The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has just denied the government’s request for a stay of Judge Paula Xinis’ order in the case dealing with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was deported to El Salvador last month.
Xinis’ order requires the government to provide answers on what it is doing to facilitate bringing Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador, pending appeal.
“While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” the three judge panel writes.
The panel added: “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.”
“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” the judges write.
The circuit panel recognized the emotions involved in this case, writing: “The government is obviously frustrated and displeased with the rulings of the court. Let one thing be clear. Court rulings are not above criticism. Criticism keeps us on our toes and helps us do a better job.”
And in stark terms, and without naming names, the judges took on the issue of Trump’s clashes with the Judiciary. “Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both,” they write.
“This is a losing proposition all around. The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply,” the judges wrote. “The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.”
This was decided by Judges Harvie Wilkinson, Robert King, and Stephanie Thacker of the 4th Circuit.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development office in Washington, D.C. is the latest addition to a list of federal government buildings the Trump administration is seeking to sell and relocate in an effort to downsize the federal real estate portfolio.
The General Services Administration, the federal agency leading the effort, announced the addition of HUD’s Washington headquarters to an “accelerated disposition” list that aims to expedite the process of selling federal property this afternoon.
The list, according to the GSA, “will right size the federal real estate portfolio to reduce the burden on the American taxpayer,” which the agency says reflects the Trump administration’s broader goal of reducing the size and reach of the federal government.
The GSA last month published a sprawling list that named 443 ‘non-core’ federal buildings across the country it sought to shed from the federal real estate portfolio, but rolled the list back to less than 50 buildings shortly after, citing “the overwhelming response that we received after publishing the first list.”
“While the timeline and final location are still under evaluation, officials confirmed that the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area remains a top priority,” a GSA spokesperson wrote of the accelerated list in the news release today.
A GSA official told NBC News the agency understands the outsized impact selling buildings in the D.C. area could have on the local real estate market, and will take that into consideration before they sell and relocate headquarters for federal agencies.
Trump said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom Trump appointed in his first term, would “be out of there real fast” if he asked him to step down, despite Powell saying publicly that he will not resign if pressured by the administration.
“I don’t think he’s doing the job. He’s too late, always too late,” Trump told a reporter in the Oval Office this afternoon. “I’m not happy with him. I let him know it, and if I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me.”
Trump slammed Powell on social media after the Federal Reserve chair warned yesterday that the president’s expansive tariff agenda could cause excess inflation and unemployment during a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago.
“His termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Asked by a reporter today whether he would explicitly seek to dismiss Powell from his position, which is designed to be insulated from political turbulence to allow the chair to make difficult decisions about America’s economy, Trump dodged the question.
“We have a Federal Reserve Chairman that is playing politics, somebody that I’ve never been very fond of, actually, but he’s playing politics,” Trump told reporters this afternoon, adding he expects interest rates to come down amid his administration’s high tariffs.
NLRB Chairman Marvin Kaplan and acting General Counsel William Cowen met with three DOGE officials yesterday morning, an email sent to agency employees yesterday evening confirmed.
The email, shared by NLRB spokesperson Timothy Bearese with NBC News, said that DOGE requested the meeting Tuesday afternoon. Kaplan and Cowen wrote that the agency “had no official contact with any DOGE personnel” prior to the meeting being requested.
Two representatives from DOGE “will be detailed to the agency from GSA part-time for several months,” the email said. Most of their work would be done remotely, though they would be at headquarters “occasionally,” according to the email.
“The representatives have requested information about agency operations but asked us to remove any personally identifiable information from documents we provide,” the email said. “Consistent with the President’s Executive Order and applicable laws, the Agency will comply with DOGE’s requests for access and information.”
NBC News previously reported that DOGE representatives went to the NLRB yesterday. The visit came one day after a whistleblower document detailing allegations related to DOGE activities at the NLRB was made public.
While meeting with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni over lunch, Trump told reporters that “of course” there will be a trade deal with the E.U. before his 90-day period for reduced tariffs is up.
“We’re going to have very little problem making a deal with Europe or anybody else, because we have something that everybody wants,” Trump said.
Meloni is the first European leader to meet Trump since he announced tariffs on European imports this month, and the meeting comes amid concerns of an escalating trade war between the U.S. and the European bloc.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requesting that the Trump administration stop revoking visas for international students nationwide.
The letter, released this morning by Blumenthal’s office, is the latest in a series of Democratic lawmakers highlighting what they say are violations of due process in the Trump administration’s immigration proceedings. Blumenthal requested an explanation from the administration for its revocation of hundreds of international student visas, which he said has been done without proper notice or due process.
“Due process is a bulwark against tyranny and a legal protection afforded to these students by law,” Blumenthal wrote. “Accordingly, students should be given both proper notice and a forum to contest the allegations brought against them.”
The Trump administration has revoked more than 300 international student visas since January, according to an estimate from Rubio. It has seemingly targeted international students who have engaged in political activism such as campus protests or political organizing on social media. In several cases, unmarked and masked immigration agents have shown up at university campuses and detained international students without warning.
In his letter, Blumenthal said at least 53 international student visas have been revoked in Connecticut alone and asked the administration, which has not publicly said why international students are being targeted, to provide examples of the legal justification it is providing.
“As this Administration has already proven, mistakes are made. Due process helps prevent mistakes and subsequent harm,” Blumenthal wrote.
Federal Judge James E. Boasberg has ordered that documents related to the grand jury subpoena of now FBI Director Kash Patel in connection with Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified information be disclosed back to the Justice Department after the department had trouble finding some of the records.
POLITICO moved for access to the judicial records back in February, and the government has said that some records “can be released in redacted form.”
Justice Department attorney Jeremy S.B. Newman wrote earlier this week that he “attempted to obtain the records at issue from colleagues at the Department of Justice,” but was only able to obtain some version of some of the records because “the people most familiar with these records are no longer at the Department.”
Boasberg signed an order today for the court to disclose the documents to the government in connection with the Patel subpoena.
A grand jury subpoena was issued to Patel in September 2022, and Patel filed a motion to quash the subpoena, which was denied by the court.
Patel declined to answer some questions and cited his Fifth Amendment rights, and the government then moved to compel more testimony from Patel. The court granted that motion “contingent on the government offering statutory immunity to Patel,” and Patel then testified before the grand jury a second time.
The investigation led to the indictment of Trump along with Walt Nauta in the Southern District of Florida.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team has submitted a comprehensive list of questions and has requested documents from the Trump administration surrounding his deportation to El Salvador and efforts to try to return him to the U.S.
The requests were included in a filing provided by the government this morning as part of the discovery process ordered by Judge Paula Xinis.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked the administration, for example, to provide documents describing the actions the government has taken to facilitate his return to the U.S. as ordered by the Supreme Court as well as records related to the agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to hold him at a notorious prison.
They also want the government to describe the communications that the government has had with El Salvador’s government or the prison where Abrego Garcia has been held or any payments made related to his detention.
His attorneys request that the government provide the legal basis for their client’s continued confinement at the prison.
The Trump administration has refused to take steps to facilitate his return to the U.S., still claiming that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13. The government, however, has not disclosed any evidence to show he was a member of that gang.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed announced this morning that he’s running for Michigan’s Senate seat in 2026, an opening created by Sen. Gary Peters’ announcement this year that he wouldn’t seek re-election.
El-Sayed, a Democrat, served as Detroit’s Health Department executive director and as an assistant professor at Columbia University’s department of epidemiology. He lost a primary challenge to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2018.
“I’m running for U.S. Senate because in a state that built the American dream, it shouldn’t be this hard just to get by,” El-Sayed said in the video announcing his run.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow was the first major Democrat to enter the race.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether the arson attack on the house of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro constitutes a hate crime.
“Given the deeply troubling allegations that the suspect targeted Governor Shapiro based in part on his religious identity, the April 13 incident warrants immediate and serious federal scrutiny,” Schumer wrote in a letter today to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Schumer referred to revelations contained in search warrants made public yesterday about the arson attack suspect “harboring hatred” for Shapiro. The suspect also told 911 operators that Shapiro needed to know he “will not take part in [Shapiro’s] plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
“These statements — in conjunction with the timing of the attack during Passover, Governor Shapiro’s visible embrace of his Jewish faith, and the context of rising antisemitism globally and across the country — raise serious concerns about antisemitic motivation,” wrote Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S.
“Our federal authorities must bring the full weight of our civil-rights laws to bear in examining this matter,” he wrote, adding that the local district attorney hasn’t filed hate crime charges but has “acknowledged that Governor Shapiro’s religion appears to have factored into the suspect’s decisions.”
For her part, Bondi said yesterday at an unrelated event that she and FBI Director Kash Patel spoke with Shapiro after the arson attack on the governor’s mansion, which she called “horrific.”
“I firmly believe they wanted to kill him,” she said, pledging to continue to work with state authorities to do “anything we can to help convict the person that did this and keep them behind bars, as long as possible.”
Defense Department officials will soon brief Trump on a variety of options for him to fulfill his pledge to protect the United States with something modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense, according to U.S. officials and experts familiar with the initiative.
Like then-President Ronald Reagan’s push for the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was proposed to protect the U.S. from Soviet nuclear missiles, Trump’s call for an “Iron Dome for America,” more often referred to as Golden Dome, is a signature endeavor that could sew together multiple air defense systems with the idea of keeping the country and perhaps eventually U.S. assets around the world safe.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that China wants to meet with his administration, but the president mentioned it as a brief aside and did not go into details.
“Had a very productive call with the President of Mexico yesterday. Likewise, I met with the highest level Japanese Trade Representatives. It was a very productive meeting. Every Nation, including China, wants to meet!” Trump said in the post. “Today, Italy!”
Trump has levied 145% tariffs on goods imported from China. A spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry said at a news conference today that it “has always maintained communication at the working level with its U.S. counterparts.”
“China’s position has always been clear, and we are open to economic and trade consultations with the U.S.,” He Yongqian said. “The unilateral tariff measures were entirely initiated by the U.S., and ‘the one who tied the bell must untie it.'”
Wire services including Reuters and Bloomberg News will no longer hold a permanent slot in the small pool of reporters who cover Trump. NBC News’ Hallie Jackson details how the ban could set up a battle between the executive and judicial branches.
The Trump administration released a series of documents yesterday that revealed new details in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man deported to El Salvador a month ago in what a government lawyer called an “administrative error.”
The release comes after weeks of pressure on the government to prove its contention that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. The Trump administration sent him to a notorious mega-prison in the Central American country as part of its promised deportation program of alleged criminals.
The Justice Department shared records, not previously made public, detailing how police officers in Maryland assessed Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang during a 2019 arrest. He had no criminal history at the time, which the documents also state, and his attorneys have denied that he is a gang member.
In a document titled “gang field interview sheet,” the Prince George’s County Police Department detailed how in March 2019 they approached Abrego Garcia along with three others for loitering at a Home Depot parking lot in Hyattsville. Abrego Garcia said in a court filing he was there looking for day labor work.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is set to meet with Trump today amid a tense trade standoff with the European Union over tariffs.
Meloni’s visit to Washington makes her the first European leader to meet with the president since he announced tariffs on European imports earlier this month.
Trump has again blasted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying in a Truth Social post this morning that his “termination cannot come fast enough” after Powell said yesterday that tariffs were “likely to move us further away from our goals.”
“For the time being, we are well positioned to wait for greater clarity before considering any adjustments to our policy stance,” Powell said during his remarks.
The president, who appointed Powell during his first term, urged the head of the independent agency to lower interest rates, and he claimed Powell is “always too late and wrong.”
After he was elected, Trump said he would not seek to replace Powell, with whom he has frequently clashed over interest rates.
Federal Judge James Boasberg slammed the government for failing to comply with his court order to temporarily halt removal flights to El Salvador. He wrote “probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.” NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez reports it comes as the administration released new documents about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was recently deported to El Salvador. The White House says the documents show he was affiliated with the MS-13 gang.
Top Ukrainian officials flew today for a previously unannounced visit to Paris, where Europeans were assembling to plead Kyiv’s case to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.
The high level diplomacy reflects Europe’s mounting concern over the U.S. administration’s overtures toward Moscow, after the failure so far of Trump’s efforts to arrange a ceasefire in the three-year-old Russia-Ukraine war. The U.S. officials were also due to discuss nuclear talks with Iran during their visit to Paris.
