New U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi
Announces Tough Enforcement Policies
Pamela Bondi got off to a hard-nosed start last week as the new U.S. attorney general by announcing plans to potentially prosecute the government attorneys who prosecuted President Donald Trump, by encouraging the death penalty in capital cases and by planning to sue local officials in sanctuary cities.
She pledged to “completely eliminate” drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
She also said in a memo that any Justice Department attorneys who decline to carry out Trump administration policies could be fired.
The next morning, the Justice Department sued the state of Illinois and city of Chicago for a sanctuary city policy that protects illegal immigrants from deportation.
Bondi also froze all Justice Department grant money to sanctuary cities whose police refuse to cooperate with immigration officials.
Bondi described her agenda of "zealous advocacy" in directives she circulated to the Justice Department’s staff.
One of the directives said that "any Justice Department attorney who declines to sign a brief, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Trump administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Justice Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination."
Bondi’s directive that prompted some of the most resistance resulted from what she called the "Weaponization Working Group" to review whether Justice Department employees or state prosecutors engaged in "politicized justice" during the Biden administration.
She was referring to efforts to prosecute Trump and his associates for election interference and mishandling classified documents, as well as for his felony convictions last year for falsifying business records to cover up payments to a porn star.
The prosecutors said they were pressing charges the same against Trump as anyone else. Bondi said they secretly wanted revenge against Trump for his criticisms of former President Joe Biden.
The working group’s first reviews – potentially leading to criminal charges – are targeted at former Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The working group also plans to review possible politically-motivated intentions of FBI agents and U.S.attorneys who prosecuted insurrectionists during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Trump pardoned all of them as one of his first actions as president.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told FBI employees in a memo last week that if they "simply followed orders" in investigating the Jan. 6 defendants, they would not be fired or face other penalties. If they demonstrated “partisan intent,” they should be “concerned,” the memo says.
Former FBI deputy director John Pistole was skeptical during an MSNBC interview, saying it looked like Bondi and her staff were seeking political “retaliation.”
“The FBI should not be politicized, that’s the bottom line,” Pistole said.
Bondi’s directives also ended the Justice Department’s moratorium on the death penalty that started during the Biden administration. She said U.S. attorneys’ offices should focus their death penalty prosecutions heavily against violent drug gangs.
Her decision to end the moratorium complies with a Jan. 20 executive order from Trump.
“Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” the order says.
Many of the Justice Department’s efforts against drug gangs and human trafficking have been concentrated in two special groups, Joint Task Force Vulcan and Joint Task Force Alpha.
Bondi said the task forces would be "further empowered and elevated." She plans to add a third task force to go after Muslim terrorist groups like Hamas.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Lawsuits Increase to Oppose
Trump’s Government Restructuring
The number of lawsuits continues growing this week against President Donald Trump’s attempts to reorganize the government by shutting down agencies, laying off thousands of workers and cutting down grant programs.
A coalition of nonprofits won an initial victory last week with a federal court ruling that blocks one of Trump’s executive orders to pause trillions of dollars in federal funding.
Trump said he wanted to freeze the funding to review whether it represented worthwhile expenditures by the government. The nonprofits said the move could be disastrous for underprivileged persons.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan in Washington, D.C., wrote in her ruling, “Every day that the (funding) pause continues to ripple across the country is an additional day that Americans are being denied access to programs that heal them, house them, and them.”
More than a dozen federal lawsuits have already been filed against the Trump administration by nonprofits that include the American Public Health Association, the civil rights group Democracy Forward, the National Council of Nonprofits and the consumer rights group Public Citizen.
Even federal employees are suing, such as FBI agents concerned about losing their jobs in retaliation for investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
The litigants are being encouraged by Democratic lawmakers who say Trump is putting business interests first rather than the public good.
“Each of Trump’s and co-President [Elon] Musk’s actions are designed to cut taxes for billionaires and give corporations free rein to rip off working-class families,” said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., during a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week.
Musk is leading the government downsizing through the special presidentially-appointed Department of Government Efficiency.
Other Democrats are pledging more than a war of words.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., introduced a bill he titled the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act. It would ban "special" government employees like Musk from federal contracts.
Trump’s companies, space launch firm SpaceX and satellite-based internet service Starlink, hold more than $20 billion in federal contracts.
Some of Trump’s critics accuse the president of breaking the law by trying to override the constitutional authority of Congress with his spending cuts.
“Make no mistake — these are ILLEGAL impoundments of funds approved by Congress,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., in an Instagram post. “We will fight this with everything we’ve got.”
Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., told a crowd of demonstrators outside the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., that they should "shut down the city."
She added, "We are at war."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the downsizing during a press conference.
“We are going line by line” to review the nation’s budget, Leavitt said. Any expenditures that do not return a benefit to the United States will be discontinued, she said.
“This president will continue to put Americans first,” Leavitt said in a hint at further cuts.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Trump Appoints Himself as Chairman
Of Kennedy Performing Arts Center
President Donald Trump announced last week he is taking over as chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in his latest shake-up of the Washington, D.C., establishment.
He said in a social media post that “we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., great again.”
He also said he is terminating members of the board of trustees, including its chairman.
He blamed “drag shows specifically targeting our youth” as part of the reason for his intervention in one of America’s preeminent performing arts centers.
“This will stop,” he said about the drag shows.
Like his plans to close a few government agencies and his executive orders criticized in Congress for overstepping his constitutional authority, the Kennedy Center announcement is drawing similar skepticism about the limits of presidential power.
Some donors to the public-private partnership that operates the Kennedy Center say they will stop donating.
A statement from the board of trustees acknowledged that its members received termination notices. It also said the intervention by a president was unprecedented in the 54-year history of the center.
The Kennedy Center is the official residence of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera.
By statute, its 36 general trustees are appointed by the president for six-year terms. About 16 percent of its operating budget, which was $268 million last year, comes from the federal government.
Democratic attorneys general also are sounding alarms about presidential overreach by asking a federal judge last week to enforce a restraining order against the Trump administration’s pause of trillions of dollars in government grants and loans.
The money funds a vast array of government programs, including Head Start for pre-school education, research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Justice Department anti-crime efforts.
The attorneys general say the Trump administration is ignoring the court order that forbids the funding pause originally scheduled to begin Jan. 28.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Congressional Bill Introduced
To Strip D.C.’s Local Authority
Two members of Congress introduced a bill last week to repeal the Home Rule Act that gives Washington, D.C., legislative control over its own affairs.
The lawmakers cited the city's difficulty controlling crime, the District of Columbia Council's allowance for non-citizens to vote in local elections and corruption among officials as showing the need for Congress to exert more influence.
The bill uses the acronym BOWSER, named after Mayor Muriel Bowser. It stands for the Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident Act.
“The radically progressive regime of D.C. Mayor Bowser has left our nation’s capital in crime-ridden shambles,” said Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., in a statement.
He co-sponsored the bill along with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. They introduced it two days after the D.C. Council voted to expel Councilmember Trayon White on charges of taking bribes from a city contractor.
“Bowser and her corrupt Washington City Council are incapable of managing the city,” Ogles said. “As such, it seems appropriate for Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority and restore the nation’s capital.”
Approval of the BOWSER Act by Congress would have the effect of abolishing the District of Columbia’s government. Instead, Congress would make governmental decisions for the city’s roughly 700,000 residents.
The D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 organized the city council and the mayor’s office. It allowed them to pass local laws, but with veto authority reserved for Congress.
Only rarely has Congress exercised its veto power over the D.C. Council.
The BOWSER Act appears to continue a pledge by President Donald Trump while he was campaigning for his second term last year.
Trump said at a Las Vegas campaign rally that if he is re-elected, he would "take over our horribly run capital."
"We’re going to federalize it,” Trump said. “We’re going to have the toughest law enforcement in the country."
Introduction of the BOWSER Act drew strong opposition from local residents.
Daniel Solomon, co-founder of D.C. Vote, a nonprofit that advocates for greater self-governance for Washington, D.C., said, “This bill flies in the face of basic democratic principles by revoking D.C.’s limited local autonomy. The District’s residents have fought too hard and too long for self-governance to see it dismantled by members of Congress who do not answer to the people of D.C.”
Critics of the bill say its premise that crime is out of control in the nation’s capital is incorrect.
Local police statistics show crime in Washington is falling. Violent crime dropped 35 percent and property crime was down 11 percent in 2024 compared with 2023, the statistics show. Armed carjackings fell 52 percent.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Proud Boys Lose Their Trademark
To Black Church They Vandalized
A judge last week granted the trademark rights to the name “Proud Boys” to an African American church in Washington, D.C., that was vandalized by the right wing group.
Trademarks give the owners the right to collect royalties and compensation from anyone using the name for profit.
In essence, the court's ruling means the Proud Boys are likely to fund the church unless they change their name.
The ruling by Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier of D.C. Superior Court bans the Proud Boys from selling merchandise with their name or symbols unless they get consent from the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Members of the group vandalized a Black Lives Matter sign in front of the church in December 2020. The church sued them, winning a $2.8 million judgment.
A court filing in the case says a group of the Proud Boys “leaped over Metropolitan AME Church’s fence, entered the church’s property, and went directly to the Black Lives Matter sign. They then broke the zip ties that held the sign in place, tore down the sign, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it while loudly celebrating.”
After failing to collect the $2.8 million, the judge granted the church the trademark rights. The church’s pastor is working with an attorney to figure out how to make money off the name and logo.
The logo consists of a black and yellow laurel wreath. Until now, the Proud Boys would put the logo and their organizational name on T-shirts and hats that they sold.
“For the first time in our nation’s history, a Black institution owns property of a white supremacist group,” a statement on the church’s website says.
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was released from prison last month, said he would appeal the court’s ruling.
"This church has engaged in a campaign of harassment and falsehoods,” Tarrio wrote in a post on X. “We were subjected to unjust incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of our own government, leaving us no recourse. Their actions are a betrayal of justice, reminiscent of Judas's treachery. I hold in contempt any motions, judgments, and orders issued against me.”
In a second post he wrote, “The Proud Boys are now changing our name to the … ‘African Methodist Episcopal Boys.’”
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.