Judge partially backs Democrat Kennedy Center trustee in lawsuit over renaming
Protesters gather in front of the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facade on Dec.20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday mostly in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, in her effort to obtain more details about the planned closure and renovation of the Kennedy Center, which is set for a board vote at the White House on Monday.
Judge Christopher Cooper also ruled that as a trustee, Beatty must be afforded a “meaningful opportunity to provide input” and not be “categorically barred” from speaking at the meeting, which President Donald Trump is set to chair.
But Cooper stopped short of requiring at this stage that Beatty be permitted to cast a vote as a trustee, saying that is a “trickier question” with no clearcut answers.
“As the foregoing facts suggest, a project of this salience and magnitude—which threatens to involve at least some demolition and reconstruction of a major national memorial and active performing arts theater—does not happen overnight,” Cooper said in his ruling.
The judge directed the government to provide Beatty with materials on the project ahead of the Monday meeting.
“The government’s assertion, both in its briefing and at the hearing, that such information is ‘preliminary’ and not yet sufficiently ‘finalized’ to share with the full slate of decisionmakers—just four days before the Board is set to vote on a complete, two-year closure of the Center they are statutorily charged with overseeing—borders on preposterous,” Cooper said.
Beatty’s pending lawsuit challenges the renaming of the Kennedy Center to the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the pending closure and renovations. Cooper said the court will address those issues at a later date.
“No president has the authority to shut Congress out of the governance of the Kennedy Center, much less unilaterally rename or demolish it,” Beatty said in a statement Saturday. “We will not stand by while an important part of our national heritage is jeopardized, and I intend to make that clear at next week’s board meeting.”
The White House didn’t immediately have a comment about the ruling.
Asked for comment on the lawsuit previously, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told ABC News in a statement that the Kennedy Center’s board voted to rename it after Trump “stepped up and saved the old Kennedy Center.”
As for whether a sitting member of the House who serves on the Kennedy Center board as a function of her office can vote, Judge Cooper said that the legal argument in Beatty’s favor is strong, but how the board has operated in practice in that respect is not clear.
Some veterans of the Kennedy Center recalled ex-officio members of the board voting, while others say they never observed that.
The board approved a bylaws change last May to delineate presidentially-appointed general trustees from “nonvoting” ex-officio members.
“Though the Court thinks that Beatty has the better statutory argument as to both participation and the right to vote, her battle for emergency relief on these fronts is not yet won,” Cooper ruled.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection logo is displayed on the side of a patrol boat on September 26, 2025, in San Diego, California. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A Customs and Border Protection official on Friday told a federal judge that the agency does not have the technology or manpower to immediately process $166 billion in tariff refunds, arguing the process would distract from its role addressing “imminent threats to national security.”
In a sworn filing, the official said that CBP needs an additional 45 days to create a system to process refunds for the more than 53 million entries related to the unlawful tariffs.
“CBP has never been ordered to, nor has it attempted to, process a volume of refunds anywhere near the volume of total entries and Entry Summary lines on which IEEPA duties have been deposited,” wrote Brandon Lord, the executive director of CBP’s Trade Programs Directorate.
The disclosure comes two days after a judge from the Court of International Trade initially ordered the Trump administration to remove the tariffs from its backlog of import paperwork. Even though the liquidation process — when the agency finalizes a tariff payment after goods enter the country — is largely automated and the Supreme Court overturned the tariffs two weeks ago, Lord said that Customs and Border Protection “is not able to comply” with the court’s order.
“CBP is now facing an unprecedented volume of refunds. Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency’s trade enforcement mission,” Lord said.
According to Lord, the current system used to process tariffs cannot handle the volume of refund requests, and that doing so manually would take resources away from “responsibilities that serve to mitigate imminent threats to national security and economic security.”
Following a hearing on Friday related to the refund process, which was closed to the public, Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade suspended his earlier order to immediately begin recalculating tariffs dues.
By lifting his initial order, the judge appears to be making room for the refund process to play out, though the exact timeline of refunds remains unclear.
During previous hearings, the judge had expressed skepticism that the refund process would be a “mess” or that the government lacked the resources to issue refunds.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., conducts a news conference with members of the Congressional Black Caucus during the House Democrats 2025 Issues Conference at the Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Va., on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Gregory Meeks knows the pivotal role Black men can play in a young person’s life.
“In high school, my [Black] male teacher was Mr. Ozzie and he guided me, you know, through some difficult times and through good times,” Meeks, D-N.Y., told ABC News.
He praised Ozzie for giving him life advice and will never forget how his former teacher inspired him to pursue politics.
“He got me involved in student government at the time,” Meeks said, adding “Without the foundation, I would never be here.”
In interviews with ABC News over the last year, lawmakers across a broad spectrum discussed their relationship with the Black male figures who taught them during their formative years. Having a Black male — and a diverse group of educators — benefits “everyone,” not just Black students, according to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and education experts who spoke with ABC News.
However, less than 2% of all U.S. public school teachers are Black men, according to recent government data. It stems from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended racial segregation in America’s public schools and prompted a massive white resistance to the new law of the land.
Leslie T. Fenwick, author of “Jim Crow’s Pink Slip: The Untold Story of Black Principal and Teacher Leadership,” told ABC News that the resistance — by mostly white Southern politicians — helped cause the shortage of Black male educators, and Black educators as a whole were forced out in droves.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the latest data on Black male teachers are a “concerning statistic.” Still, the Louisiana native told ABC News that he had “many” Black male teachers over the years.
“One of my favorites was Mr. Tilmer Keels,” Johnson recalled. “He was our band director in middle school. He was such a great inspirational leader,” Johnson added.
Johnson, Meeks and their colleagues overwhelmingly described Black male teachers as supportive, encouraging, and provided positive images for young people.
“They [Black male educators] were very significant for me, and we need more than just one,” Meeks said. “I should be able to talk about three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them,” he added.
Bipartisan appreciation
There’s bipartisan support throughout Congress for these impactful teachers.
Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., said teaching is one of the “most important” careers one can choose. Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis, one of the oldest lawmakers on Capitol Hill, said his roles in public service include teaching.
Jonathan L. Jackson’s father, civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson who passed away last week, served as a role model for Black youth across the nation. In the classroom, Jackson said he had at least two Black male teachers throughout high school who he said impacted his worldview.
“People need someone to look up to,” Jackson told ABC News. “That’s why we should be pushing specifically for more African American males in science, education, humanities, histories and all the other good things.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is also pushing to increase representation in the classroom.
“I’m an advocate for having more male teachers in general, but certainly Black male teachers,” he said, adding, “I think you need a picture of what you want to become in the world.”
Recruitment and retention
Over years of reporting, several Black male educators at public, charter and private pre-K-12 schools have told ABC News that they feel underappreciated and overstretched — with their numbers in the profession already small and appearing to dwindle, according to experts.
Today, 100 years after the first observance of what would become Black History Month, roughly three dozen Black males are serving in Congress. The ones who spoke to ABC News believe Black men deserve a space in the classroom.
Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House Education & Workforce Committee who grew up in the segregated South, doesn’t remember ever having a Black male teacher — from elementary school all the way through to when he earned his law degree from Boston College. He noted that teachers and coaches hold an important place in a child’s upbringing, stressing that there should be more Black male educators in schools.
Eric Duncan, the director for preschool-12th grade policy at the nonprofit organization The Education Trust, argued Congress holds the power to bolster the Black male educator through a multitude of levers that would incentivize them to stay in the profession, including scholarships, mortgage assistance, and teacher tax credits.
Duncan, a former social studies teacher, said Black male educators need to feel empowered. Their dismal numbers would improve if the legislative branch keeps level funding for teacher pipeline programs, he said.
“Congress has a role, I think, in continuing to appropriate those funds and continues to keep those programs for the teacher prep programs in the districts that are doing the hard work of trying to recruit and retain Black male educators in their schools,” he said.
“Artificial barriers” impeding progress
The Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling had a crippling impact on the retention of Black male teachers.
More than 70 years after the resistance to the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, some lawmakers say they feel different factors of the teaching profession keep men out of the classroom, including credentialing and salaries.
Rep. John James, R-Mich., said he wishes there were more avenues for Black men to become teachers but “artificial barriers” are impeding their progress.
“The licensing and certification, the time and the money required, this erects artificial barriers to create mentors and role models, particularly for young Black men who don’t necessarily have that in their life,” James told ABC News.
Last session, multiple teacher salary bills introduced in the House and Senate never received a vote. Freshman Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Ala. said Congress has a collective obligation to address the problem.
“The salary piece of it is certainly a big thing, but we also got to get real about, you know, conditions in schools,” Figures said.
“How are we making the environment the best suitable for teachers to want to stay and remain in the classroom long term?”
Bill Clinton speaks onstage during the Clinton Global Initiative 2025 Annual Meeting at New York Hilton Midtown on September 25, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by JP Yim/Getty Images for New York Hilton Midtown)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Bill Clinton is set to give a closed-door deposition to the House Oversight Committee on Friday as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein in Chappaqua, New York.
In her deposition Thursday, Hillary Clinton said she did not know Epstein, could not recall ever encountering him and never visited him on his island or at his home or office.
Hillary Clinton said after her deposition that the committee asked her over and over if she knew Epstein and there were questions that were off subject — about UFOs and the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy.
“So if they are going to fulfill their responsibilities to literally investigate the investigations, which is what they originally said was the scope of their work, I think they could have spent the day more productively,” she said.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both deny having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by the former president or his wife in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.
“No one is accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Thursday morning ahead of Hillary Clinton’s deposition. “They’re going to have due process, but we have a lot of questions, and the purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein.”
Bill Clinton’s association with Epstein was first noted publicly in 2002 after reporters learned of the former president’s flight that year on Epstein’s jet for a humanitarian mission to multiple African nations.
Bill Clinton told New York Magazine through a spokesperson at the time that “Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of 21st century science.”
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and other crimes said in a recorded interview last year with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, that it was she, not Epstein, who had a friendship with Bill Clinton, and that she was the one who suggested and organized his trips on Epstein’s aircraft.
The Clintons were subpoenaed to appear under oath in front of the committee for a deposition in January, but failed to comply, arguing the subpoenas were without legal merit. Rather, they proposed a four-hour transcribed interview instead.
David Kendall, the Clintons’ lawyer, argued that the couple has no information relevant to the committee’s investigation of the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, and should not be required to appear for in-person testimony.
Kendall contended the Clintons should be permitted to provide the limited information they have to the committee in writing.
Comer had long threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they failed to appear before the committee, so when they didn’t, a contempt resolution was drafted and put to a vote.
The Oversight Committee passed the contempt resolution with nine Democrats voting in favor of it, teeing it up for a full House vote.
At the last minute, just before the resolution was to be voted on in the House, the Clintons agreed to sit for a deposition, postponing further consideration of a contempt vote.
Democrats on the committee said they hope this week’s testimony from the Clintons spark Republican committee members to investigate more of Epstein’s ties to President Donald Trump.
Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said that he cut off contact with his former friend more than 20 years ago.
While the Clintons have agreed to speak with the committee behind closed doors, they have still pushed for public hearings as part of the committee’s investigation.
“I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court by a Republican Party running scared,” Bill Clinton wrote in a lengthy post on X. “If they want answers, let’s stop the games & do this the right way: in a public hearing, where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about.”
