Senate to vote on Kash Patel’s nomination to lead the FBI
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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday will vote on Kash Patel’s controversial nomination to lead the FBI.
If confirmed, Patel will be the 18th Cabinet official approved by lawmakers since President Donald Trump’s inauguration one month ago.
Republicans have rallied around Patel, arguing he would bring reform to the nation’s top law enforcement agency they allege has been corrupted.
“Mr. Patel should be our next FBI director because the FBI has been infected by political bias and weaponized against the American people. Mr. Patel knows it, Mr. Patel exposed it, and Mr. Patel has been targeted for it,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said last week as the committee met to consider his nomination. The panel advanced Patel in a party-line vote.
Democrats, meanwhile, have objected to Patel up until the last minute. Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, held a press conference outside FBI headquarters on Thursday morning railing against Patel’s “bizarre political statements” on Jan. 6 to retribution.
He accused Republicans of “willfully ignoring red flags on Mr. Patel,” who he argued has “neither the experience, the judgment or the temperament” to be FBI chief for the next 10 years.
“Mr. Patel will be a political and national security disaster,” Durbin said.
Patel, 44, is a loyalist to the president and worked in a number of roles during Trump’s first administration, including acting deputy director of national intelligence.
Shortly after the November election, Trump indicated he would fire then-FBI Director Christopher Wray and tap Patel to take his place. Wray, first appointed by Trump in 2017, stepped down at the end of the Biden administration.
Patel has been a vocal critic of the FBI for years, and previously said he wanted to clean out the bureau’s headquarters in Washington as part of a mission to dismantle the so-called “deep state.”
He faced pointed questions from Democrats on those comments and more — including support for Jan. 6 rioters and quotes that appeared favorable to the “QAnon” conspiracy movement — during his confirmation hearings last month.
Patel sought to distance from some of his past rhetoric, and told lawmakers he would take “no retributive actions” despite his history of comments about targeting journalists and government employees.
Patel, if confirmed, will take over an agency facing uncertainty and turmoil amid firings and other key changes.
The Justice Department’s sought a list of potentially thousands of FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases, ABC News previously reported, prompting agents to file a lawsuit to block the effort.
Early this month, as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the first flight carrying “high threat” migrants landed at Guantanamo Bay, home of the notorious U.S. prison camp that administration officials said would house the most violent “worst of the worst” migrants apprehended on American soil.
ABC News, however, has spoken with the families of two migrants who say they’re being held there despite having no criminal record.
“President Donald Trump has been very clear: Guantanamo Bay will hold the worst of the worst. That starts today,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after releasing photos of the migrants boarding a C-17 military plane in Texas on Feb 4.
The move followed an executive order by Trump directing the secretaries of the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to “expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity” for “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”
“There’s a lot of space to accommodate a lot of people,” Trump said in the Oval Office last month when he signed the order. “So we’re going to use it.”
But in the weeks that have followed, as more migrants have been sent to Guantanamo, immigrant advocacy groups and some relatives of those detained claim the administration has provided no evidence that those detained are “high-threat” — and that people are being sent to the military base without access to legal counsel or the ability to communicate with relatives.
“It’s troubling enough that we are even sending immigrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo, but it’s beyond the pale that we are holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family or the outside world,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
A federal lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., last week and backed by the ACLU, says this is the first time in U.S. history that the government has detained noncitizens on civil immigration charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
A DHS spokesperson told ABC News last week that in addition to holding violent gang members and other “high-threat” migrants, the military is also holding other undocumented migrants with final deportation orders.
An ABC News review of 53 Guantanamo detainees whose names were published by The New York Times found federal cases associated with 14 of the names. That number does not account for possible variations in spelling, nor does it include any possible state cases.
According to federal court records, among those cases, one individual was charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer during a riot at a detention center. Another was charged for allegedly being involved in an “illegal alien smuggling scheme,” and one was charged with “intentionally conspiring to transport” undocumented people in Texas.
In the other federal cases ABC News found, the individuals were charged for entry or illegal reentry into the U.S., a criminal offense.
ABC News spoke with the families of two migrants who are in Guantanamo, who claimed their detained relatives do not have ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua or other criminal groups as authorities have alleged.
A senior DHS official told ABC News the two migrants are members of Tren De Aragua, but did not elaborate or offer any details.
“There is a system for phone utilization to reach lawyers,” added the official. “If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murderers & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name.”
The family members said they believe their relatives were unfairly targeted because of their tattoos.
“He told us he was being targeted because of his tattoos … he was accused of being part of Tren de Aragua, but that is not true,” said Barbara Simancas, the sister of Jose Rodriguez Simancas who is reportedly one of the migrants in Guantanamo. “His tattoos have nothing to do with that … they are of his children’s names.”
Barbara Simancas told ABC News that her brother last spoke to a relative on Feb. 4 to let them know he was being transferred to the military base in Cuba the next day. She said her brother surrendered to authorities after crossing the southern border last year and claiming asylum, and that he was placed in a detention center in El Paso, Texas.
Barbara Simancas maintains her brother does not have a criminal record and provided to ABC News a criminal background check from Venezuela.
Rodriguez Simancas was charged with “improper entry” into the U.S. in May 2024. Court records obtained by ABC News noted that he has “no criminal history” other than the improper entry to which he pleaded guilty.
Barbara Simancas said she has not been able to get in touch with ICE or DHS since her brother was sent to Guantanamo.
“I just ask the government to send him back to Venezuela,” Simancas said. “His kids are worried. They want to see their dad.”
ABC News also spoke with Jhoan Lee Bastidas, the father of Jhoan Lee Bastidas Paz, who is being held at Guantanamo Bay. He was charged with “improper entry” into the U.S. in November 2023 and pleaded guilty. Court records also indicate he has “no criminal history” besides that charge.
Lee Bastidas told ABC News he found out about his son’s detention when his other son saw a photo on social media of Bastidas Paz on a military flight to Guantanamo.
“When I saw the photo of him, I said ‘Oh my God,'” said Lee Bastidas, who told ABC News that his son’s name was also in the list of Guantanamo detainees published by the Times.
“We’re thinking the worst things because on social media, they say Guantanamo is the worst … that it’s where they house the terrorists,” Lee Bastidas said. “I am tormented.”
(WASHINGTON) — A unanimous Supreme Court on Wednesday backed the Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to authorize the sale of kid-friendly flavored e-cigarettes and vapes, including the flavors “Killer Kustard Blueberry,” “Rainbow Road,” and “Pineapple Express.”
Justice Samuel Alito, in his opinion for the court, rejected the manufacturers’ claims that the agency had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of federal law by changing the requirements for product approval in the middle of the process.
“In the end, we cannot say that the FDA improperly changed its position with respect to scientific evidence, comparative efficacy, or device type,” Alito wrote. He returned the case to a lower court for further review.
The ruling effectively holds the line on the government’s decision to severely limit the number of flavored tobacco products legally available in the U.S. market out of concerns over the impact on children.
Kid-friendly flavors, such as fruit, candy, mint, menthol and desserts — which are largely not approved by the FDA and are currently sold on store shelves illegally — have been fueling an explosion in retail sales of e-cigarettes.
While vaping among youth is declining, more than 1.6 million children use the products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 90% of them consume illicit flavored brands.
“Today’s ruling is a major victory for the health of America’s kids and efforts to protect them from the flavored e-cigarettes that have fueled a youth nicotine addiction crisis,” said Yolanda Richardson, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group. She noted the FDA has denied over 26 million flavored e-cigarette product applications so far.
“While the FDA has authorized the sale of only 34 e-cigarette products, manufacturers continue to flood the market with thousands of illegal, unauthorized products,” Richardson said in a statement. “To end this crisis, the FDA must deny marketing applications for flavored e-cigarettes and step up enforcement efforts to clear the market of illegal products. Today’s ruling should spur the FDA to act quickly to do so.”
The companies — White Lion Investments LLC and Vapetasia LLC — did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Since 2009, federal law requires sellers of new nicotine products to provide regulators with scientific evidence to show that the products would promote public health, but the statute does not spell out specifically what evidence is necessary and sufficient. The FDA’s guidance on how to meet that requirement was at the center of the case.
While the first Trump administration had taken a hard line against the marketing and sale sweet and candy flavored vapes, President Donald Trump said during the campaign that he wants to “save” flavored vapes. It’s not clear how the FDA, newly under his control, may modify regulations around flavored vapes or alter the approval process.
Despite their loss in the case, vape manufacturers are able to reapply for approval with the FDA in a new application and attempt to show how benefits of the product to public health would outweigh the dangers to teens.
“In light of the statutory text and the well-documented and serious risks flavored e-cigarette products pose to youth, it should have come as no surprise that applicants would need to submit rigorous scientific evidence showing that the benefits of their products would outweigh those risks,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor concluded in a short concurring opinion in the case.
(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.
