Category: National

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said in his speech to a joint session of Congress that he’ll work to protect and support police. But his words set off a backlash that included a Democratic lawmaker accusing him of the “height of hypocrisy” and a former Capitol Police officer noting that Trump pardoned 1,500 people who attacked him and his colleagues during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police Officer who risked his life to defend the Capitol Building as Trump’s supporters rioted in 2021, slammed Trump in a series of posts on the social media site Bluesky as the president was addressing Congress Tuesday night.

“Trump threatens public safety,” Dunn said in one post.

In an expletive-laced post, the 41-year-old Dunn, wrote in all capital letters, “YOU PARDONED OUR ATTACKERS.”

During his speech Tuesday night, Trump did not mention the insurrection, of which, according to the House Jan. 6 committee’s final report, he allegedly engaged in a criminally “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

In his address, the president spoke about getting police officers nationwide “the support, protection and respect they so dearly deserve.”

“They have to get it. They have such a hard, dangerous job,” Trump said. “But we’re going to make it less dangerous. The problem is the bad guys don’t respect the law, but they’re starting to respect it, and they soon will respect it.”

In the first two months of 2025, at least 58 police officers have been shot in the line of duty, including eight who were killed, according to a report released on March 3 by the National Fraternal Order of Police. The report showed that the number of police shootings is down 11% from this time in 2024.

Among the officers killed this year are Virginia Beach Police Officers Cameron Girvin, 25, and Christopher Reese, 30, who authorities said were shot at point-blank range on Feb. 25 as they were already lying on the ground wounded and defenseless following a traffic stop. The suspected killer, who police said died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was identified as 42-year-old John McCoy III, a convicted felon.

Trump said that one of the first steps he has taken since returning to the White House is signing an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone convicted of murdering a police officer.

“And tonight, I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law,” Trump said.

Trump cited the March 25, 2024, fatal shooting of New York Police Officer Jonathan Diller, who was gunned down while conducting a traffic stop in Queens — becoming the first NYPD officer killed in the line of duty in two years. The suspect, who was shot and wounded by Diller’s partner, was identified as 34-year-old Guy Rivera.

Rivera, who has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge, was previously arrested 21 times, according to police records. Also arrested in the fatal shooting, was 41-year-old Lindy Jones, who was in the car with Rivera at the time of the shooting. Jones pleaded not guilty to a charge of being a criminal possession of a weapon and possession of a defaced firearm. Jones had 14 prior arrests including attempted murder and robbery, and was out on bail in connection to a separate crime at the time of the shooting, police records indicate.

“We’re going to get these cold-blooded killers and repeat offenders off our streets. And we’re going to do it fast. Gotta stop it,” said Trump, who attended Diller’s wake.

Trump called on Congress to pass a new crime bill aimed at “getting tougher on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America’s police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being totally destroyed.”

Following Trump’s speech, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, posted a statement on social media accusing Trump of “the height of hypocrisy.”

“Trump talks a big game about standing with … the blue, yet on the first day of his administration he pardoned hundreds of cop-beaters who tried to steal an election on January 6, 2021,” Garcia wrote.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-California, who walked out of Trump’s speech with other Democrats, also took to social media, posting, “Trump insults the American people by saying, ‘let’s bring back law and order.’ Among his first acts as president? Pardoning 1500 violent felons involved in the January 6 attacks on our U.S. Capitol and democracy.”

Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., cited the hundreds of FBI agents and Department of Justice employees who have lost their jobs in the Trump administration’s sweeping reduction in the federal workforce being overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“Purging hundreds of FBI and DOJ agents who investigated the Jan 6 insurrection — career law enforcement officers, not political appointees — does not make us safer, more secure, or prosperous,” Frankel wrote on social media.

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(IDYLLWILD, Calif.) — Two hikers who were stranded for three days after falling down a snowy cliff were rescued on Monday near Idyllwild, California, the Riverside Sheriff Aviation Unit said in a statement Tuesday.

The climbers — one man and one woman — were traveling along the Tahquitz Mountain trail on March 1 when they suddenly plummeted approximately 800 feet down a snowy cliff, located about 8,900 feet above Idyllwild, California, according to officials.

The hikers called 911, stating they were “injured badly and needed help,” officials said. A helicopter was sent to rescue the two individuals, but due to 45 mph winds, rescuers failed in their attempt.

Helicopters from Cal Fire and the Orange County Fire Authority also attempted to hoist the victims out, but “all were unsuccessful due to low clouds and high winds.”

Authorities said volunteers from Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit were able to locate the male and female hikers on the ground that first night.

Then, on the second day, “several attempts” were again made, but helicopters were “unsuccessful due to mountain obscuration and high turbulence surface winds.” The hikers had to endure temperatures as low as 15 degrees Fahrenheit that night, accompanied by persistent snow, officials said.

Finally, on the third day, the “weather and wind calmed just enough” and the hikers were successfully hoisted out via helicopter, officials said. The man, “who was the most severely injured,” was rescued first and flown to Desert Regional Medical Center for treatment, followed by the woman, officials said.

Body camera video capturing the rescue shows the snowy conditions officials had to deal with while saving the two stranded individuals.

“Many thanks to all those ground crews that were involved as well as all the helicopter crews who were involved in the rescue,” the aviation unit said in a statement.

Along with the helicopters, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said on social media that over 20 mountain team rescuers hiked to save these injured victims, who “most definitely would have died from exposure to the elements.”

“This was a very long and coordinated effort with amazing partners and volunteers. Outstanding job by all,” Bianco said on social media.

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday pulled the expected signing of the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, multiple sources tell ABC News.

A draft of the executive order called on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate a department closure by taking all necessary steps “permitted by law,” sources had earlier told ABC News.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt quoted a news report saying it was “fake news” that Trump was expected to sign the order on Thursday. She said he is not signing it.

Behind the scenes, there was concern among top administration officials about the blowback the order would receive and the lack of messaging in place ahead of the rollout.

Specially, how the administration would answer questions about how the executive order would impact the school lunch program along with other programs that could no longer exist.

The education community is celebrating this apparent reversal as a win.

“This is a tremendous victory for those of us who are standing up and holding the line and pushing back against the endless chaos that we are seeing from the Trump administration,” an education leader told ABC News.

The education leader, who represents parents and families across the country, stressed that Americans are not going to stand by as the Trump administration prepares to dismantle the agency that impacts millions of students.

“These EOs are not dictates from a king and we are going to challenge him using every resource we can, including the courts,” the education leader said.

The education leader said that the blowback has Trump “shook.” And, hundreds of parents and even some school districts across the country are preparing to trigger a massive legal fight if the expected executive order is signed, according to the education leader.

“This constant state of chaos that he has American families in is unacceptable and we are going to continue to fight him every step of the way,” the education leader said.

An order to dismantle the Department of Education would require congressional approval; any proposed legislation would likely fail without 60 Senate votes.

McMahon has previously acknowledged she would need Congress to carry out the president’s vision to close the department she has been tapped to lead.

“We’d like to do this right,” she said during her confirmation hearing last month, adding: “That certainly does require congressional action.”

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

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Thursday denied a request from U.S. Agency for International Development contractors to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s mass termination of their contracts.

The Personal Service Contractor Association, an advocacy group for U.S. personal services contractors employed by USAID, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last month after the secretary of state issued a stop-work order for all foreign assistance and contracts.

The contractors alleged the stop-work order prevented the association’s members from carrying out work for “which their positions were created and exist by law and from overseeing often lifesaving humanitarian relief.”

According to the complaint, the contractors were “irreparably injured” because they say the stop-word order cut “essential communication and network access, endangering their personal safety and security” and water and electricity for their homes overseas due to the funding freeze.

“The impact around the world of freezing foreign aid funding and stopping foreign aid programs has been and remains calamitous,” the contractors said in the complaint.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols denied the contractors’ request for the temporary restraining order.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Thursday issued a nationwide injunction blocking the Trump administration from freezing federal funding without going through Congress — offering a scathing critique of what he said was the White House’s attempt to disrupt the separation of powers.

The judge, U.S. District Judge John McConnell, had already issued a temporary order in January blocking the freeze. Thursday’s injunction effectively finalized that order and will allow the Trump administration to appeal the ruling — though they had already tried to do so and were denied.

The injunction prohibits the Trump administration from “reissuing, adopting, implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name” a short-lived directive issued by the Office of Management and Budget that froze billions in funds.

“The Executive’s categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government,” McConnell wrote in Thursday’s ruling. “The interaction of the three co-equal branches of government is an intricate, delicate, and sophisticated balance — but it is crucial to our form of constitutional governance. Here, the Executive put itself above Congress.”

Judge McConnell noted that his order is “not limiting the Executive’s discretion or micromanaging the administration of federal funds,” but rather it reiterates the limit of the president’s power.

“Rather, consistent with the Constitution, statutes, and caselaw, the Court is simply holding that the Executive’s discretion to impose its own policy preferences on appropriated funds can be exercised only if it is authorized by the congressionally approved appropriations statutes,” he wrote.

In his ruling, the judge offered a history lesson to explain why the funding freeze was unlawful.

“We begin by restating the American government principles learned during critical civics education lessons in our youth. Our founders, after enduring an eight-year war against a monarch’s cruel reign from an ocean away, understood too well the importance of a more balanced approach to governance, ” Judge McConnell wrote. “These concepts of ‘checks and balances’ and ‘separation of powers’ have been the lifeblood of our government, hallmarks of fairness, cooperation, and representation that made the orderly operation of a society made up of a culturally, racially, and socioeconomically diverse people possible.”

Regarding a claim made by a group of 22 state attorneys general about unlawfully freezing millions in FEMA funding, Judge McConnell ordered the Trump administration to issue a report to the court detailing their compliance — or lack thereof — with the court’s preliminary injunction.
 

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(NEW YORK) — A deadly storm wreaked havoc across the eastern half of the U.S., bringing blizzard conditions to the Midwest, tornadoes to the South and torrential rain to the Northeast — and a new storm is on the move.

In the South, they are cleaning up after the wild weather produced up to 428 damaging storm reports from Texas to Maryland, including at least 14 reported tornadoes.

Three fatalities were reported in Mississippi, according to state officials.

In the Midwest, dangerous whiteout conditions took over roads in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The highest snowfall total was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where 2 feet was recorded.

The Twin Cities reported 9.5 inches of snow, marking the biggest snowfall of the season.

In the Northeast, a squall line moved through Wednesday evening, bringing 1 to 2 inches of heavy rain and 50 to 60 mph winds.

The storm now has moved out, but windy conditions remain on the East Coast. Wind alerts were in effect Thursday morning from Georgia to Maine, where wind gusts could top 50 mph.

Meanwhile, a new storm is hitting the West on Thursday before moving east to the Plains, Midwest and then the Northeast.

On Thursday, heavy snow will fall from California to Wyoming. Locally, 1 to 3 feet is possible

Rain will continue for Southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, where thunderstorms are possible. There’s not a major threat for flash flooding, but there could be debris flow in wildfire burn scar areas.

On Thursday evening, this storm system will move into the Plains, from Nebraska to Iowa, where several inches of snow is possible.

By Friday morning, some of this snow will move into the Midwest, including Chicago, and parts of the southern Great Lakes. A couple of inches of snow is possible in Illinois, Indiana and southern Michigan.

Friday night, a few rain showers and snow showers are possible in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

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The only man ever charged in the notorious Las Vegas murder of rapper Tupac Shakur insists he is “innocent,” being railroaded by authorities and that he only confessed to his purported role in the crime because he was getting paid to lie.

In his first interview since being arrested in September 2023, Duane “Keffe D” Davis told ABC News in a jailhouse interview that he should be at home, watching his grandchildren grow up and tending to his garden. Instead, he said, he’s being forced to stand trial in a nearly three-decade-old case that’s devoid of concrete evidence.

“I’m innocent,” Davis said during a sometimes-tearful hour-long meeting at the Clark County Detention Center. He described himself as a “good man” long retired from the drug game he once excelled at.

“I did everything they asked me to do. Get new friends. Stop selling drugs. I stopped all that,” he said, referring to police and prosecutors. “I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f—— grandson’s football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids.”

Prosecutors say Davis, 61, was a longtime member and leader of a set of the infamous Crips street gang based in his hometown of Compton, California. Authorities say that, as the alleged “shot caller” on the night of Shakur’s killing in September 1996, it was Davis who orchestrated the drive-by shooting of the rap star off the Vegas strip. On their way from Mike Tyson’s fight against Bruce Seldon, Shakur was gunned down at a red light in the passenger seat of the BMW being driven by rap impresario Marion “Suge” Knight. Shakur was rushed to the hospital and died six days later from his wounds.

Though the killing occurred on the bustling streets of Sin City – it remained unsolved for nearly 30 years, mired in police scandals and turf wars, and a street code that frowns upon snitches.

Eventually, Vegas detectives built their case off Davis’ own account of the killing, retold in multiple police interviews, public media appearances before his arrest, and a 2019 self-published memoir with his own name on it.

Davis’ previous words copping to his role in the rapper’s killing are crucial in the case against him. Investigators say they spent years working to beef up Davis’ narrative of the events by using evidence and additional accounts to firm up their case – expected to be presented to a jury in 11 months.

Davis, sitting on a wooden bench under the harsh fluorescent lights of a jailhouse conference room and accompanied by corrections officers, now insists he didn’t write his own memoir – and hasn’t even read it. And so, he says, those confessions aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

“I’ve never read the book,” Davis said of his memoir “Compton Street Legend,” on which he shares the credit as a co-author. The back of the book bears the tagline, “The last living eyewitness to Tupac’s murder is telling his story.”

Davis says his co-author took artistic liberties he had nothing to do with.

“I just gave him details of my life,” Davis said. “And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.”

Not only does he say he had nothing to do with Shakur’s killing, Davis said he was hundreds of miles away from where it happened – asserting for the first time where he says he was that night: “in Los Angeles,” and at home.

Davis said he has “about 20 or 30 people going to come” to his murder trial corroborating that alibi – to say nothing of the “13,000 people who say they killed Tupac.” He did not name the people who he said woukld verify where he was the night that Shakur was killed.

“I did not do it,” Davis said of what had stood as one of the best-known cold cases in modern American history. Of prosecutors leading the case against him, he said “They don’t have nothing. And they know they don’t have nothing. They can’t even place me out here. They don’t have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing.”

Las Vegas prosecutors declined to respond directly to Davis’ comments but continue to insist they are confident in the case and expect to see the man convicted at trial.

In 2008, Davis confessed to his purported role in the Shakur homicide in an interview with detectives connected to a joint federal-Los Angeles task force that had set up a drug operation sting on Davis to extract information on fellow rap icon Biggie Smalls’ murder, which happened six months after Shakur’s. Davis at the time said he didn’t have information about Biggie’s murder — but did have other information that would be valuable. That time, according to police, Davis made his admissions as part of what’s known as a “proffer agreement,” so he could not be prosecuted for what he said.

The following year, Davis again confirmed his purported role in the Shakur drive-by this time in an interview with detectives from Las Vegas. Vegas authorities were not connected to the earlier sessions, and were not required to honor any agreement that might have been made with Davis, according to interview recordings and transcripts reviewed by ABC. The only thing Vegas cops agreed to was that the interview with Davis would be voluntary and he would not be arrested on the spot.

At the time, some Las Vegas detectives wanted to bust Davis and charge him with the Tupac murder, but prosecutors feared that both sets of alleged confessions could be thrown out of court because of the purported non-prosecution agreement in LA. If a judge were to side with Davis, the case would likely have been doomed.

Davis’ lawyers did make that argument earlier this year and the judge rejected it. But the issue was largely beside the point because, officials have said, Davis went on to publicly recount his purported role in the homicide repeatedly in the years since 2009, especially in a 2018 docuseries and on the pages of “Compton Street Legends.”

Davis’ own public words “reinvigorates the investigation,” the now-retired head of the Las Vegas homicide bureau, Jason Johansson, told ABC last year.

Sitting in jail, Davis said that version of events was totally fabricated for profit when he told his story in the media. As for making his purported confession to the authorities, he said, that was a play to keep others caught up in a drug case out of prison. He said he told police what they wanted to hear “if they let me go.”

“That’s the only way you’re walking free,” Davis said, recounting the choice he felt he had to make. “It would’ve been selfish to let everybody go down because of me.”

As for the similar versions of events recounted by him on camera, before his arrest, and in the book with his name on it, Davis says that was just a financial investment.

“They paid me to say that,” he said.

Davis insists the 2008 non-prosecution agreement should still hold and that any statements to law enforcement connected with it should not be presented to the jury next year.

“I’m not even supposed to be in jail,” he said. “A deal is a deal.”

Davis also pointed the finger at an altogether different suspect: the former cop responsible for running some of the security operations for Knight and Shakur on the night of the shooting. That man, Reggie Wright Jr., a former Compton police officer, who testified before the grand jury that indicted Davis for the Shakur killing, ran security for Knight’s Death Row Records back in the mid-1990s. Wright has said he spent most of that night of the killing working out logistics at the club that Shakur and Knight were planning to visit after the Tyson fight.

Echoing a recent accusation lodged in court papers by his attorney, Davis now accuses Wright and his security team of having orchestrated the shooting that killed Shakur.

“Prove that I orchestrated this,” Davis said. “Their top witness is the lead suspect, Reggie Wright Jr.,” alleging both Wright and his onetime security company were “mercenaries.”

Wright has denied any involvement in Shakur’s killing – and points out he was there for exactly the opposite purpose that night.

“I was in charge of possibly protecting this young man,” Wright told ABC’s Nightline last year.

“It’s heartbreaking they keep dragging in my name,” Wright said reacting to Davis’ attorney’s recent allegations. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. One of the worst days of my life when I heard that that happened.”

Davis has repeatedly tried to make bail since he was arrested outside his home in Sept. 2023 but the judge refused to accept the financing packages he has put together. He now faces an additional charge and trial connected with a jailhouse fight with another inmate, set for April.

According to jailhouse surveillance footage obtained by ABC News, the man who fought with Davis appeared to have been waiting alone and unattended in a common area when Davis came walking through with an escort. The second inmate can be seen lunging at Davis, who fought back.

Both Davis and the other inmate have pleaded not guilty to charges of battery and challenging each other to fight. Davis said he was only defending himself. He has also pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

He insists that he will eventually beat the rap on both the murder and battery charge and that he knows how to fight his way through.

“God got my back, and God will see me through this,” Davis said. “He had my back with cancer, I survived the streets, and the FBI. That’s a big accomplishment for a man from Compton.”

ABC News’ Kaitlyn Morris contributed to this report.

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Lawyers for the man accused of killing four Idaho college students are asking the judge in his capital murder case to ban a key witness from using the phrase “bushy eyebrows” to describe the assailant she saw the night of the bloody attack.

That request was included in roughly 100 pages of court filings unsealed Tuesday as preparations continue in advance of the August trial of Bryan Kohberger, who’s charged in the November 2022 killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

A roommate of the victims, who lived at the off-campus Moscow, Idaho, home where the killings occurred originally told detectives that the masked male intruder she saw on the night of the killings had a singular physical attribute: “bushy eyebrows.” That phrase has rocketed around the world as the headline-grabbing case has moved slowly toward a trial in Boise, Idaho.

Kohberger’s defense attorneys argued the superficial description will unfairly point the finger at him and potentially bias the jury.

“The description provided by [the roommate] is unreliable and should be excluded,” defense lawyer Elisa Massoth wrote. “Although she has never identified Mr. Kohberger, testimony by [the roommate] from the witness stand, describing bushy eyebrows while Mr. Kohberger sits as the accused at trial, will be as damning as her pointing to him and saying, ‘he is the man that did this.'”

The roommate’s varying accounts and self-confessed sleepy intoxication that night make her memory fickle, Kohberger’s lawyers have argued. And, they argued, she seemed preoccupied with bushy eyebrows even before her friends were killed.

When police photographed the crime scene right after the killings, her room was found to have “many pictures of eyes with prominent eyebrows” on the walls in her room, Kohberger’s lawyers said.

“Many of which she had drawn. Some of the eyebrows are heavy, voluminous, puffy, or perhaps subjectively bushy,” and there was “artwork of human figures with an emphasis upon the eyes and eyebrows were pinned to corkboards,” they said.

Kohberger’s defense attorneys have also asked the judge to bar words like “murder,” “psychopath” and “sociopath” during the trial.

“To label Mr. Kohberger as a ‘murderer,’ the alleged weapon consistent with an empty sheath as a ‘murder weapon’ or to assert that any of the four decedents was ‘murdered’ by Mr. Kohberger denies his right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent,” the defense said.

Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger broke into an off-campus home and stabbed the four students to death. He was arrested in late December, after a six-week manhunt, at his parents’ Pennsylvania home and indicted in May 2023.

He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty. But not if his lawyers get their way.

Defense attorneys cite autism in bid to strike death penalty

Among the flurry of new filings, the defense also argued his life should not be on the line — because he has been diagnosed with autism, and so his impairments in communication, problems with social skills and impulse control mean he is “insufficiently culpable to be executed.”

His diagnosis however should not be wielded against him, the defense said — arguing prosecutors should not be allowed to use it “by criminalizing his status as a disabled person.”

Even if this does not work to strike the death penalty, his diagnosis could resurface in the sentencing phase if Kohberger is convicted, where his lawyers will likely raise it again as a mitigating factor.

This is not the first time his lawyers have attempted to get the death penalty taken off the table.

In their argument about his condition now, Kohberger’s lawyers shed new light on what has been a heretofore little-known person to the public.

“Mr. Kohberger displays extremely rigid thinking, perseverates on specific topics, processes information on a piece-meal basis, struggles to plan ahead, and demonstrates little insight into his own behaviors and emotions” and “his tone and cadence are abnormal, his interactions lack fluidity, and his language is often overinclusive, disorganized, highly repetitive, and oddly formal,” they argued.

He “frequently shifts the topic back to himself even when it is inappropriate. He uses abrupt, matter-of-fact phrases that would be considered rude. He carries on about topics in a circular manner and perseverates about specific, non-essential details,” they said, adding his autism is “also accompanied by obsessive-compulsiveness, and an eating disorder. Since childhood, Mr. Kohberger has exhibited compulsions around getting things in his eyes, hand-washing and other germ avoidant behaviors.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Billionaire Elon Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, has placed its first-ever nationwide TV ad, a $1 million ad buy that touts President Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office following Tuesday’s joint address to Congress, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The 60-second ad will run this week in the Washington, D.C., media market and across the country, the source told ABC News.

The ad begins by attacking former President Joe Biden, showing clips of him stumbling on the stairs while boarding Air Force One. A voiceover says, “After four long years of humiliation, of failure at home and embarrassment abroad, our long national nightmare is finally over.”

The ad then echoes some of what Trump highlighted in his joint address, saying the president has “delivered the lowest level of illegal immigration in history.”

Musk, who spent roughly $250 million supporting Trump during the 2024 election, has been leading the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency’s massive effort to slash federal spending by cutting government programs, laying off federal workers, selling off government buildings and attempting to close down numerous federal agencies.

Critics say Musk is carrying out his cuts without congressional authority, that his efforts are politically motivated, that DOGE is not being transparent about its work, and that it has unnecessarily accessed sensitive government data.

The America PAC ad does not mention DOGE or Musk by name, but it appears to allude to their work, saying of Trump, “He’s draining the swamp, slashing billions in waste at home, while closing the spigot of American tax dollars to foreign regimes.”

 

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(WASHINGTON) —  A former top FEMA official who was removed as part of the political blowback over payments to New York City for housing migrants in what critics called “luxury hotels” has sued the Trump administration, alleging she was “unlawfully terminated from her position” without due process.

Mary Comans, who served as the FEMA’s chief financial officer since 2017, claims in the suit that her firing led to her being “falsely condemned online” by prominent individuals including tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been overseeing government cost-cutting measures as the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.

Comans’ lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, claims she was terminated “without any warning.” The suit says the government “failed to undertake any process to enable Ms. Comans to appropriately respond” to the allegations, and then put out a press release that she claims was in violation of the privacy act.

“Additionally, the defendants falsely, deliberately, and publicly portrayed Ms. Comans’ actions in such a manner that third parties have asserted her conduct to have been criminal, which is defamation per se, thereby further contributing to the damages she has suffered,” the filing states.

The lawsuit says the press release led to her action being “widely, publicly, and falsely condemned” by online influencers including Musk. The lawsuit includes a screenshot of one of Musk’s tweets replying to a post about Comans, in which he wrote she had committed “A criminal action.”

“Prior to her termination, Ms. Comans was an exemplary employee with absolutely no disciplinary history and had received “Achieved Excellence” ratings for every year that she served as an SES,” the filing states.

Comans has asked a judge for a declaration that DHS and FEMA’s actions were illegal, and has requested monetary damages.

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