speculation there, but I think it would be a reasonable conclusion for a young person today to look at what’s happening with the uncertainty in education, and particularly with the cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, and say, ‘You know what? That doesn’t seem like a stable career choice for me right now,'” Kini said.

Jim Ward, a retired educator and retired National Education Association employee who traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., for Friday’s #EDMatters Rally outside the department’s headquarters, emphasized to ABC News how students remain the most important priority.

“All the dedicated educators that are here today are serving in those classrooms because they care about the needs of every single student, not just the ones that look like them — although their workforce is quite diverse, too — which you might not see in some of the more exclusive private schools,” Ward said.

Lori Stratton of Kansas also attended the rally, telling ABC News how “meaningful” it was for her to be present on Friday.

“I’ve been a teacher for 34 years. Most of my sons are in education. My husband’s in education. Most of my family’s in education. This is our business. You know, we are believers,” she said. “We have dedicated our lives to supporting students in public schools, and I feel like it’s an American value. I feel like there is not a bigger democratic American value than supporting education.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Hours after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in anticipation of the president invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from deporting plaintiffs for two weeks.

The judge also set a hearing for Saturday at 5 p.m.

Although there has been no announcement of the act being invoked, the lawsuit claimed the ACLU and other representing parties have reason to believe President Donald Trump has invoked “or will imminently invoke” the Alien Enemies Act to speed up the administration’s mass deportation goals and target the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang.

As early as Friday, Trump was expected to soon invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law that allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation, as part of the efforts to carry out mass deportations, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The ACLU is representing five plaintiffs it believes have been moved to detention centers in Texas intended to be “staging facilities to remove Venezuelan men under the AEA,” court documents show. Four of the five plaintiffs have been accused of being members of Tren de Aragua.

The ACLU claims they have been wrongfully accused of being gang members, some seemingly only based on their tattoos, despite the fact that some are seeking protection in the United States from the same gang they’re now accused of being a part of.

The AEA states that it can only be invoked when there is a war with or an invasion by a foreign government or nation. It allows the president to order all citizens of that foreign nation who are not naturalized in the U.S. to be arrested and removed “as alien enemies.”

In essence, members of that hostile nation could be swiftly removed from the country with little to no due process.

The ACLU argues that the government would be illegally invoking the act to target alleged members of Tren de Aragua because the gang is not a nation and there is no invasion as outlined by U.S. law.

“The Trump administration’s intent to use a wartime authority for immigration enforcement is as unprecedented as it is lawless. It may be the administration’s most extreme measure yet, and that is saying a lot,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel.

The Department of Defense is not expected to have a role in the invoking of the authority, which could be used to deport some migrants without a hearing.

There have been discussions inside the administration about invoking the act, multiple sources said.

Trump had previously said on the campaign trail that he planned to invoke the act.

The act hasn’t been used since World War II, when it was used to detain Japanese Americans.

During World War II, the Alien Enemies Act was partially used to justify the internment of Japanese immigrants who had not become U.S. citizens. The broader internment of Japanese-Americans was carried out under executive orders signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and not the Alien Enemies Act since the law does not apply to U.S. citizens.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday suspending security clearances of Mark Pomerantz and those who work at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The order also restricts government access to lawyers and employees at the New York-based law firm.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to suspend security clearances held by individuals at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Paul Weiss) pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

Pomerantz oversaw the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s investigation into Trump and his business practices.

Notably, the executive order was signed the same day that Trump spoke at the Department of Justice, where he attacked those who prosecuted him.

The new executive order is the third time Trump has taken action against a law firm. On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of Trump’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie, ruling the order was unconstitutional.

The language in this executive order mirrors that of the order that targeted Perkins Coie.

Judge Beryl Howell said the actions being taken by the Trump administration targeting these firms are “terrifying” to the legal community and noted that the DOJ’s arguments in support sent “chills down my spine.”

This firm also has other high-profile Democrats among its ranks, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Homeland Security Secretary Jey Johnson, and was among the biggest donors to Democrats and former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.

“The executive order is focused on the activities of Mark Pomerantz, who retired from the firm in 2012 and went on to work at the District Attorney’s office nearly a decade later,” Paul Weiss said in a statement to ABC News. “Mr. Pomerantz has not been affiliated with the firm for years. The terms of a similar order were enjoined as unconstitutional earlier this week by a federal district court judge.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.