Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The White House has quietly directed the FBI to halt the background check process for dozens of President Donald Trump’s top staffers, and has transferred the process to the Pentagon, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The directive came last month after agents tasked with completing the background investigations had conducted interviews with a handful of top White House aides — a standard part of the background check process.

White House officials took the unusual step of ordering a stop to the background check investigations after they deemed the process too intrusive, sources said.

The procedure typically involves extensive interviews as well as a review of financial records, foreign contacts, past employment, and any potential security risks.

The White House instead decided to transfer the background check process for White House personnel to the Department of Defense for them to complete the checks, the sources said.

A former FBI official told ABC News the approach was “highly unusual.”

“If any of this is true, and if you apply it to whatever has been historically in the remit of the FBI, then it would be breaking that historic, long-standing precedent, and highly unusual,” a former FBI official told ABC News. “It would be highly unusual if that was taken away from the FBI now, for whatever reason, and given over to the DOD or another agency.”

Newly installed FBI Director Kash Patel told ABC News in a statement, “The FBI is relentlessly focused on our mission to rebuild trust, restore law and order and let good agents be good agents — and we have full confidence DOD can address any needs in the clearance process.”

Pentagon representatives referred questions on the matter to the White House.

The background check process was halted just days before Patel was confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 20, the sources said. The FBI is still conducting background investigations for positions requiring Senate confirmation, said the sources.

The Pentagon’s Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) carries out the bulk of background investigations for the federal government. The FBI carries out investigations for presidential appointees that require Senate confirmation as well as some other presidential appointees, including White House staff.

Historically, administrations have relied on the FBI background check process to ensure that the personnel they are hiring meet stringent ethical standards and don’t risk compromising national security.

“Background investigations for national security positions are conducted to gather information to determine whether you are reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character, and loyal to the U.S.,” states the SF-86 form filled out by federal employees seeking security clearances and used for background investigations.

However Trump and many of his allies entered the White House with a bitter distrust of the bureau over what they argued was its “weaponization” through the prosecutions brought against him by former special counsel Jack Smith. His top political appointees in the opening month of the administration quickly moved to purge senior ranks of the FBI and DOJ from anyone tied to the Smith prosecutions and those they believed wouldn’t be politically loyal to Trump.

Among Trump’s first presidential actions was issuing a memorandum granting the highest level of security clearance to top White House officials who had not been fully vetted through the background check process.

That list of officials, while not publicly disclosed, included dozens of high-level White House staffers, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In that memorandum, Trump claimed there was a “backlog” in the security clearance process — an issue he blamed on President Joe Biden’s administration.

However, Trump’s transition team had refused for months to enter into an agreement with the Department of Justice under Biden to begin the background check process for individuals who would staff Trump’s incoming administration, which has contributed in part to the staffing issues they now face.

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(WASHINGTON) — In a sneaky legislative maneuver tied into the effort to pass a funding bill and avert a government shutdown, House Republicans earlier this week successfully blocked Democrats from forcing votes and debate on President Donald Trump’s controversial tariffs.

It was a somewhat complicated move. But it worked — and demonstrated that Republicans are attempting to give cover to Trump and his implementation of sweeping tariffs on top U.S. trading partners that have roiled the stock market and stoked diplomatic tensions.

Had Democrats forced a vote and debate on the tariffs, it could have forced Republicans to go on the record on Trump’s tariff agenda — perhaps splitting with the president’s actions.

To tee up Speaker Mike Johnson’s temporary government funding bill, which the House passed Tuesday evening, the House first needed to pass what’s known as “a rule.” Buried inside the text of that rule was legislative language that prevents Democrats from forcing a potentially politically painful vote to end Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

How could Democrats compel a vote to end the tariffs?

Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China by declaring illegal migration and fentanyl constituted a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act.

But, here’s the catch: under the NEA, Congress has the authority to move quickly to terminate that emergency declaration. Top House Democrats tried to do that last week.

But inside that rule, which passed along party lines and cleared the way for a vote on the House GOP’s stopgap funding bill, was a provision prohibiting lawmakers from forcing a vote to terminate the president’s border emergency and the resulting tariffs until at least January 2026.

The section reads, “Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.”

Democrats are blasting the move.

“Guess what they tucked into this rule, hoping nobody would notice? They slipped in a little clause letting them escape ever having to debate or vote on Trump’s tariffs. Isn’t that clever?” Rep. Jim McGovern, the ranking member on the House Rules Committee, said during floor debate Tuesday.

Congress could still approve a joint resolution to terminate the president’s national emergency. That would require the support of both rank-and-file GOP lawmakers and House Republican leadership, which is unlikely.

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer blasted the maneuver on “ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis” Tuesday.

Asked about the Republicans’ move and if Democrats have any way around it, Beyer said “not really,” calling it “tragic.”

“Once again, Trump has ignored existing law and the Constitution with all the tariffs he’s been announcing in recent weeks,” Beyer said. “He inherited on Jan. 20 the strongest economy this country has ever had. And we are rapidly heading towards recession right now just because of the extraordinary uncertainty in business decisions and capital investment and hiring decisions.”

 

 

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(WASHINGTON) — As early as Friday, President Donald Trump is expected to 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 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.

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(WASHINGTON) —  A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary employees fired last month from a half dozen federal agencies.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the Trump administration to reinstate employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior and the Department of Treasury.

He also prohibited the Office of Personnel Management from issuing any guidance about whether employees can be terminated.

Alsup, a Clinton appointee, also ordered the immediate discovery and deposition of Office of Personnel Management senior adviser Noah Peters, who is aligned with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The judge slammed the attorney representing the Trump Justice Department for refusing to make OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell available for cross examination and for withdrawing his sworn declaration, which the judge called a “sham.”

“The government, I believe, has tried to frustrate the judge’s ability to get at the truth of what happened here, and then set forth sham declarations,” he said. “That’s not the way it works in the U.S. District Court.”

Lawyers representing a group of unions and interest groups asked Alsup to immediately reinstate thousands of probationary government employees who had been terminated allegedly at the direction of Ezell.

“There is a mountain of evidence before the court that OPM directed it. OPM’s actions were unlawful. The plaintiffs have standing, and there is a irreparable harm that is occurring every minute, and it is snowballing,” Danielle Leonard, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said.

Alsup suggested there might be a “need” for an injunction ordering the reinstatement of the employees based on the government’s recent conduct.

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so, because, you know, cross examination would reveal the truth. This is the U.S. District Court,” he said. “I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.”

If the Trump administration wants to reduce the size of the federal government, they need to follow the process established in federal law, Alsup said.

“The words that I give you today should not be taken as some kind of wild and crazy judge in San Francisco has said that the administration cannot engage in a reduction in force,” he said.

“The reason that OPM wanted to put this ‘based on performance’ was, at least in my judgment, a gimmick to avoid their Reduction in Force Act because the law always allows you to fire somebody for performance,” Alsup said, adding that the employees terminated for “performance” can’t even get unemployment insurance.

The judge also criticized the government for submitting a declaration from Ezell he believed to be false, then withdrew it and made Ezell unavailable for testimony.

“You withdrew his declaration rather than do that. Come on, that’s a sham. It upsets me. I want you to know that I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years. And I know how that we get at the truth, and you’re not helping me get to add to the truth. You’re giving me press releases — sham documents,” he said.

While the judge originally suggested the avenue to contest the firings could be administrative, he noted that the Trump administration is attempting to “decimate” and “cannibalize” the Merit Systems Protection Board by firing its head and special counsel Hampton Dellinger.

“I got misled on something that was no jurisdiction,” Alsup said.

The judge also ordered discovery “to get it at the truth because the government is saying one thing, and you’re saying another.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration reinstate thousands of probationary employees who were fired last month from a half dozen federal agencies.

U.S. District Judge Charles Alsup ordered the Trump administration to reinstate employees at the Veterans Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of the Treasury.

He also prohibited the Office of Personnel Management from issuing any guidance about whether employees can be terminated.

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

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(LANSING, Mich.) — Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced Thursday morning that he will not run for U.S. Senate or governor in the state of Michigan, potentially clearing the way to possibly mount a run for president in 2028.

“I care deeply about who Michigan will elect as Governor and send to the U.S. Senate next year, but I have decided against competing in either race,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “I remain enthusiastic about helping candidates who share our values – and who understand that in this moment, leadership means not only opposing today’s cruel chaos, but also presenting a vision of a better alternative.”

Buttigieg’s announcement comes as Democrats grapple both with being locked out of power in Washington and the prospect of defending multiple key Senate seats in the 2026 midterms.

Buttigieg was expected to potentially announce a run for the seat being vacated by incumbent Sen. Gary Peters, who announced in January that he would not run for reelection.

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday pulled President Donald Trump’s nomination of Dr. David Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple sources told ABC News.

The withdrawal came just before Weldon was to appear for his confirmation hearing Thursday morning before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where he was expected to be grilled on his past views questioning vaccine safety.

The development was first reported by Axios.

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

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(WASHINGTON) — A former Tennessee lawmaker who was once represented by White House Counsel David Warrington said he received a pardon from President Donald Trump after pleading guilty to an illegal campaign finance scheme in 2022.

The White House has not said anything publicly about former Sen. Brian Kelsey’s pardon, but sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that Trump signed the pardon paperwork on Tuesday.

The White House counsel’s office normally reviews presidential pardons, and it was not immediately clear if Warrington recused himself from his former client’s pardon.

Warrington was recused from the Kelsey matter and was not involved in any way, a White House official told ABC News.

Kelsey was two weeks into his 21-month prison sentence when he received the pardon. Bureau of Prisons records reflected that Kelsey was no longer in custody at FCI Ashland as of Tuesday.

According to federal prosecutors, Kelsey illegally funneled tens of thousands of dollars from his state campaign committee to a federal committee to fund his failed 2016 congressional campaign. He originally pleaded guilty to one felony before later withdrawing his plea while he was represented by Warrington.

“Defendant Brian Kelsey entered his plea agreement hastily with an unsure heart and confused mind,” Warrington wrote in a court filing, arguing Kelsey was confused when he decided to plead guilty after his father died and his wife gave birth to twins.

“The fog and sleep deprivation of taking care of his newborns while dealing with everything else in his life led to his confused mind. Once his mind began clearing, Mr. Kelsey acted quickly to seek to withdraw his plea,” he wrote.

But U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw denied the request, finding that Kelsey – who attended law school and practiced law – understood his actions when he initially pleaded guilty. The Supreme Court denied his request to hear his case on in the summer of 2024. He was eventually sentenced to 21 months in prison, though he was allowed to delay serving his sentence while his appeal played out.

Kelsey reported to his minimum-security prison on Feb. 24, spending about two weeks behind bars before Trump issued his pardon.
“Praise the Lord most high! May God bless America, despite the prosecutorial sins it committed against me, President Trump, and others the past four years. And God bless Donald J. Trump for Making America Great Again!” Kelsey wrote on social media.

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(WASHINGTON) — Calling it the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” the Environmental Protection Agency rolled out sweeping moves Wednesday aimed at walking back environmental protections and eliminating a host of climate change regulations, some decades in the making.

Taken together, the agency’s actions indicate a wholesale reorientation of the agency away from government support of renewable energy, carbon reduction programs and air, water and soil regulations while threatening to gut the government’s past scientific findings at the core of most climate regulations.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin rolled out over two dozen policy announcements, through a series of press releases and public statements. The list of proposed changes includes rolling back emission regulations on coal, oil and gas production and a promise to work across the federal agencies to reevaluate the government finding that determined that greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide and methane, not only heat the planet but are a threat to public health.

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Zeldin wrote in a statement on EPA’s website.

The backlash from the environmental community was swift.

“If they get their way, they will wreck our air, our water, burn down our homes, and hand future generations an unlivable climate. From moms in the 1970s who wanted their kids to be able to play outside without getting asthma to young people in the 2020s who went on hunger strike to force Congress to pass a climate bill, generations of Americans have fought and sacrificed for these regulations,” the youth-led climate advocacy group Sunrise Movement wrote in response.

“Corporate polluters are celebrating today because Trump’s EPA just handed them a free pass to spew unlimited climate pollution, consequences be damned. The Biden administration put the first-ever carbon limits on dirty coal and gas plants, cutting toxic air pollution, saving lives, and avoiding $270 billion in climate damages. Rolling back these protections is a direct attack on the communities that have been forced to breathe toxic air from polluting plants for decades,” climate advocacy organization Evergreen Action Senior Power Sector Policy Lead Charles Harper wrote in a statement.

Changes to the rules and regulations announced Wednesday will still have to go through the federal regulatory process and will likely have to stand up to numerous court challenges from environmental groups. However, today’s flurry of actions makes good on the president’s campaign promises to gut many of the long-established rules and regulations initially created to protect our water, air, soil and human health.

Endangerment finding

One of the most significant announcements was that the EPA would engage in the”formal reconsideration” of the agency’s endangerment finding.

In 2009, the EPA issued an “endangerment finding” determining that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and others, pose a danger to public health and the environment. This ruling, prompted by the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, gave the EPA the legal authority to regulate these emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA).

This finding represents the legal underpinning for many regulations concerning greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions standards for vehicles, power plants and oil and gas production — all of which Zeldin said the agency would also reevaluate as it reconsiders the finding.

If the Trump Administration decides the endangerment finding is no longer applicable and that determination survives court challenges, 16 years’ worth of emissions regulations, including those enacted under President Biden, could be jeopardized.

Vehicle emissions standards

Zeldin also took aim at Biden-era vehicle standards, saying the EPA would terminate the tailpipe emissions regulations announced by the previous administration last year.

While the Trump Administration has repeatedly referred to these standards as an EV “mandate”, there was no such mandate put in place by the Biden administration.

The Biden Environmental Protection Agency implemented tailpipe emissions standards last March that established an average of allowed emissions across a vehicle manufacturer’s entire fleet of offered vehicles. The standards would have only impacted cars from model years 2027 to 2032 and allowed for a range of usable technologies, including fully electric cars, hybrids and improved internal combustion engines. These standards applied to light and medium-duty vehicles. A separate set of standards were released for heavy-duty vehicles.

As Zeldin’s EPA announced reconsideration of these standards, it released a statement saying, the regulations imposed, “$700 billion in regulatory and compliance costs,” alleging they took away, “Americans’ ability to choose a safe and affordable car for their family and increases the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver.”

Impacts on coal

Another of the policies being reconsidered is the “Clean Power Plan 2.0,” which targets emissions from coal and natural gas power plants.

At the time, the agency claimed the new regulations would represent a massive reduction in pollution and save hundreds of billions of dollars in climate and public health costs as it would force power plants to control 90% of their carbon pollution through methods like carbon capture and tightened the emissions standards for toxic metals like mercury that are released from coal-fired plants.

In one of many press releases sent on Wednesday, the EPA called the rules “overreaching” and “an attempt to shut down affordable and reliable electricity generation in the United States, raising prices for American families, and increasing the country’s reliance on foreign forms of energy.”

Social cost of carbon

Also among the 31 actions announced by the agency is a revisiting of the “social cost of carbon,” with Zeldin saying the previous administration used the metric to “advance their climate agenda in a way that imposed major costs.”

In 2010, the EPA under then-President Barack Obama released its first estimate for what it called the “social cost of carbon,” or SC-CO2. This metric meant to capture in dollars the long-term damage created by carbon dioxide emissions each year.

It estimated, in effect, the cost of damages related to climate change, including changes in agricultural productivity, human health, property damages from added flood risk, changes in energy costs and other considerations.

The Biden Administration later updated the estimate process to include consideration of additional factors, leading to an increase in the national SC-CO2. In December 2023, the Biden EPA updated the metric at a dramatically higher rate — $190 per ton of carbon, compared to the administration’s earlier estimate of $51 per ton.

“To Power the Great American Comeback, we are fully committed to removing regulations holding back the U.S.,” Zeldin said in the announcement.

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(WASHINGTON) — Joe Murphy, whose position as a management and data analyst was eliminated when the Department of Education laid off nearly 50% of its workforce Tuesday evening, said on Wednesday that he and his colleagues are filled with a sense of “sadness” and “disbelief.”

“We got the sense that we were disposable in a certain sense, especially those of us in the data space,” he told ABC News.

According to Murphy, everyone he worked with directly had their positions terminated.

The 56-year-old from Dumfries, Virginia, said he has spent almost 20 years in education data, previously working for the National Center for Education Statistics, in addition to serving as a contractor for a formula grant data collection space in the Education Department.

In the Department of Government Efficiency’s latest efforts to cut federal costs, some 1,315 Education Department employees were affected by the “reduction in force” notices, leaving 2,183, according to senior officials at the agency.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the job cuts on Wednesday, referring to them as “a promise made and a promise kept.”

“There is no reason that we should be spending more than most developed countries in the world. And our education system is failing,” she added. “The president wants to return education back to the states, empower those closest to the people to make these very important decisions for our children’s lives. And this is a first step in that process.”

Though Murphy said the terminations were expected, he said the experience has still been disconcerting.

“Nothing surprises me anymore, but it’s still kind of shocking and impactful,” he said.

“I do not know where I go forward from here … I am suddenly belched out into a job market that has been at the very same time, severely constricted and also completely flooded with people who have a similar skill set to mine. I’m 56 years old,” Murphy continued, adding that he has spend “more than a third of [his] entire life” in this line of work.

“Felt really weird to wake up this morning and be like, wow, what am I gonna do?” he said.

Murphy emphasized how the most important and rewarding aspect of his job, which falls under the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, was serving the nation’s children.

“It’s really for the kids, and what we do is for the kids. And so many of us feel that way,” he said, adding that he “wish[es] things went differently.”

“That’s the thing I have the greatest sense of pride in. I would think, you know, doing a good job and getting the data to the programs in the right timely fashion — good, accurate data, so that they can make decisions on behalf of, you know, 100,000 schools in this country and 18,000 districts and 50-something state education agencies,” he explained.

When asked if he believes children will continue to receive needed educational benefits and services, Murphy projected a bleak outlook and expressed his belief that “we’re politicizing the department of education and the education of our students.”

He also expressed concern over whether his work will even be able to continue.

“So, all that work that we did for the programs, I don’t know who’s going to do it now or be able to do it. The folks in the programs were already overwhelmed. They were so grateful to us for the work that we did for them in distilling down this massive amount of data to a few answers with groundwork that they laid together with us,” he said. “So, I don’t know where that’s going to get done.”

Murphy is a member of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which he says he joined only recently due to the change in administrations from Biden to Trump.

“When it seemed to be going south and everybody was taking over after the inauguration, I said, okay, well, I’m gonna go ahead and sign up,” he said, explaining how he was affected by the “last two months of being led by threats and intimidation.”

“I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea that the federal government needed some improvements and some restructuring to some degree,” Murphy acknowledged. “But how you do it really matters, and you can’t just … the federal government is not a private business, and you can’t run it that way.”

 

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