Trump targets law firm Paul Weiss, restricting government access

Trump targets law firm Paul Weiss, restricting government access
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(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.

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Federal workers laid off by DOGE sound off as they look for new jobs

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(WASHINGTON) — Crowds of current and recently fired federal workers gathered at a job fair in Maryland on Saturday to search for new career opportunities as the Trump administration continues its purge of federal workers.

Many were filled with despair and frustration over the cuts, spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Daniel Leckie was a historic preservation specialist for the General Services Administration who got fired in February. He attended the job fair with his wife and 6-month-old baby.

“We’re now just incredibly terrified and scrambling to find new jobs to keep the roof over our head and feed our little one,” he told ABC News.

Leckie said he was fired for being a probationary employee and was just one day away from fully satisfying his probationary period.

Leckie and his wife, Jennifer Hopkins, just bought a new home in Maryland, making their first mortgage payment just a few weeks ago. He was also working toward completing the public service loan forgiveness program.

“I had about maybe two or three months left before I would have satisfied the terms of my student loans. It’s an $80,000 proposition for our family. It’s between this job, the student loan forgiveness that we were counting on and the job that we took included a promotion potential as long as I was performing fully, successfully in my duties, which I was,” he said.

“That’s what we based a lot of our financial future on, including deciding to start a family and taking out a mortgage and becoming homeowners here in the D.C. area,” Leckie added.

William Dixon, a 30-year veteran who has worked in the federal government for 23 years, told ABC News the layoffs are a “stab” against veterans.

“Because after we’ve sat up here and put the sacrifice out, like we don’t even matter, we don’t count,” he said.

Dixon works in logistics for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but he and his wife, who also works for the Pentagon, are bracing for their jobs to be cut any day now as the Defense Department prepares to make sweeping layoffs.

Dixon said both he and his wife received the email from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to list what they accomplished last week, but they’ve refrained from responding based on guidance from their supervisors.

He did, however, have a message for Musk and Trump.

“Stop. You’re hurting families. You’re hurting people,” he said. “Everybody depends on having a paycheck to take care of their family as well as to build for their retirement as well as take care of young ones. You’re doing nothing but hurting, hurting the whole nation and their families. That’s all you’re doing.”

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Trump administration taps controversial conservative journalist for top job
Trump administration taps controversial conservative journalist for top job
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s administration is filling one of the State Department’s top positions with a controversial conservative journalist who has promoted conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and was fired as a speechwriter by the first Trump administration when it was revealed that he had spoken at a conference tied to White nationalists, sources familiar with the move told ABC News.

The sources said that the man, Darren Beattie, will now be the acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, a so-called “Top 10” position that, as the State Department’s website describes it, “leads America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism.”

“The Under Secretary oversees the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Global Public Affairs, and participates in foreign policy development,” the website adds.

Beattie is slated to start in the position on Monday, sources said. He was already serving in another senior role within the State Department, but the new move to such a high-level position has raised concerns among many of its employees, sources said.

More than two years ago, Beattie launched a right-wing media outlet called Revolver News, which has raised funds in part by selling pro-Trump apparel and merchandise.

“It’s OK to deny 2020,” reads two shirts still being sold on the outlet’s website. Another shirt promotes the refuted claim that Jan. 6, 2021, was an “FBI setup to frame Trump supporters as insurrectionists,” as the shirt says.

And Beattie has become a frequent guest on other right-wing media, often promoting conspiracy theories related to Jan. 6.

On Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast last month, Beattie repeated his claims that the FBI knows who’s behind the pipe bombs left at DNC and RNC offices on Jan. 6 but “what they found out was profoundly embarrassing to the government and to the narrative that the Biden regime wanted to promote, and so instead of following that investigation further, they basically just killed it,” Beattie said.

Beattie also claimed that surveillance video released by the FBI to seek help in identifying the perpetrator was “clearly tampered with.”

In mid-August 2018, he made national headlines, with the Washington Post reporting then that he “was terminated last week after revelations that he had spoken at a conference attended by well-known white nationalists” two years earlier.

According to the Washington Post, Beattie – who is Jewish – insisted that he was not racist and said in a statement.

“In 2016 I attended the [H.L. Mencken Club] conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled ‘The Intelligentsia and the Right.’ I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely,” the statement said. “It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent.”

At the end of the Trump administration, in November 2020, the Trump White House appointed Beattie to a three-year term with the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which helps preserve sites related to the Holocaust.

The Anti-Defamation League strongly objected to the appointment, issuing a statement at the time saying, “It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials in Europe.”

The New York Times then asked Beattie for comment, and he told the paper: “The ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats. As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader, Jonathan Greenblatt.”

Asked about Beattie’s new position at the State Department, a White House spokesperson referred ABC News to the State Department. First reached on Friday, the State Department has so far not commented.

On Sunday, Beattie did not immediately respond to a request for comment by ABC News.

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Democrats slam Trump’s ‘insane’ Gaza plan as supportive Republicans await details
Democrats slam Trump’s ‘insane’ Gaza plan as supportive Republicans await details
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(WASHINGTON) — Democrats are outraged over President Donald Trump’s proposal to “take over” and rebuild Gaza — calling the plan everything from “horrifying” to “ethnic cleansing,” while Republicans were supportive, but admitted they were short on details.

“This is an insane proposal, and there’s been a huge backlash already, because the president of the United States was saying that he would use U.S. military force, if necessary, to forcibly remove 2 million Palestinians from Gaza — that’s ethnic cleansing by another name — so that it could be redeveloped,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told CNN on Wednesday morning, adding that it could be “dangerous” for both the U.S. and the Middle East.

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said that Trump is “completely ignoring the sovereignty and the self determination of the Palestinian people who have lived in this place for generations and he’s got his eye on some real estate deal because he thinks the coastline of Gaza is going to be great for some new hotel.” She told CNN that the plan is “horrifying” and “ridiculous,” shortly after Trump announced it Tuesday night during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In addition to announcing his desire to “take over” Gaza, Trump pushed for Palestinians to leave Gaza and relocate, a suggestion that was roundly rejected by neighbors in the region and from U.S. allies.

Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green announced on Wednesday that he intends to file articles of impeachment against Trump over his proposal.

Some Democrats also asserted that Trump’s comments were meant to distract from Elon Musk being given access to the Treasury Department’s federal payment system and disrupting other government agencies.

“I have news for you — we aren’t taking over Gaza. But the media and the chattering class will focus on it for a few days and Trump will have succeeded in distracting everyone from the real story — the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said on X. He also later referred to the plan as a “bad, sick joke.”

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers were quick to praise Trump’s proposal while also admitting that they weren’t certain of the specifics.

House Speaker Mike Johnson came to Trump’s defense Wednesday morning, calling the president’s surprise announcement “a bold move” while acknowledging he’s waiting on “further details on what exactly that looks like.”

“It’s a bold move, certainly far bolder than what’s been done before, but I think we’ve got to stand unequivocally in an unwavering manner…with Israel, our closest ally and friend in the Middle East,” he said during a press conference at the Capitol.

Earlier Wednesday, Johnson told reporters, “I think this is a good development” and “I think it’s one that we’ll applaud.”

Other Republicans went even farther.

“The status quo hasn’t worked,” Rep. Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee told ABC News. “Two-state solution is the idea of making a state of an entity that would immediately have to be labeled a state sponsor of terror. And so that’s not the solution at all.”

When asked if this means troops would be deployed to the region, he said, “that’s not a guarantee. That’s something that is on the table.”

Other lawmakers were also unclear on whether Trump had deploying troops in mind.

“As far as I know, it’s not troops,” Rep. Byron Donald, a close Trump ally, said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune suggested that the president “wants to bring a more peaceful, secure Middle East, and he’s put some ideas out there.”

He later doubled down on that sentiment, saying, “Look, there are a lot of ideas that are coming out to try to address what is clearly a crisis in that region.”

Lisa McClain, R-Mich., stopped short of endorsing Trump’s plan but told reporters that “it is going to take unconventional wisdom to get us out of this mess that we’re in” and said the president is “throwing everything in the kitchen sink out there.”

-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim and Emily Chang contributed to this report.

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