‘Homegrowns are next’: Trump doubles down on sending American ‘criminals’ to foreign prisons

(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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(NEW YORK) — The battle between New York federal prosecutors and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department continued Friday as another prosecutor resigned over the order to dismiss Mayor Eric Adams’ bribery case.

Hagan Scotten, the assistant United States attorney for Southern District of New York, blasted Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in a letter one day after acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon resigned over her refusal to follow through with the Justice Department’s request.

“In short, the first justification for the motion — that [former U.S. Attorney] Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual,” Scotten wrote.

“The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” he added.

Scotten, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and clerked under Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, chastised the president and the administration.

“I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal,” he wrote.

“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me,” he added.

The letter came hours after what several former and current federal justice officials dubbed the “Thursday afternoon massacre,” when six people involved with the case resigned and pushed back against the U.S. attorney general’s office.

Sassoon resigned Thursday over the Justice Department’s request to end the federal bribery case against the mayor.

The Justice Department planned to remove the prosecutors handling the mayor’s case and reassign it to the Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C.

However, as soon the Public Integrity Section was informed it would be taking over, John Keller, the acting head of the unit, and his boss, Kevin Driscoll, the most senior career official in the criminal division, resigned along with three other members of the unit, according to multiple sources.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, called the Department of Justice’s moves “unbelievably unprecedented” during an interview on MSNBC Thursday night.

“This is not supposed to happen in our system of justice,” she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

Hochul, however, declined to discuss the possibility of removing the mayor.

“The allegations are extremely concerning and serious. But I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction, like a lot of other people are saying right now,” she said. “I have to do it smart, what’s right, and I’m consulting with other leaders in government at this time.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime ally of Adams, said in a statement Tuesday that he was convening with other Black clergy to discuss the situation but he already raised concerns about the mayor’s allegiances.

“President Trump is holding the mayor hostage,” Sharpton said.

Four prominent New York City Black clergy members — the Revs. Johnnie Green, Kevin McCall, Carl L. Washington and Adolphus Lacey — wrote a letter Wednesday calling on the mayor not to run for reelection this year.

“Eric Adams had every right to prove his innocence and many of us were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that’s not what has happened,” they wrote.

Adams, a former NYPD officer and Democrat who previously registered as a Republican, was accused by federal prosecutors of taking lavish flights and hotel stays from Turkish businessmen and officials for more than a decade.

He and his staff members also allegedly received straw campaign donations to become eligible for New York City’s matching funds program for his campaigns, according to the criminal indictment that was issued in September.

In exchange, Adams allegedly used his power as Brooklyn borough president and later as mayor to give the foreign conspirators preferential treatment for various projects and proposals, including permits for the Turkish consulate despite fire safety concerns, the indictment said.

Adams pleaded not guilty, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and claimed without any basis that he was being politically targeted by the Biden administration, even though the probe covers many years before Biden was in office.

Adams’ primary opponents have called for him to step down since the indictment, as have other New York Democrats, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The mayor, however, appeared on “Fox and Friends” on Friday with Trump “border czar” Thomas Homan and reiterated he was not only staying in office but he would run for reelection as a Democrat. The deadline to change parties is Friday.

“People had me gone months ago, but, you know what, I’m sitting on your couch,” Adams told the hosts.

The mayor remained silent during the interview when Homan discussed Trump’s deportation policy and called on Hochul to resign for not cooperating with the federal office.

Adams, however, did light up and smile when the “border czar” discussed their partnership. The mayor announced Thursday the city would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into Rikers Island jail, a major shift in the city’s policies.

“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch,” Homan said with a laugh. “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'”

Sassoon prosecutor warned in a letter that the close relationship between the Trump administration and Adams crossed a line.

In her letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Sassoon repeatedly suggested Justice Department leadership, including Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, was explicitly aware of a quid pro quo that was suggested by Adams’ attorneys.

Sassoon alleged Adams’ vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted by dismissing the indictment against him.

Sassoon’s letter detailed a January meeting with Bove and counsel for the mayor, where she says Adams’ attorneys put forward “what amounted to a quid pro quo,” after which Bove “admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”

“Although Mr. Bove disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams’s assistance in enforcing federal law, that is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Bove’s memo,” Sassoon wrote in her letter.

Bove accused Sassoon of insubordination and rejected her claims. Trump told reporters Thursday he was not involved with the Justice Department decisions this week and claimed the SDNY prosecutor was fired, although he did not name her.

Adams also denied the allegations Friday.

“It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action. Come on, this is silly,” he told the “Fox and Friends” hosts.

The dismissal, which is without prejudice, meaning it can be brought again, specifically after the November election, according to Bove’s request, has yet to be formally filed in court or reviewed by a judge.

ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, faces a confirmation hearing Friday before the Senate Finance Committee.

Oz, a doctor and former television host whose nomination to lead CMS has put him in the political spotlight for the first time since his unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat three years ago, is expected to have to deal with tough questions from Democrats on the 27-member committee, which will vote whether to move his nomination to a floor vote in front of the entire Senate.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in particular, has been increasingly vocal ahead of the hearing about Oz’s financial ties to health care companies that he will now oversee in his role at CMS and his past comments about privatizing Medicare, one of the programs he’ll manage.

She also criticized what she calls his “hostile record” on abortion rights, referring to Oz’s comments on the campaign trail that a woman’s decision to get an abortion should be made by her, her doctor and “local political leaders.”

“The implication that elected officials should be involved in a woman’s personal health treatment decision is terrifying and antithetical to patient health,” Warren wrote to Oz on Thursday.

Warren asked him if he would use his position to issue guidance that could defund Planned Parenthood, or withdraw Medicaid funds from states that protect abortion rights in various ways.

Oz is also likely to be questioned about a report from Democrats who inspected his tax returns and said that he underpaid on Social Security and Medicare taxes by using a limited liability loophole.

“Dr. Oz’s position is counter to the position of the Department of Treasury and results in him not paying into Social Security and Medicare, the very healthcare program he hopes to manage,” Democratic Senate Finance committee staff wrote in the memo, circulated around the committee.

“He avoided hundreds of thousands of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes in the years reviewed,” the staff wrote. They reviewed Oz’s taxes from 2021 to 2023.

The committee staff reviewed Oz’s tax returns and met with the nominee, his accountant and his lawyers earlier in March. Oz and his team maintained that he was not liable for the taxes the Democrats said he owed, according to the memo.

Oz in the past has expressed support for Medicare Advantage, a Medicare-approved plan run by private insurance companies. The plan must follow rules set by Medicare, such as limiting out-of-pocket expenses and covering all services covered by traditional Medicare.

“Medicare Advantage has definitely become a much more important part of the Medicare program. It’s now the most popular coverage option within the program,” Joe Albanese, a senior policy analyst at the right-leaning think tank Paragon Health Institute, told ABC News.

“It’s grown very rapidly in popularity over the past decade,” he continued. “And that’s going change the way that the government interacts with Medicare and Medicare beneficiaries.”

In an op-ed co-written for Forbes in June 2020, Oz said Medicare Advantage offers better care due to there being competing plans. He said Medicare Advantage could also be expanded to all Americans who are not on Medicaid, which would be funded by a 20% payroll tax. He has also promoted Medicare Advantage on his show, “The Dr. Oz Show.”

Oz rose to prominance after frequent guest appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in the early 2000s.

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