Top DOJ official deletes post suggesting alternate plan for compensating alleged ‘weaponization’ victims
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies during a House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on June 02, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department’s number three-ranked official suggested overnight in a since deleted post that the Trump administration would be moving forward with an alternative plan to compensate victims of claimed Biden-era “weaponization.”
The post came just hours after the acting attorney general committed to Congress that DOJ was scrapping plans for a so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
The fund was created in exchange for Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Stanley Woodward, the associate attorney general who signed off on the president’s controversial settlement, responded approvingly to a suggestion pushed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on X Tuesday that victims of so-called Biden-era “weaponization” could still be compensated through claims under the requests under the Federal Torts Claims Act.
“We’re on it.” Woodward posted at 10:45 p.m. Tuesday evening in response to Graham’s post. Woodward’s post was deleted Wednesday morning, and a DOJ spokesperson has not responded to ABC’s request for comment as to why it’s no longer on his X account.
The post comes just hours after acting AG Todd Blanche told House lawmakers that the administration was permanently scrapping plans for its “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
Blanche, however, under pressure from Democrats did not commit to putting the department’s position into writing.
Democrats could seek to seize on Woodward’s post as evidence the administration is seeking an alternate way to pay Jan 6 rioters.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on February 25, 2026 in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday said Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin will replace Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary.
Trump made the announcement on social media Thursday afternoon saying he was “pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026.”
“The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,'” Trump said in the post.
The news that the Oklahoma senator would take over Noem’s job came after several sources told ABC News that Trump had called Republicans and top allies asking if he should fire her.
The president had privately expressed deep frustration over Noem’s testimony during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, those sources with direct knowledge of the conversations said.
The sources said the president was upset with a particular moment during the hearing when Republican Sen. John Kennedy questioned Noem about a taxpayer-funded $220 million ad campaign. Noem repeatedly suggested the president was aware of the campaign and signed off on it.
A senior administration officials tells ABC News that the president did not sign off on a $220 million ad campaign.
“Absolutely not,” the senior administration official said.
Kennedy told reporters Thursday that Trump even called him about it.
“I’m not going to speak for him. You folks know him. You can ask him yourselves, but his, I want to put it this way, his recollection and her recollection are different,” Kennedy said.
Tuesday’s hearing was just the latest in several incidents that have sparked concern among Trump administration officials and some Republicans on Capitol Hill, sources tell ABC News.
Just days ago, Noem and her top adviser Corey Lewandowski made the decision to temporarily suspend TSA Precheck amid the partial government shutdown — which later had to be reversed after the White House stepped in, according to sources.
Noem has faced criticism in recent weeks over her handling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal law enforcement. She was removed from leading operations in the state following the scrutiny, and Border Czar Tom Homan was sent in to take over.
During a Cabinet meeting in January, the president did not call on Noem to speak.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office after signing an Executive Order April 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday is considering whether the Trump administration unlawfully ordered hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the U.S. from Haiti and Syria to return home, abruptly cancelling their legal status out of alleged racial animus and without proper consideration of risks to their safety and the nation’s economy.
The outcome in the pair of cases being argued before the court will directly affect the futures of roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals and about 6,000 Syrians.
The Trump administration contends in court documents that the immigrants were never intended to be permanent residents and that cancellation of their temporary status is “critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States.”
Those immigrants were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under separate government declarations first issued more than a decade ago and later renewed multiple times, most recently by the Biden administration.
TPS status, established by the Immigration and Nationality Act, provides work authorization and protection from deportation – as long as the Homeland Security Secretary certifies that a foreign country is unsafe because of armed conflict, natural disaster, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”
Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake in 2010 and has since been hit by subsequent natural disasters, political unrest following a presidential assassination, and waves of rampant gang violence.
Syria devolved into civil war around 2011 and has been considered by the U.S. government a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades. A major earthquake in 2023 plunged the country into a deeper economic and humanitarian crisis.
“There is no functioning healthcare system for the disabled and elderly to return to, no reliable housing infrastructure, no legal framework that can guarantee anyone’s safety,” said Syrian TPS-holder and health care worker Adam, a pseudonym used to protect his identity.
Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in separate acts last year, moved to terminate TPS status for Haiti and Syria by certifying that, in her estimation, conditions on the ground in those countries were sufficiently safe for immigrants to return.
Those decisions were blocked by lower courts, which concluded that Noem did not follow proper procedures for cancelling TPS and may have also unlawfully discriminated against the immigrants on the basis of race.
The Supreme Court is now reviewing those findings.
“If the government is correct, then they can terminate TPS without conducting any country conditions review at all,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “The statute requires, in our view, that there be consultation with the State Department.”
Immigrant advocates and some American business groups, particularly in the healthcare and senior caregiving sectors, say TPS holders play an indispensable role in the nation’s labor force and contribute billions of dollars in tax revenue to state and federal governments.
Immigrants make up 28% of the U.S. long-term care workforce – nearly double their share of the entire labor force, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
More than 113,000 Haitian TPS holders work in Florida alone, which is home to a high proportion of America’s seniors, according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
“The effects of [DHS’s] hasty TPS terminations are too serious to ignore,” a senior living community and ageing services provider jointly wrote the Court in an amicus brief. “The government has largely failed to address the impact that stripping thousands of caregivers of work authorization will have on elderly and medically vulnerable adults in U.S. communities.”
The Trump administration contends that courts have no authority to second-guess the DHS determinations on whether countries should qualify for TPS or not. They note that Congress, in creating the special status, put a time limit on it of 18-months, subject to extension.
“Congress, in short, prescribed substantive and procedural guardrails to keep TPS designations temporary,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote the Court in a brief, “but left further accountability to the political process, not federal courts.”
Sauer also disputed claims that the TPS cancellations rested on racial animus, calling it a “legal and factual nonstarter.”
The cases are the latest high court test of President Trump’s bold assertion of executive authority in his second term. The justices are already preparing to rule on his authority to redefine birthright citizenship, fire members of independent agencies, and remove a member of the Federal Reserve.
The Supreme Court last year handed the Trump administration a temporary win when it allowed them to terminate TPS for 350,000 Venezuelan nationals as litigation continues.
TPS status for Haitians and Syrians remains in place for now, but many immigrant advocates worry that if the Court allows the Trump administration to cancel the status, protections for immigrants of other countries may also end. The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to end protections for at least 11 countries since President Trump took office.
The Court is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.
The U.S. Supreme Court as seen on February 24, 2026 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday blocked a New York state court ruling that had ordered the Empire State’s congressional map redrawn ahead of the 2026 midterms.
A state judge in New York ruled earlier this year that New York must redraw its congressional map and cease using its current one because the current map’s 11th Congressional District violates the state’s Constitution and dilutes the votes of Black and Latino voters.
U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican representing the district, had appealed the ruling initially in state court and later asked the Supreme Court to block the order, as did other Republicans.
The district currently covers Staten Island, along with several neighborhoods across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in Brooklyn.
In a statement posted on social media, Malliotakis praised the Supreme Court’s decision, arguing that it “helps restore the public’s confidence in our judicial system and proves the challenge to our district lines was always meritless.”
“The plaintiffs in this case attempted to manipulate our state’s courts to use race as a weapon to rig our elections. That was wrong and, as demonstrated by today’s ruling, clearly unconstitutional,” Malliotakis’ post said.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the state court order that knocked down New York’s current map “blatantly discriminates on the basis of race” and that the court had no choice but to step in — even so close the election.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a sharply worded dissent, accused her colleagues of prematurely intervening in a state-law case, even before New York courts had fully resolved the appeals.
“By granting these applications, the Court thrusts itself into the middle of every election-law dispute around the country, even as many States redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 election,” Sotomayor wrote. “It also invites parties searching for a sympathetic ear to file emergency applications directly with this Court, without even bothering to ask the state courts first.”
The ruling from SCOTUS allows appeals to play out in lower courts, but it means New York will not be redrawing its map for the 2026 election.
“This blatantly political case violated both the New York State and federal constitutions and, as Justice Alito stated, the lower court’s decision was a full-blown racial gerrymander,” New York Republican Party chair Ed Cox wrote in a statement Monday.
