Politics
Trump Administration Casts Host of Policies Under Biden as Anti-Christian
The Justice Department on Thursday accused the Biden administration of pushing policies that were unfair to Christians, releasing a report that amounted to the latest rhetorical broadside by the Trump administration over what it calls the “weaponization” of government.
The 197-page document, released by a task force led by the department, sought to portray what President Trump’s advisers contend was anti-Christian bias among those who worked for President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is Roman Catholic. The report, which refers to decision-making at more than a dozen agencies, comes weeks after Mr. Trump publicly attacked the pope.
“The Biden administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices,” the report said. “These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation.”
The document is the Justice Department’s latest effort to argue that it is removing purported political bias from the work of prosecutors. But critics say that the department under Mr. Trump has abandoned its tradition of operating independently from the White House, including by pursuing the president’s rivals, like James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, who was indicted this week for posting a photograph last year of seashells on a beach arranged to say “86 47.” The administration argues that the image was a coded threat to kill the president.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department issued a report accusing Biden-era prosecutors of unfairly pursuing anti-abortion activists through the use of a law that makes it a crime to obstruct or intimidate a person seeking abortion services or participating in a religious service at a house of worship. The Trump administration, in turn, has charged dozens of protesters, as well as the former CNN anchor Don Lemon, with violating the same law during a demonstration inside a church in St. Paul, Minn.
In a statement accompanying the release of Thursday’s report, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, vowed that the department would “continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians, and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.”
The report sharply criticized a leaked internal memo from 2023 by the F.B.I.’s field office in Richmond, Va., that said far-right extremists could be attracted to Catholic churches or groups.
For decades, the F.B.I. has worked to develop sources at churches, universities and mosques, but the Richmond memo quickly became a talking point on the right. Republicans argued that it showed the bureau was targeting Catholics.
F.B.I. officials quickly withdrew the memo after it was leaked, and an internal investigation found no evidence of “malicious intent.” But the new report argues otherwise. The memo, the report asserts, stemmed from a “misplaced reliance on baseless allegations from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the religious affiliation of a single law enforcement target who happened to identify himself as a ‘radical traditional Catholic.’”
Earlier this month, the Justice Department charged the S.P.L.C. with fraud, accusing the group of paying informants inside hate groups not to fight racism and extremism, but to promote them. The group has denied the charges and called it a politically motivated prosecution.
The new report also criticized a memo issued in 2021 by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in response to concerns raised by the National School Boards Association about purported threats to local education officials, as parents and teachers grappled with restrictions enacted during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Garland’s memo ordered the creation of a task force of Justice Department prosecutors and F.B.I. investigators to use their “authority and resources to discourage these threats.”
That directive, however, raised significant internal concerns at the F.B.I. and Justice Department. One senior prosecutor warned that “the vast, vast majority of the behavior cited” by the National School Boards Association did not violate federal law.
“Almost all of the language being used is protected by the First Amendment,” the Justice Department lawyer warned shortly before the Garland memo was issued.
While the Trump administration report cites the Garland memo as an example of anti-Christian bias, the document leaves unclear how school board fights over masks, remote learning and safety in public schools constitute a religious issue.
Politics
Fetterman unleashes on ‘dirtbag’ wing of Dems after far-left victories: ‘Orgy of socialism’
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., unloaded on his own party on Sunday evening, blasting a series of victories for progressives he called “anti-America.”
“Big night for the dirtbag left,” Fetterman said, referring to New York’s recent primaries, where two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won primaries.
“I’ve said the party is becoming an orgy of socialism. Clearly anti-America, anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman’s striking calls give a rare look at how some moderates may view the developments on their far-left flank that have dominated the party’s momentum in recent months, sparking concern that their high visibility is dragging the party further and further left.
FETTERMAN WARNS DEMOCRATS ‘DRIFTING FIRMLY INTO COMMUNISM’ AFTER SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINS
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to reporters outside the Senate Chamber during votes on Nov. 10, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
His comments come on the heels of a handful of key progressive victories.
In Maine, Graham Platner, a controversial Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has attracted controversy for denying knowledge of the meaning behind a Nazi-linked tattoo, for off-color comments about race and calling himself a “communist” in a deleted Reddit post.
In New York, one DSA member, Claire Valdez, won a primary on a platform of abolishing ICE and a Green New Deal-style approach to climate change. Similarly, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, another DSA candidate, beat out incumbent Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a high-ranking Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
WINNERS AND LOSERS EMERGE AFTER SOCIALIST EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NYC PRIMARIES
Graham Platner, Democratic Senate candidate for Maine, speaks at a primary election night event at the Blue Hill YMCA in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. Platner won the party’s Senate primary after a campaign marked by accusations of past misbehavior and voter concerns. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Both Chevalier and Valdez had the backing of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a socialist.
The wins have captured national attention and drawn criticisms from Republicans who have pointed to their success as emblematic of the direction of the Democratic Party.
Fetterman, who has not shied away from confrontations, has been one of the few Democrats to express alarm about the kind of candidates carrying the party’s banner.
“I mean, you look at some of the things that people have said. Abolish prison, abolish the border, abolish ICE, I mean these crazy people — I have colleagues in my caucus that refuse to even call this out,” Fetterman said.
FETTERMAN REACTS TO MAMDANI’S REFUSAL TO ACCEPT SUPREME COURT’S IMMIGRATION RULING
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks through the Senate Subway during the Senate War Powers vote on April 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
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“Between P-hustle in Maine and some of the other winners in New York, they should form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to delete on social media,” Fetterman said, referring to Platner.
“That’s where our party has moved,” he added.
Politics
Supreme Court limits police use of cellphone data to find crime suspects
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location information showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.
Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”
She said the information “resembles other private materials — think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”
Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.
The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.
But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”
In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Sometimes, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.
Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.
Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.
The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.
By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.
Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.
The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.
After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.
A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional search, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.
Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.
The new and disputed geofence warrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.
The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barricades on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.
In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.
Politics
Supreme Court Expands Presidential Powers to Fire Independent Regulators
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump could fire independent regulators for any reason. But the justices carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, preventing the immediate removal of Lisa D. Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.
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