McConnell to face constituents as GOP lawmakers face contentious crowds
Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Longtime Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell will face constituents Thursday in his home state of Kentucky as Republican lawmakers continue to face hostile crowds raising issues with President Donald Trump’s policies.
Party leadership has advised against holding in-person events after some lawmakers faced volatile crowds back home in their districts and questions about cuts to Medicaid and Social Security, Trump’s tariffs and his deportation policy.
McConnell announced in February that he would not seek an eighth term in the Senate. He stepped down from his role as party leader last year after a record-breaking 18 years atop the GOP conference.
Since ending his tenure as leader, McConnell has been one of few Republican senators willing to challenge Trump. He has voted against Trump Cabinet nominees and been critical of Trump on his tariff policy, his efforts at election reform, and holding direct negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
He will speak on Thursday to the Glasgow-Barren County Rotary Club.
Angry constituents have confronted Republican lawmakers who chose to hold in-person town halls this week.
GOP Sen. Charles Grassley faced a contentious crowd on Tuesday in Iowa who peppered him with questions about Trump’s tariff and deportation policies and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashing federal agencies.
The same day, Republican Rep. Brian Mast faced pushback from angry constituents who pressed him on immigration enforcement actions and potential cuts to Social Security at three town halls he held in his Florida district. A scuffle broke out in the audience at one event before security broke it up.
On Tuesday evening, two protesters were tased by law enforcement and others were escorted out after they interrupted a town hall held by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s staunchest supporters.
(WASHINGTON) — As President Donald Trump’s battle with the judiciary escalates, House Republicans are eyeing ways to rein in judges from blocking parts of his agenda.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said on Monday his panel will hold hearings next week on U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who is at the center of the administration’s legal fight over deportation flights and the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump accused Boasberg — an Obama appointee who was first named to a lower Washington, D.C., court by President George W. Bush — of bias and called for his impeachment after he blocked the administration from using a centuries-old law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador.
Trump and his Republican allies, including Jordan, have also taken issue with the use of injunctions and temporary restraining orders to halt Trump policies nationwide as the courts weigh the merits of each case.
“It really starts to look like Judge Boasberg is operating purely political against the president, and that’s what we want to have hearings on — this broad issue and some of what Judge Boasberg is doing,” Jordan said on Fox News.
Jordan said he thought Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will do the same.
In addition to hearings, Jordan said he expects House Republican leadership to move forward with a bill from California Rep. Darrell Issa aimed at limiting some judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions.
Issa’s bill — entitled the “No Rogue Rulings Act” — would put restrictions on federal judges issuing orders providing injunctive relief that impacts the entire country outside their districts.
Jordan called it a “good piece of legislation.” The bill was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee before lawmakers broke for recess earlier this month.
Speaker Mike Johnson appears to be warming up to the idea of potentially impeaching judges who rule against Trump, saying “everything is on the table.”
“Impeachment is an extraordinary measure. We’re looking at all the alternatives that we have to address this problem. Activist judges are a serious threat to our system,” Johnson said Monday afternoon.
Johnson confirmed that the GOP-led House will hold hearings to “highlight the abuses” of federal judges — saying lawmakers “may wind up questioning some of these judges themselves to have them defend their actions.”
“We’ll see about limiting the scope of federal injunctions,” he added. “One judge should not be able to suspend and uphold everything that a president does on their issues. I think the American people agree with that.”
Over the weekend, Johnson appeared to endorse the measure, writing on X that the House is “working overtime to limit the abuses of activist federal judges.”
“Speaker Johnson’s indicated he’d like to get this bill to the floor next week and move it through the process,” Jordan told Fox News. “So, we think there’s some things we can do legislatively, and then, frankly, there’s the broader issue of all these judges’ injunctions and then decisions like Judge Boasberg … what he’s trying to do, and how that case is working.”
Meanwhile, the push from Trump, Elon Musk and several Republican hardliners to impeach Boasberg and other judges faces steeper obstacles.
Johnson has not said where he stands on pursuing impeachment, but given the slim House majority, it would be extremely difficult to get the House Republican conference together to vote to impeach a judge.
If the House were to successfully impeach a judge, the Senate would be compelled to act in some way, but the odds of a Senate conviction are almost zero, as it would require support from at least 14 Democrats.
As the rhetoric ramps up between the Trump administration and the courts, the U.S. Marshals Service is warning federal judges of an increase in threats, ABC News reported. Chief Justice John Roberts last week issued a rare public statement amid Trump’s attacks on Boasberg, saying impeachment was not “an appropriate response” to legal disagreements and that the correct path forward was the appeals process.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s administration is launching an investigation into Harvard University’s law journal over alleged discriminatory practices, expanding its weeks-long battle over federal funding with the elite institution.
The civil rights offices of the Education and Health and Human Services departments announced Monday they are investigating the Harvard Law Review, an independent, student-run organization that promotes legal scholarship.
The offices are investigating allegations that the journal discriminates based on race “in lieu of merit-based” standards, in violation of the Title VI anti-discrimination law, according to a release by the two agencies.
“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary within the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement on Monday.
The agencies said the Harvard Law Review risks losing federal funding if found to have broken Title VI law.
The Harvard Law Review has been published and edited by students for over 135 years. It aims to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students, according to its website.
“Harvard Law School is committed to ensuring that the programs and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations,” a spokesperson for the university said in a statement to ABC News, noting that the journal “is a student-run organization that is legally independent from the law school.”
The latest investigation comes after the Trump administration froze over $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard after the university refused to comply with a series of demands following an antisemitism task force review earlier this month.
Harvard University President Alan Garber said in a letter at the time that “no government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The university has filed a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding, asking a judge to block the funding freeze from going into effect, arguing the move is “unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.”
During a short conference on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs scheduled oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the funding freeze on July 21. In the meantime, the funding freeze will remain in effect.
The Internal Revenue Service is also considering revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, sources told ABC News earlier this month.
In other developments, the Department of Education said Monday its civil rights office found that the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete on its women’s sports teams.
The department is demanding the university issue a statement to its community that it will comply with the law, apologize to athletes whose athletic participation was “marred by sex discrimination,” and restore all athletics records or accolades “misappropriated by male athletes.” The school has 10 days to resolve the violation or risk a referral to the Department of Justice.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it suspended $175 million in federal contracts awarded to Penn, citing the participation of a transgender athlete on a women’s swimming team.
A Penn spokesperson said at the time that the university has “always followed” NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has placed on indefinite paid leave the attorney who argued on behalf of the government on Friday in a lawsuit brought by a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador in error, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Sources said Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, was told by officials at the DOJ that he was being placed on leave over a “failure to zealously advocate” for the government’s interests.
“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Saturday. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
The government is seeking to appeal an order from the judge who presided over Friday’s hearing and ordered the department to facilitate the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia by Monday.
In Friday’s hearing, Reuveni repeatedly struggled when pressed by Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland for details surrounding Abrego Garcia’s deportation — and why the administration claimed it could not facilitate his return to the United States.
At one point in the hearing, Reuveni was asked by Xinis under what authority law enforcement officers seized Abrego Garcia.
Reuveni said he was frustrated that he did not have those answers.
“Your honor, my answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you on a lot of these questions,” Reuveni said.
