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(WASHINGTON) — The deadline has quietly passed on Attorney General Pam Bondi delivering a report to President Donald Trump on whether any leftover Biden administration policies infringe on Americans’ right to bear arms. It came just days after Democratic leaders sent her a letter suggesting there is “plainly no need for any new plan of action.”

Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 7 after making campaign promises to gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms.”

The president instructed Bondi to “examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies” and determine if any of them violate the Second Amendment.

“The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty. It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation,” Trump’s executive order reads. “Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed.”

The 30-day mark for Bondi to report back to Trump through his domestic policy director would have been this past Sunday.

Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law, told ABC News the broadly written executive order “signals to me that this isn’t a top priority” for the Trump administration.

“Obviously, if there were things that were on the administration’s radar as possibly violating the Second Amendment or violating the rights of gun owners in some way, they could have started to roll those back right away and wouldn’t have needed to take this intermediate step of issuing a directive to the Attorney General to figure out what those were,” Willinger said. “That suggests that there’s nothing out there that the administration viewed as so pressing that they have to get rid of it right away.”

‘Perfectly consistent with the 2nd Amendment’

After Trump signed the executive order, NRA Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin released a statement praising the president’s move.

“Promises made to law-abiding gun owners are being kept by President Donald J. Trump,” Hamlin said. “NRA members were instrumental, turning out in record numbers to secure his victory, and he is proving worthy of their votes, faith and confidence in his first days in office.”

John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, also released a statement, saying, “After a long four years, law-abiding gun owners no longer have to worry about being the target of an anti-gun radical administration. NRA looks forward to the advances and restoration of our rights that will come from President Trump’s respect for the Constitution.”

It is unclear whether or not Bondi met the deadline on delivering the report — nothing had been publicly released as of Wednesday. When ABC News asked this week about the Bondi’s pending plan of action, Department of Justice officials said they would check but had no immediate information on the report’s status. The White House also did not respond to ABC News’ inquiry about Bondi’s pending report.

Earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Georgia, ranking member of the House subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, sent Bondi a letter.

“We are determined to protect our communities against lethal gun crime in a manner consistent with the Second Amendment,” they wrote.

The letter said that if Bondi carried out her examination “objectively and in good faith” she’ll find that actions taken by the previous administration to fight gun violence are “perfectly consistent with the Second Amendment.”

“There is plainly no need for any new plan of action to, in the words of the executive order, ‘protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans,'” the letter said.

In his executive order, Trump instructed Bondi that in addition to reviewing all presidential actions taken on gun control from January 2021 to January 2025, he wanted her to review rules about firearms and federal firearm licensing implemented by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Trump specifically asked Bondi to review the ATF’s “enhanced regulatory enforcement policy” — also called the “zero tolerance policy” — implemented in 2021 under Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland to identify federal firearms dealers who violate the 1968 Gun Control Act.

Under the policy, firearms dealers had their licenses revoked for willfully transferring firearms to prohibited people, failing to conduct the required background checks, falsifying records and failing to respond to a gun trace request. The policy prompted several lawsuits from gun dealers who argued their licenses were revoked over minor clerical errors.

Raskin and McBath claimed that in the three years since the policy was implemented, about 0.3% of the nation’s roughly 130,000 federal gun dealers had their licenses revoked.

“Through this policy, ATF has enforced the Gun Control Act as passed by Congress and had revoked the licenses of a tiny fraction of gun dealers who willfully violated the law,” Raskin and McBath said in their letter to Bondi. “The ATF’s enhanced regulatory policy has not prevented a single American who may lawfully possess a firearm from exercising his or her Second Amendment rights.”

The ATF reported that in fiscal year 2023, the agency found 1,531 violations after conducting 8,689 firearm compliance inspections. The inspections, according to the ATF, prompted 667 warning letters and 170 revocations.

“Law-abiding gun dealers remain in business throughout the country. In fact, there remain more gun dealers than there are locations of Starbucks, McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, Subway, and Chick-fil-A combined,” Raskin and McBath said in their letter.

The Democratic lawmakers asked Bondi to respond to their letter by the end of the business day on Monday, explaining what standards she will use to determine if policies taken by the Biden administration violate the Second Amendment and how she will ensure her plan of action “does not increase the risk of violent crime, including gun deaths.”

Majority of Americans favor stronger gun laws

A Pew Research Center poll released in July 2024 found that 61% of respondents agreed that it is too easy to legally obtain a gun and 58% favored stricter gun laws.

“We know that the vast majority of Americans — including gun owners and Trump voters — support basic safety laws that crack down on crime and keep all communities safe. These policies are in no way inconsistent with the Second Amendment,” Kris Brown, president of the gun-safety advocacy group Brady United, said in a statement after Trump signed the executive order.

Brown noted that policies under Biden included expanding background checks for gun buyers and “cracking down on rogue gun traffickers.”

“They must be continued if this President actually wants to achieve any of his campaign promises around reducing crime, cracking down on drug traffickers, and reducing the flow of trafficked weapons across the southern border,” Brown said.

In the aftermath of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major piece of federal gun reform to clear both chambers in 30 years.

The law enhanced background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21 by giving authorities up to 10 business days to review the juvenile and mental health records of young gun purchasers, and made it unlawful for someone to purchase a gun for someone who would fail a background check. This legislation closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole” preventing individuals convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing a gun.

The law included $750 million to help states implement “red flag” laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, as well as other violence prevention programs. It also provided funding for a variety of programs aimed at shoring up the nation’s mental health apparatus and securing schools.

Willinger told ABC News that “short of asking Congress to appeal it,” there is little the Trump administration can do about the law.

“It’s possible that the administration could do stuff to hold up that money,” Willinger said. “I don’t know what wiggle room they have to do that.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Wednesday entered an emergency order barring the Trump administration from implementing major parts of its executive order that sought to target the law firm Perkins Coie over its representation of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

District Judge Beryl Howell, ruling from the bench, found that attorneys for Perkins Coie had met the bar for her to enter a temporary restraining order — determining they would suffer immediate and irreparable harm if provisions of the order targeting the law firm’s work with government contractors as well as restrictions on their attorney’s access to government buildings were implemented.

In an extraordinary hearing in which the Justice Department put forward Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, to present its arguments, Howell repeatedly questioned the logic and legality surrounding the order — which she said had extraordinary breadth and whose language was unlike any other order she’d ever read.

“Regardless of whether the President dislikes the firm’s clients … issuing an executive order targeting the firm based on the President’s dislike of the political positions of the firm’s clients, or the firm’s litigation positions is retaliatory and runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protection,” Howell said.

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

 

 

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Education’s mass layoffs on Tuesday affected some 1,315 employees — including civil servants around the country who are now left wondering who will advocate for those they served.

The cuts — which account for a nearly 50% reduction at the department — impacted every part of the Department of Education, according to senior education department officials.

But a source familiar tells ABC News that most of the reduction in force affected the Offices for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid. The civil servants who worked for OCR and FSA are tasked with investigating discrimination within America’s schools and helping the nation’s students achieve higher education.

OCR and FSA staff in almost all regional offices were eliminated, according to the source, who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity. Therefore, the cuts to nearly half the federal agency will “absolutely affect” the department’s operations, according to the source familiar with the reductions who works at the department.

“I don’t know how [disabled students] will be serviced,” said another Department of Education employee who didn’t want their name used for this story.

The employee’s office is a law enforcement agency charged with enforcing anti-discrimination laws for students based on race, gender and disability, among other characteristics.

By law, the office reviews complaints regarding the nation’s most vulnerable students, including Section 504, which helps ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to educational opportunities. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has ensured that programs that are critical to students with disabilities will not be cut.

Shuttering this employee’s office — and other regional offices — shrinks the number of civil servants around the country who ensure disability services are provided to these students.

The regional Department of Education employee, who received the reduction in force email on Tuesday, told ABC News their civil rights office was abolished.

“All those disabled kids, which is the bulk of our docket, will not be helped,” the employee said.

However, McMahon said the agency will still administer those statutory programs that students from disadvantaged backgrounds rely on. In an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday night, McMahon suggested the “good” employees who administer the statutorily mandated functions will not be harmed in the process.

“What we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat,” McMahon said.

“It’s a humanitarian thing to a lot of the folks that are there, they’re out of a job, but we wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met and none of that is going to fall through the cracks,” she said.

Impacted staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21, a statement from the Education Department on Tuesday said. They will receive full pay and benefits through June 9, senior officials added.

The statement also said that the DOE will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”

But the news of the cuts on Tuesday was demoralizing to the Department of Education employee who is out of a job after more than two decades at the agency.

“It’s upsetting,” said the employee. “It doesn’t make sense — it’s upside-down world.”

On Wednesday, Trump said he felt “very badly” about the massive cuts at the DOE, but quickly claimed, without evidence, that many of its employees weren’t going to work or doing a good job.

“Now, Department of Education, maybe more so than any other place, has a lot of people that can be cut,” he said.

He praised McMahon, saying that she is doing a “very good job.”

“We have a dream, the dream is we’re going to move the Department of Education, we’re going to move education into the states,” he said.

The Trump administration has urged McMahon to return power to the states, but education is already a local-level issue. The Education Department’s responsibility is to administer money, conduct critical research projects and oversee discrimination complaints.

“We all know that local education agencies and state education agencies — they control about 95% of what happens in public education,” the Department of Education employee said. “The federal government doesn’t control curriculum, doesn’t control hiring, firing of teachers, doesn’t control standardized testing, etc. We don’t control anything other than trying to help people, give folks loans so they can maybe help their family and educate themselves and go to college and then make sure that kids that are disabled get the services that the laws say that they’re supposed to.”

The civil servant said that they — along with the rest of their office — are now shell shocked.

“There’s no rules in a hostile takeover,” the employee said. “They’re treating the government like it’s a business, and it’s not and that’s what’s unfortunate.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump‘s “trust” in Russia’s Vladimir Putin now faces a major test as the world waits for Moscow to respond to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the U.S. and accepted by Ukraine.

Trump said after Tuesday’s breakthrough in Saudi Arabia that he would speak with Putin soon, though declined to comment on Wednesday when asked if anything had been scheduled.

“I’ve gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing,” he said from the Oval Office, where he was peppered with question on what comes next. “This is a very serious situation.”

The Kremlin has cautiously said it is reviewing the proposal and it will not be pushed into anything.

The Trump administration placed significant pressure on Ukraine in recent weeks in stopping military aid and pausing some intelligence sharing — both resumed only after Ukraine agreed to the ceasefire on Tuesday.

U.S. officials, including Trump himself, have also set limited expectations amid broader negotiations on Ukraine’s borders and expressly ruled out NATO membership for the Eastern European ally.

Meanwhile, they’ve not publicly demanded any concessions from Putin — and it’s not clear how far Trump is willing to go in pressuring Russia to accept the 30-day ceasefire.

“We can, but I hope it’s not going to be necessary,” Trump said on Wednesday when asked about that very issue.

“There are things you could do that wouldn’t be pleasant in a financial sense,” he added without divulging any specifics. “I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia. I don’t want to do that because I want to get peace.”

Trump last Friday threatened sanctions on Russia until it reached an agreement with Ukraine. The Biden administration imposed hundreds of sanctions on Moscow over the course of the conflict.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier on Wednesday noted that Russia is already “pretty sanctioned up” as he was asked what pressure the administration would be ready to apply.

“As far as I am aware, the United States has not provided armaments to Russia,” Rubio said as he largely sidestepped the inquiry. “The United States is not providing assistance to Russia. Every single sanction that has been imposed on Russia remains in place … So my point being is that there’s been no steps taken to relieve any of these things, these things continue to be in place.”

“We don’t think it’s constructive for me to stand here today and begin to issue threats about what we’re going to do if Russia says no, let’s hope they say yes,” Rubio said.

Trump has also often praised his relationship with Putin, saying he knows him “very well” and declining to call him a dictator despite using the term to describe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t,” Trump said of the Russian leader in mid-February. “I trust him on this subject. I think he’d like to see something happen.”

Just last week, in an interview with Fox News, Trump claimed Putin was “more generous” and easier to work with than Ukraine.

Now, the administration is saying the ball is in Russia’s court after Ukraine agreed to an immediate, monthlong stoppage in hostilities should Moscow do the same.

“We’ll see what their response is,” Rubio said. “If their response is yes, then we know we’ve made real progress and there’s a real chance of peace. If their response is no, it will be highly unfortunate and then it’ll make their intentions clear.”

ABC News’ Patrick Reevell and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — 
 

A federal judge spent Wednesday morning grilling a Department of Justice lawyer about the legality of the Pentagon’s transgender service member ban, repeatedly suggesting the policy relies on a flawed understanding of gender dysphoria.

The Pentagon’s new policy to separate transgender U.S. service members from the military is facing its first legal test as U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes considers issuing an order blocking the policy from taking effect.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Reyes said that the government “egregiously misquoted” and “cherry picked” scientific studies to incorrectly assert that transgender soldiers decrease the readiness and lethality of the military.

While Judge Reyes has not yet issued a formal ruling, she repeatedly suggested that the policy unfairly targets a class of people that the Trump administration dislikes.

“The question in this case is whether the military under the equal protection rights afforded to every American under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, if the military … can do that and targeting a specific medical issue that impacts a specific group that the administration disfavors,” she said.

Judge Reyes also pressed DOJ attorney Jason Manion to identify any other similar medical issues that has prompted a similar response from the Department of Defense.

“Identify for me a single other time in recent history where the military has excluded a group of people for having a disqualifying issue, because I can’t think of one,” Judge Reyes asked.

Manion answered that the military applied a similar policy for soldiers who declined to take the COVID-19 vaccine, prompting an incredulous Judge Reyes to ask anyone in the gallery to raise their hand if they had gotten COVID.

“Lots of people raise their hands, right?” Judge Reyes said. “All different kinds of people … so it wasn’t just aimed at getting rid of one group of people.”

The plaintiffs have argued that the DOD’s policy — which was finalized in late February and bans most transgender service members from serving with some exceptions — violates the Fifth Amendment’s right to equal protection and causes irreparable harm by denigrating transgender soldiers, disrupting unit cohesion and weakening the military.

“This case is a test of the core democratic principle that makes our country worth defending — that every person is of equal dignity and worth and is entitled to equal protection of the laws,” the plaintiffs argued.

Lawyers with the Department of Justice have defended the policy by arguing the court should not intervene in military decision-making, describing gender dysphoria as a condition that causes “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of human functioning.”

“DoD has been particularly cautious about service by individuals with mental health conditions, given the unique mental and emotional stresses of military service,” government lawyers argued.

During a hearing last month, Judge Reyes — a Biden appointee who was the first LGBT judge on the D.C. District Court — signaled deep skepticism with the government’s claim that transgender service members lessen the military’s lethality or readiness, though she declined to intervene until the DOD finalized their policy.

When the policy was formalized last month, she quickly ordered the government to clarify key tenets of their policy, including identifying what “mental health constraint” other than gender dysphoria that conflicts with the military’s standards of “honesty, humility, and integrity.”

She also raised doubts about the government’s claims about the exceptions to the policy, flagging on the court’s docket a recent DOD social media post that “transgender troops are disqualified from service without an exemption.”

The hearing comes amid an increasingly hostile relationship between Judge Reyes and the Department of Justice.

After Judge Reyes excoriated a DOJ lawyer last month during a hearing in the case, the Department of Justice filed a complaint with an appeals judge about what they alleged was Reyes’ “hostile and egregious misconduct.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff Chad Mizelle alleged that Reyes demonstrated a political bias, compromised the dignity of the proceedings and inappropriately questioned a DOJ attorney about his religious beliefs.

“At minimum, this matter warrants further investigation to determine whether these incidents represent a pattern of misconduct that requires more significant remedial measures,” Mizelle wrote.

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