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  • The slavery exhibits at the President’s House have been removed following Trump administration push

    The slavery exhibits at the President’s House have been removed following Trump administration push

    The National Park Service dismantled exhibits about slavery at the President’s House Site in Independence National Historical Park, provoking a lawsuit from Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration.

    The President’s House, which serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of the United States, has come under increased scrutiny from President Donald Trump’s administration. The president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last spring ordered displays at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. to be reviewed and potentially removed.

    Around 3 p.m. Thursday, an Independence Park employee who would not give his name told an Inquirer reporter that his supervisor had instructed him to take down all the displays at the iconic site earlier that day. Three other individuals later joined the employee to help remove the educational exhibits. The final display was removed at 4:30 p.m. The displays were then loaded into the back of a white Park Service pickup truck.

    Here is what the Trump administration removed from Independence Park

    “I’m just following my orders,” the employee repeatedly said, not acknowledging if he was tasked with removing the displays because of the executive order.

    Workers remove the display panels about slavery at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. The fate of exhibits at the site, which serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America, had been in limbo since President Trump’s executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” directed the Department of the Interior to review over 400 national sites to remove or modify interpretive materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

    One by one, the exhibits — including those titled “Life Under Slavery” and “The Dirty Business of Slavery” — were taken down.

    The demolition Thursday, with wrenches and crowbars, elicited questions — and exclamations, like “this is crazy” and “damn shame” — from a few passersby.

    At least one asked if the exhibits are coming down “because of this administration.”

    Another, Jali Wicker, 74, was walking through Independence Mall when he stopped and asked why the content was being removed.

    Wicker, who recorded as NPS workers unscrewed bolts from the brick walls, said the sight overwhelmed and disturbed him.

    “You can try to erase our history, but we’re still going to survive,” Wicker said. “History has shown that, slavery has shown that. … And you want to go back?”

    Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which has helped lead an effort to protect the President’s House from the Trump administration, said in an interview Thursday that the removal of the displays is an “abomination” and called Trump a “monstrosity in the White House.”

    Trump can try to hide it, but slavery is part of America’s story | Opinion

    “It’s a disgrace, and that’s an understatement,” Coard said. “I cannot say what I’m thinking, because as a criminal defense attorney, I know better. What’s going on now is absolutely unheard of in the history of the United States of America.”

    Jack Williams, 47, shouted at NPS workers as they loaded the panels into the bed of a department pickup truck.

    “It’s absolutely sickening,” Williams said. He took issue with workers complying with the executive order, and urged defiance by federal employees.

    Williams’ message: “Take a day off, call in sick. Don’t be the one on the news … whitewashing history.”

    Mijuel Johnson, a community organizer who leads the Black Journey: African American History Walking Tour and works with Avenging the Ancestors, called the action “outrageous.”

    “We see how brave [NPS employees] are,” Johnson said. “My ancestors were brave enough to run from tyranny and these guys can’t be brave enough to oppose an order to take down some plaques.”

    Johnson added: “Our history will be taught — it’ll be taught as it should be, warts and all.”

    Representatives of the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service did not immediately return a request for comment.

    The move comes in advance of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States on July Fourth, when Philadelphia and its historic exhibits will be in the national spotlight.

    The fate of exhibits at the President’s House has been in limbo for months since the Department of the Interior signaled it would review and potentially remove flagged displays.

    More than a dozen displays about slavery were flagged for the Trump administration’s review, with the President’s House coming under particular scrutiny, The Inquirer reported. Removal of noncompliant displays was initially slated to come on Sept. 17.

    But that didn’t happen — until now.

    Instead, Philadelphians continued their advocacy and efforts to protect the President’s House. Leading the charge is the President’s House/Slavery Memorial Alliance, spearheaded by Avenging the Ancestors and other stakeholders who helped shape the site in the early 2000s.

    Coard said Thursday that his team anticipated something like this happening and that “we have a plan.”

    Elected officials, including Gov. Josh Shapiro and members of Philadelphia City Council, previously condemned the sanitization of historical exhibits.

    Parker on Thursday, after her administration filed its lawsuit, said that the city and federal government in 2006 signed a cooperative agreement that may require advance notice for changes to the site. The city is reviewing its options, she said.

    “We are right now researching and reviewing the cooperative agreement between the City of Philadelphia and federal government that dates back to 2006,” she said. “It requires parties to meet and confer if there are any changes to be made to any exhibit, so anything that is outside that agreement, it requires that our Law Department review it.”

    Parker, the city’s first Black female mayor, has avoided confrontation with Trump since he took office last year. Asked what her personal feelings are about the federal government removing material on slavery, Parker demurred.

    “In moments like this, it requires that I be the leader that I need to be for our city, and I can’t allow my pride, ego, or emotions to dictate what my actions will be,” she said.

    The city’s lawsuit names Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron. The complaint asks a judge to order that the removal of “interpretive panels referencing slavery” was an “arbitrary and capricious” act, making it unlawful.

    There is no dispute over the fact that slaves resided at the President’s House or that Washington owned slaves, the suit says.

    Furthermore, the President’s House has been designated a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site pursuant to a 1998 act of Congress. In removing exhibits referencing slavery, the Trump administration acted without statutory authority, the city argues.

    “Defendants have provided no explanation at all for their removal of the historical, educational displays at the President’s House site, let alone a reasoned one,” the lawsuit says.

    Independence Park employees were tasked with evaluating displays for content that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” according to Trump’s March 2025 executive order.

    A total of 13 items across six exhibits at the President’s House were initially flagged for the Trump administration’s review, but on Thursday everything was taken down.

    This included parts of displays titled: “Life Under Slavery,” “History Lost & Found,” “The Executive Branch,” “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” “The House and the People Who Worked & Lived In It,” and an illustration with the words “An Act respecting fugitives from Justice.”

    Other exhibits across the park were flagged for review, but it is unclear if there are plans for park employees to also remove those displays.

    Staff writers Abraham Gutman and Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.

  • NATO chief Mark Rutte shows he’s a ‘Trump whisperer’ with Greenland diplomacy

    NATO chief Mark Rutte shows he’s a ‘Trump whisperer’ with Greenland diplomacy

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands — For days it seemed there was no way out of the latest standoff between Europe and the United States: President Donald Trump insisted he must have Greenland — and would settle for nothing short of total ownership.

    Even after he dropped the threat of force in a speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, the impasse remained. Enter: Mark Rutte.

    The NATO secretary-general may have been instrumental in persuading Trump to scrap the threat of slapping punitive tariffs on eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland — a stunning reversal shortly after insisting he wanted to get the island “including right, title and ownership.”

    In a post on his social media site, Trump said he had agreed with Rutte on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security at the World Economic Forum in Davos, potentially defusing tensions that had far-reaching geopolitical implications.

    Little is known about what the agreement entails or how crucial Rutte’s intervention was, and Trump could change course again. But for now, Rutte has earned his reputation as a “Trump whisperer.”

    That’s only the latest nickname for the man long known as “Teflon Mark” during his domination of Dutch politics for a dozen years.

    ‘Trump whisperer’

    Rutte’s reputation for successfully charming the U.S. president took flight last year when he referred to Donald Trump as “daddy” during an alliance summit in The Hague and sent him a flattering text message.

    Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the dramatic scenes in Davos underscored Rutte’s ability to keep NATO’s most powerful leader on board.

    “I think Secretary-General Rutte has emerged as one of Europe’s most effective diplomats and Trump whisperers,” Kroenig said. “He does seem to have a way of speaking to Trump that keeps the United States and the Trump administration engaged in NATO in a constructive way.”

    Rutte’s success in dealing with Trump appears to revolve around his willingness to use charm and flattery while revealing little of what the two leaders discuss. It’s a tactic that Rutte used to marshal coalition partners in nearly 13 years as Dutch prime minister.

    Trump himself highlighted Rutte’s effusive friendliness before he set off for Davos this week, publishing a text message from the NATO chief on his Truth Social platform. In it, Rutte addresses “Mr. President, dear Donald” and praises Trump for his diplomacy in Syria, Gaza and Ukraine.

    “I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark,” the message ended.

    Teflon Mark

    Rutte became a poster boy for Dutch consensus politics while leading four often fractious ruling coalitions on his way to becoming the Netherlands’ longest-serving leader, surviving a number of domestic political scandals over the years and earning the nickname “Teflon Mark” because the fallout never seemed to stick to him for long.

    The back cover of a 2016 book about Rutte by Dutch journalist Sheila Sitalsing, who followed him when he was prime minister, calls him “a phenomenon.”

    “With indestructible cheerfulness he navigates the fragmented political landscape, recklessly forges the most extraordinary alliances and steadily works towards a new Netherlands,” it adds.

    Rutte and his government resigned in 2021 to take responsibility for a childcare allowance scandal in which thousands of parents were wrongly accused of fraud. But he bounced back to win national elections two months later with a slightly larger share of the vote and began his fourth and last term in office.

    In another scandal that he survived, Rutte said in an interview that he couldn’t recall being informed about the Dutch bombing of Hawija that killed dozens of Iraqi civilians in 2015. In 2022, he survived a no-confidence motion in parliament in a debate about deleting messages from his old-school Nokia cell phone. Critics accused him of concealing state activity — but he insisted the messages just took up too much space in his phone.

    Opposition lawmaker Attje Kuiken quipped: “It appears that the prime minister’s phone memory is used just as selectively as the prime minister’s own memory.”

    His winning smile and enduring optimism, along with his habit of riding his bicycle to work while chomping on an apple seemed to help cement his popularity in the Netherlands, where such down-to-earth behavior is prized. When his last coalition collapsed in 2023 in a dispute over reining in migration, Rutte again leaned on that image, driving an old Saab station wagon to a royal palace to hand his resignation to King Willem-Alexander.

    From The Hague to Brussels

    Just landing the NATO chief’s job showed how adept Rutte is at navigating turbulent geopolitical waters. He managed to convince entrenched doubters, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to back his candidacy.

    “It took a very long time. It’s a complicated process, but it’s an honor that it appears to have happened,” Rutte told reporters after securing all the support he needed to become secretary-general.

    Rutte’s soft diplomatic skills were seen as a key asset for the leader of the 32-nation alliance as it faced Trump’s repeated criticism while navigating how to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.

    Several hours before Trump made his dramatic reversal on Greenland, Finnish President Alexander Stubb — another European leader credited with having a way with Trump — was asked during a panel discussion on European security in Davos “who or what can diffuse the tensions” over Greenland?

    “Oh, Mark Rutte,” Stubb said, to laughter in the audience and among the panel that included the Dutchman himself.

  • Venezuela opens debate on an oil sector overhaul as Trump seeks role for U.S. firms

    Venezuela opens debate on an oil sector overhaul as Trump seeks role for U.S. firms

    CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s legislature opened debate Thursday on a bill to loosen state control over the country’s vast oil sector in the first major overhaul since the late socialist leader Hugo Chávez nationalized parts of the industry in 2007.

    The legislation would create new opportunities for private companies to invest in the oil industry and establish international arbitration for investment disputes.

    Following the U.S. capture of former President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, the Trump administration has ramped up pressure on acting President Delcy Rodríguez and other allies of the ousted leader to invite greater investment from U.S. energy companies in Venezuela’s flagging oil industry.

    A draft of the proposed legislation, a copy of which was seen by The Associated Press, represents a sharp turn away from the resource nationalism of Chávez, who accused multinationals of colonial exploitation and considered the country’s oil wealth to be state property.

    In apparent response to demands from U.S. oil executives, the proposed legislation would allow private companies to independently operate oil fields, market their own crude output and collect the cash revenues despite remaining, on paper, minority partners to the state oil company.

    “The operating company shall assume the comprehensive management of the execution of the activities, at its sole cost, expense and risk,” the draft says, adding that portions of production volumes “may be directly commercialized by the operating company, once governmental obligations have been fulfilled.”

    Crucially, the bill also would let companies settle legal disputes through arbitration in international courts rather than only local courts.

    The legislation also would keep the current 30% royalty rate, but let the government cut royalties and taxes to as low as 15% for expensive or hard-to-develop oil projects, so that companies would be more willing to invest.

    The president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and the acting president’s brother, Jorge Rodríguez, told lawmakers at the start of Thursday’s debate that the bill aims to “allow an accelerated increase in production” of oil in Venezuela.

    “Oil under the ground is useless,” he said, referring to the need to boost oil production and open up new exploration opportunities.

    Pushed by Delcy Rodríguez, the bill is expected to advance swiftly through the ruling party-dominated legislature. Lawmakers concluded the initial discussion of the bill on Thursday after around two hours and advanced the legislation to a second round of debate, yet to be scheduled.

    During the session, Orlando Camacho, a lawmaker and head of Venezuela’s national Fedeindustria business association, told the assembly that the bill would ensure that Venezuela’s oil industry “remains the engine of the country.”

    The proposed legal guarantees — ensuring that foreign companies can bring claims against Venezuela before international bodies — are necessary to attract private investment, he said.

    Even as President Donald Trump looks to lure American companies to reboot Venezuela’s oil sector, many remain concerned about the financial and legal risks of pouring billions of dollars into the country.

    Plenty of investors have been burned before, their assets seized as Chávez nationalized parts of Venezuela’s lucrative oil industry in 2007. Firms like Exxon have been trying to get the Venezuelan government to compensate them for their billions of dollars in losses ever since, to no avail.

    The current political uncertainty also worries investors. There is no timeline for holding democratic elections in Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster as Rodríguez, long Maduro’s loyal second in command, seeks to consolidate control. The Trump administration also hasn’t said when it will lift the crippling sanctions imposed to weaken Maduro’s government, which further restrict foreign operations in the country’s oil sector.

  • 3 people involved in a Minnesota church protest are arrested

    3 people involved in a Minnesota church protest are arrested

    MINNEAPOLIS — A prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people involved in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church have been arrested, Trump administration officials said Thursday, even as a judge rebuffed related charges against journalist Don Lemon.

    The developments unfolded as Vice President JD Vance arrived in the state.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of Nekima Levy Armstrong in a post on X. On Sunday, protesters entered the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor. Bondi later posted on X that a second person had been arrested, followed by a third arrested announced by FBI Director Kash Patel.

    The Justice Department quickly opened a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.

    “Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” the attorney general wrote on X.

    Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads the local ICE field office. Many Baptist churches have pastors who also work other jobs.

    Attorneys representing the church hailed the arrests.

    “The U.S. Department of Justice acted decisively by arresting those who coordinated and carried out the terrible crime,” said Doug Wardlow, director of litigation for True North Legal, which calls itself a public interest civil rights firm, in a statement.

    Meanwhile, a magistrate judge rejected federal prosecutors’ bid to charge Lemon related to the church protest, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

    The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation.

    Lemon, a former NBC10 reporter and anchor, was among those on who entered the church. Lemon has said he is not affiliated with the protest organizers and was there chronicling as a journalist.

    “Once the protest started in the church we did an act of journalism which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” Lemon said in a video posted on social media. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”

    It wasn’t immediately clear what the Justice Department would do after the judge’s decision. Authorities could return to a magistrate judge to again seek a criminal complaint or an indictment against Lemon before a grand jury.

    CNN, which fired Lemon in 2023, first reported the ruling.

    Vance threatens the protesters with prison

    Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and prominent local activist, had called for the pastor affiliated with ICE to resign, saying his dual role poses a “fundamental moral conflict.”

    “You cannot lead a congregation while directing an agency whose actions have cost lives and inflicted fear in our communities,” she said Tuesday. “When officials protect armed agents, repeatedly refuse meaningful investigation into killings like Renee Good’s, and signal they may pursue peaceful protesters and journalists, that is not justice — it is intimidation.”

    Prominent leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have come to the church’s defense, arguing that compassion for migrant families affected by the crackdown cannot justify violating a sacred space during worship.

    Vance, speaking in Toledo ahead of his Minnesota visit, warned the church protesters: “Those people are going to be sent to prison so long as we have the power to do so. We’re going to do everything we can to enforce the law.”

    Arrests follow DOJ civil rights investigation

    A longtime activist in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Levy Armstrong has helped lead local protests after the high-profile police-involved killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd, Philando Castile and Jamar Clark. She is a former president of the NAACP’s Minneapolis branch.

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo on X of Levy Armstrong with her arms behind her back next to a person wearing a badge. Noem said she faces a charge under a statute that bars threatening or intimidating someone exercising a right.

    FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that Chauntyll Louisa Allen, the second person Bondi said was arrested, is charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services or seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship. Patel said William Kelly has also been arrested.

    It’s unclear which attorneys would represent Allen and Kelly.

    Saint Paul Public Schools, where Allen is a member of the board of education, is aware of her arrest but will not comment on pending legal matters, according to district spokesperson Erica Wacker.

    Allen and Levy Armstrong are part of a community of Black Minnesota activists who have protested the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police.

    Kelly defended the protest during a news conference Tuesday, criticizing the church for its association with a pastor who works for ICE.

    The Justice Department’s swift investigation into the church protest stands in contrast to its decision not to open a civil rights investigation into the killing of Good. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week there was “no basis” for a civil rights investigation into her death.

    Administration officials have said the officer acted in self-defense and that the driver of the Honda was engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” when she pulled toward him. But the decision not to have the department’s Civil Rights Division investigate marked a sharp departure from past administrations, which have moved quickly to probe shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials.

    The Justice Department has separately opened an investigation into whether Minnesota officials impeded or obstructed federal immigration enforcement though their public statements. Prosecutors this week sent subpoenas to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    VP visits Minnesota

    Vance, a Republican, arrived amid tense interactions between federal immigration law enforcement authorities and residents. State and local elected officials have opposed the crackdown that has become a major focus of Department of Homeland Security sweeps.

    His visit comes less than a month after Good was killed. He has called Good’s death a “tragedy of her own making.”

    Vance said early Thursday that the “far left” has decided the U.S. shouldn’t have a border.

    “If you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country. It’s not that hard,” Vance said.

    A federal appeals court this week suspended a decision that barred immigration officers from using tear gas or pepper spray against peaceful protesters in Minnesota. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals froze the ruling that had barred retaliation, including detaining people who follow agents in cars.

    After the court’s stay, U.S. Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, who has commanded the administration’s big-city immigration campaign, was seen on video repeatedly warning protesters on a snowy Minneapolis street “Gas is coming!” before tossing a canister that released green smoke into the crowd.

    Bovino, speaking Thursday during a news conference, urged better cooperation from local and state officials in Minnesota, and blamed an “influx of anarchists” for the anti-ICE sentiment.

    “The current climate confronting law enforcement … is not very favorable right now in Minneapolis,” he said. The Associated Press left messages for the Minneapolis Police Department requesting its response to Bovino’s comments.

  • Jack Smith defends his Trump investigations at a public congressional hearing

    Jack Smith defends his Trump investigations at a public congressional hearing

    WASHINGTON — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his investigations of Donald Trump at a public congressional hearing in which he insisted that he had acted without regard to politics and had no second thoughts about the criminal charges he brought.

    “No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said of Trump.

    Smith testified behind closed doors last month but returned to the House Judiciary Committee for a public hearing that provided the prosecutor with a forum to address Congress and the country more generally about the breadth of evidence he collected during investigations that shadowed Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign and resulted in indictments. The hourslong hearing immediately split along partisan lines as Republican lawmakers sought to undermine the former Justice Department official while Democrats tried to elicit damaging testimony about Trump’s conduct and accused their GOP counterparts of attempting to rewrite history.

    “It was always about politics,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee’s Republican chairman.

    “Maybe for them,” retorted Rep. Jamie Raskin, the panel’s top Democrat, during his own opening statement. “But, for us, it’s all about the rule of law.”

    The hearing was on the mind of Trump himself as he traveled back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the president posting on his Truth Social account that Smith was being “DECIMATED before Congress” — presumably reference to the Republican attacks he faced. Trump said Smith had “destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy.”

    Smith told lawmakers that he stood behind his decisions as special counsel to bring charges against Trump in separate cases that accused the Republican of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., after he left the White House.

    “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity,” Smith said. “If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.”

    Republicans, Smith spar over phone records

    Republicans from the outset sought to portray Smith as an overly aggressive, hard-charging prosecutor who had to be “reined in” by higher-ups and the courts as he investigated Trump. They also seized on revelations that the Smith team had collected and analyzed phone records of more than a half-dozen Republican lawmakers who were in contact with Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, as his supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to halt the certification of his 2020 election loss.

    The records revealed the length and time of the calls but not the content of the communications, but Rep. Brandon Gill, a Texas Republican, said the episode showed how Smith had “walked all over the Constitution.”

    “My office didn’t spy on anyone,” Smith said, explaining that collecting phone records is a common prosecutorial tactic and necessary in this instance to help prosecutors understand the scope of the conspiracy.

    Smith describes a wide-ranging conspiracy on 2020

    Under questioning, Smith described what he said was a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the results of the election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden and alleged how the Republican refused to listen to advisers who told him that the contest had in fact not been stolen. After he was charged, Smith said, Trump tried to silence and intimidate witnesses.

    Smith said one reason he felt confident in the strength of the case that prosecutors had prepared to take to trial was the extent to which it relied on Republican supporters of Trump.

    “Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and who wanted him to win the election,” Smith said.

    The hearing unfolded against the backdrop of an ongoing Trump administration retribution campaign targeting the investigators who scrutinized the Republican president and amid mounting alarm that the Justice Department’s institutional independence is eroding under the sway of the president.

    In a nod to those concerns, Smith said: “I believe that if we don’t call people to account when they commit crimes in this context, it can endanger our election process, it can endanger election workers and, ultimately, our democracy.”

    Smith was appointed in 2022 by Biden’s Justice Department to oversee investigations into Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing. Both investigations produced indictments against Trump, but the cases were abandoned by Smith and his team after Trump won back the White House because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.

    GOP says Smith wanted to wreck Trump’s White House bid

    Republicans for their part repeatedly denounced Smith, with California Rep. Kevin Kiley accusing him of seeking “maximum litigation advantage at every turn” and “circumventing constitutional limitations to the point that you had to be reined in again and again throughout the process.”

    Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia, challenged Smith on his efforts to bar Trump from making incendiary comments about witnesses. Smith said the order was necessary because of Trump’s efforts to intimidate witness, but Cline asserted that it was meant to silence Trump in the heat of the presidential campaign.

    And Jordan, the committee chairman, advanced a frequent Trump talking point that the investigation was driven by a desire to derail Trump’s candidacy.

    “We should never forget what took place, what they did to the guy we the people elected twice,” Jordan said.

    Smith vigorously rejected those suggestions and said the evidence placed Trump’s actions squarely at the heart of a criminal conspiracy to undo the 2020 election.

    “The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,” Smith said. “These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.”

  • The decision to move ISIS prisoners from Syria to Iraq came at the request of Baghdad, officials say

    The decision to move ISIS prisoners from Syria to Iraq came at the request of Baghdad, officials say

    BAGHDAD — The decision to move prisoners of the Islamic State group from northeast Syria to detention centers in Iraq came after a request by officials in Baghdad that was welcomed by the U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian government, officials said Thursday.

    American and Iraqi officials told The Associated Press about the Iraqi request, a day after the U.S. military said that it started transferring some of the 9,000 IS detainees held in more than a dozen detention centers in northeast Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in northeast Syria.

    The move to start transferring the detainees came after Syrian government forces took control of the sprawling al-Hol camp — which houses thousands of mostly women and children — from the SDF, which withdrew as part of a ceasefire. Troops on Monday seized a prison in the northeastern town of Shaddadeh, where some IS detainees escaped and many were recaptured, state media reported.

    The SDF said on Thursday that government forces shelled al-Aqtan prison near the northern Syrian city of Raqqa with heavy weapons, while simultaneously imposing a siege around the prison using tanks and deploying fighters.

    Al-Aqtan prison, where some IS prisoners are held, was surrounded by government forces earlier this week and negotiations were ongoing on the future of the detention facility.

    Concerns about escapes

    With the push by government forces into northeast Syria along the border with Iraq, Baghdad became concerned that some of the detainees might become a danger to Iraq’s security, if they managed to flee from the detention centers amid the chaos.

    An Iraqi security official said that the decision to transfer the prisoners from Syria to Iraq was an Iraqi decision, welcomed by the U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian government. The official said that it was in Iraq’s security interest to detain them in Iraqi prisons rather than leaving them in Syria.

    Also Thursday, a senior U.S. military official confirmed to the AP that Iraq “offered proactively” to take the IS prisoners rather than the U.S. requesting it of them.

    A Syrian foreign ministry official said that the plan to transfer IS prisoners from Syria to Iraq had been under discussion for months before the recent clashes with the SDF.

    All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly.

    Over the past several years, the SDF has handed over to Iraqi authorities foreign fighters, including French citizens, who were put on trial and received sentences.

    The SDF still controls more than a dozen detention facilities holding around 9,000 IS members, but is slated to hand the prisons over to government control under a peace process that also is supposed to eventually merge the SDF with government forces.

    U.S. Central Command said that the first transfer on Wednesday involved 150 IS members, who were taken from Syria’s northeastern province of Hassakeh to “secure locations” in Iraq. The statement said that up to 7,000 detainees could be transferred to Iraqi-controlled facilities.

    Iraq has beefed up patrols along its border with Syria. On Thursday, tanks lined up along the frontier in the northern province of Sinjar.

    Members of the Yazidi minority in Sinjar have been particularly fearful of a repeat of 2014 when IS militants overran the area and launched particularly brutal attacks on Yazidis, considered by the extremist group to be heretics. Militants killed Yazidi men and boys and sold women into sexual slavery or forced them to convert and marry militants.

    Stark warning

    IS declared a caliphate in 2014 in large parts of Syria and Iraq, attracting large numbers of fighters from around the world.

    The militant group was defeated in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later, but IS sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. As a key U.S. ally in the region, the SDF played a major role in defeating IS.

    Also Thursday, the SDF accused the government of violating a four-day truce declared on Tuesday. It said Syrian government forces pounded the southern outskirts of the northern town of Kobani, which recently became besieged after the government’s push in the northeast over the past two weeks.

    A commander with the Kurdish women’s militia in Syria, speaking from inside Kobani, told reporters during an online news conference that living conditions there are deteriorating.

    Nesrin Abdullah of the Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ, said that if the fighting around Kobani continues, thousands of people “will be massacred.”

    She said that there was no electricity or running water in the town, which a decade ago became the symbol of resistance against IS. The militants at the time besieged it for months before being pushed back.

    “The people here are facing a genocide,” she said. “We have many people in hospitals, and hospitals cannot continue if there is no electricity.”

    U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari told the U.N. Security Council Thursday that clashes were taking place in parts of Hassakeh province and also on the outskirts of Kobani, an enclave controlled by the SDF, and that the situation on the ground elsewhere was “very tense.”

  • Trump rolls out his Board of Peace, but many top U.S. allies aren’t participating

    Trump rolls out his Board of Peace, but many top U.S. allies aren’t participating

    DAVOS, Switzerland — President Donald Trump on Thursday inaugurated his Board of Peace to lead efforts at maintaining a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas, insisting that “everyone wants to be a part” of the body he said could eventually rival the United Nations — despite many U.S. allies opting not to participate.

    In a speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump sought to create momentum for a project to map out a future of the war-torn Gaza Strip that has been overshadowed this week, first by his threats to seize Greenland, then by a dramatic retreat from that push.

    “This isn’t the United States, this is for the world,” he said, adding, “I think we can spread it out to other things as we succeed in Gaza.”

    The event featured Ali Shaath, the head of a new, future technocratic government in Gaza, announcing that the Rafah border crossing will open in both directions next week. But there was no confirmation of that from Israel, which said only that it would consider the matter next week.

    The Gaza side of the crossing, which runs between Gaza and Egypt, is currently under Israeli military control. Shaath, an engineer and former Palestinian Authority official from Gaza, is overseeing the Palestinian committee set to govern the territory under U.S. supervision.

    The new peace board was initially envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing the ceasefire, but it has morphed into something far more ambitious — and skepticism about its membership and mandate has led some countries usually closest to Washington to take a pass.

    Trump tried not to let those not participating ruin his unveiling party, saying 59 countries had signed onto the board — even though heads of state, top diplomats and other officials from only 19 countries plus the U.S. actually attended the event. He told the group, ranging from Azerbaijan to Paraguay to Hungary, “You’re the most powerful people in the world.”

    Trump has spoken about the board replacing some U.N. functions and perhaps even making that entire body obsolete one day. But he was more conciliatory in his remarks on the sidelines of the forum in the Swiss alps.

    “We’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” Trump said, even as he denigrated the U.N. for doing what he said wasn’t enough to calm some conflicts around the globe.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio said some countries’ leaders have indicated they plan to join but still require approval from their parliaments.

    Why some countries aren’t participating

    Big questions remain, however, about what the eventual board will look like.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country is still consulting with Moscow’s “strategic partners” before deciding to commit. The Russian was hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday in Moscow.

    Others are asking why Putin and other authoritarian leaders had even been invited to join. Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said her country wasn’t signing on “because this is about a legal treaty that raises much broader issues.”

    “And we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace, when we have still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine,” she told the BBC.

    Norway and Sweden have indicated they won’t participate. France declined after its officials stressed that while they support the Gaza peace plan, they were concerned the board could seek to replace the U.N.

    Canada, Ukraine, China, and the executive arm of the European Union also haven’t committed. Trump calling off the steep tariffs he threatened over Greenland could ease some allies’ reluctance, but the issue is still far from settled.

    The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin plans to discuss his proposal to send $1 billion to the Board of Peace and use it for humanitarian purposes during his talks with Abbas — if Russia can use of those assets the U.S. had previously blocked.

    Others voice reservations

    The idea for the Board of Peace was first laid out in Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan and even was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

    But an Arab diplomat in a European capital said that Middle Eastern governments coordinated their response to Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace and that it was crafted to limit the acceptance to the Gaza plan as mandated by the U.N. Security Council.

    Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter more freely, the diplomat said the announced acceptance is “preliminary” and that the charter presented by the U.S. administration contradicts in some parts the United Nations’ mission. The diplomat also said that other major powers are unlikely to support the board in its current form.

    Months into the ceasefire, Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians continue to suffer the humanitarian crisis unleashed by more than two years of war. And violence in Gaza continues.

    Key to the truce continuing to hold is the disarming of Hamas, something that the militant group that has controlled the Palestinian territory since 2007 has refused to do, despite Israel seeing it as non-negotiable. Trump on Thursday repeated his frequent warnings that the group will have to disarm or face dire consequences.

    He also said the war in Gaza “is really coming to an end” while conceding, “We have little fires that we’ll put out. But they’re little,” and they had been “giant, giant, massive fires.”

    Iran looms large

    Trump’s push for peace also comes after he threatened military action this month against Iran as it carried out a violent crackdown against some of the largest street protests in years, killing thousands of people.

    Trump, for the time being, has signaled he won’t carry out any new strikes on Iran after he said he received assurances that the Islamic government would not carry out the planned hangings of more than 800 protesters.

    But Trump also made the case that his tough approach to Tehran — including strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June last year — was critical to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal coalescing.

    Meanwhile, Trump also spoke behind closed doors for about an hour with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called the discussion “very good” without mentioning major breakthroughs. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected in Moscow for talks aimed at ending Russia’s nearly 4-year-old war in Ukraine.

    Zelensky later addressed the Davos forum and said there would be two days of trilateral meetings involving the U.S., Ukraine and Russia in the United Arab Emirates starting Friday — following the U.S. talks in Moscow.

    “Russians have to be ready for compromises because, you know, everybody has to be ready, not only Ukraine, and this is important for us,” Zelensky said.

  • After ‘good’ Trump meeting, Zelensky pushes Europe hard to do more

    After ‘good’ Trump meeting, Zelensky pushes Europe hard to do more

    KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed a blistering speech at Europe during the World Economic Forum on Thursday after a last-minute meeting with President Donald Trump, which both leaders described as “good,” saying framework documents between the two countries — in hopes of ending the conflict — were nearing the final stages.

    After nearly four years of full-scale war, Zelensky described how life in Ukraine felt like the movie Groundhog Day with ramped-up attacks coming amid a brutally cold winter. All the while Europe is still unequipped to defend itself against Russia, he said, which has not slowed its assault since 2022.

    In the face of European weakness, Zelensky said, “the backstop of Trump is needed” with no security guarantees functioning without the United States. He emphasized that Europe needed to be a united force: “Europe should not be a salad of small and middle powers.”

    “Europe loves to discuss the future but avoids taking action today, action that defines what kind of future we will have,” Zelensky said in his speech in Davos, Switzerland, following the hourlong meeting with Trump. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decides to take Lithuania or strike Poland, who will respond? … Tomorrow you may have to defend your way of life.”

    The speech, which received a standing ovation, didn’t appear to have been originally scheduled. Zelensky scrambled to get to Switzerland after Trump on Wednesday unexpectedly said that he planned to meet with Zelensky that very day, adding that he might even “be in the audience.”

    In fact, Zelensky was still in Kyiv. He had told reporters on Tuesday — as the forum was already underway — that he would likely remain in the capital, “choosing Ukraine, not an economic forum,” as millions of Ukrainians froze in their homes and workers rushed to fix an electrical grid battered by Russian drones and missiles.

    Some had hoped a bilateral meeting might lead to the inking of frameworks for security guarantees and postwar economic recovery, with officials hinting the two countries were close to the finish line. But a senior Ukrainian official on Thursday said that no documents had been prepared for signing in Davos, and a key priority of the meeting was to discuss additional air defense systems.

    In his speech, however, Zelensky did say that the documents to end the war “are nearly ready and that really matters.” He added, however, that more pressure needed to be put on Russia to make it agree to end the war and Ukraine couldn’t be the only country making compromises.

    The meeting in the Swiss Alps was closed to the press and there were no statements at its conclusion. On his way out, however, Trump told reporters that “the meeting was good with President Zelensky, we still have a ways to go” — stepping back from his message on Wednesday, that both sides were “reasonably close” and “at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done. And if they don’t, they’re stupid.”

    He added that the message his envoys would take to Putin Thursday night in Moscow would be “the war needed to end.”

    At a question-and-answer session following his speech Thursday, Zelensky acknowledged that “this last mile is very difficult” and “Russians have to be ready for compromises, not just Ukraine.”

    Despite the optimism expressed by the White House, the two sides still appear to be far apart in negotiations. In a news conference Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called into question any deal that allowed the continuing existence of the current Ukrainian government.

    “Any settlement proposal founded on the primary goal of preserving the current Nazi regime in what remains of the Ukrainian state is, naturally, completely unacceptable to us,” he said.

    White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — who met with lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov on the sidelines of the forum — will meet with Putin late on Thursday. Speaking at the forum’s Ukrainian Breakfast on Thursday morning, Witkoff said that he felt “encouraged” and described the Ukrainian people as “so courageous in this fight … under some real difficult conditions.”

    “I think we’ve got it down to one issue, and we have discussed iterations of that issue,” Witkoff said, appearing to gesture at territorial concessions, one of the most contentious aspects of the negotiations and a red line for Ukraine. “That means it’s solvable. So if both sides want to solve this, we are going to get this solved; that’s my view.”

    Previous meetings between Witkoff and Putin have lasted hours and will likely continue into early Friday morning, though Witkoff said he will not be spending the night and will continue on to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, afterward. Two days of trilateral meetings will be held there between Ukraine, the United States and Russia.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on whether the Kremlin shared Witkoff’s optimism that a deal was close. At a news conference, Putin said he would also discuss Russia’s contribution to Trump’s Board of Peace with Witkoff and Kushner.

    As world leaders congregated in Davos, enjoying mountain views, plush lodges and crackling fireplaces, Ukraine’s power grid remained crippled during one of the coldest winters in years. Without electricity, many Ukrainians sought refuge in restaurants and coffee shops, kept running by generators. Outside, inches of ice slicked the streets and sidewalks. The windows of thousands of apartments remained dark.

    Concluding his speech, Zelensky said, “Let’s end this Groundhog Day.”

  • Former Uvalde officer acquitted for response to 2022 school shooting

    Former Uvalde officer acquitted for response to 2022 school shooting

    A Texas jury on Wednesday acquitted a former Uvalde school police officer on 29 counts of child endangerment after he remained outside Robb Elementary School instead of immediately confronting the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers in their classrooms in 2022.

    The verdict is a major setback for prosecutors, who portrayed the case against Adrian Gonzales as a way to deliver justice and accountability for one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

    Instead, jurors appeared to agree with Gonzales’ lawyers, who described him as unfairly singled out among the hundreds of law enforcement officers who arrived on the scene — a response that investigators said was marked by significant communication failures and poor decision-making.

    Had he been convicted, Gonzales, 52, faced up to two years in prison.

    The former officer of the six-member Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department was one of the first law enforcement personnel to respond on that sunny May day, when a teenage shooter walked into Robb Elementary through an unlocked door and opened fire inside two adjoining fourth-grade classrooms.

    Prosecutors argued that Gonzales bore particular responsibility for the tragedy. They focused on his initial encounter with a frantic woman fleeing the school, who pointed toward the general location of the shooter as gunfire was heard inside, and his subsequent decision not to immediately rush in, which they said went against his active-shooter training.

    However, defense lawyers noted that four other officers got to the school at almost the same time but also did not enter right away to confront the gunman. Unlike Gonzales, three of them were in a position to see the assailant, his lawyers said. One thought he spotted the shooter outside the school and asked for permission to fire, his superior officer testified.

    Minutes after he arrived, Gonzales did go into the school with several other officers. Gunman Salvador Ramos, armed with an AR-style rifle, shot at them, grazing two, and the group retreated.

    Nearly 400 officers ultimately converged on the school but did not breach the classroom where Ramos was located until more than an hour after he’d entered the building. A tactical unit shot and killed him.

    Emotions ran high during the three-week trial, which featured wrenching testimony from teachers who survived the shooting and parents whose children were among the murdered and wounded.

    The prosecution is “trying to hijack your emotion to circumvent your reason,” defense attorney Nico LaHood told jurors. Gonzales was “easy pickings,” he said. “The man at the bottom of the totem pole.”

    Both of Gonzales’ lawyers repeatedly acknowledged the grief of families and the community. “There’s nothing that’s going to bring these kids back,” Jason Goss said during closing arguments Wednesday. “Nothing is ever going to solve that pain.”

    But, he added, “You do not honor their memory by doing an injustice in their name.”

    Gonzales is one of two former officers to be charged in connection with the mass killing. Pete Arredondo, the former chief of Uvalde’s school district police, is also set to stand trial on charges of child endangerment. Arredondo has pleaded not guilty.

    Wednesday’s verdict marks the second time that a jury has declined to convict a school police officer for failing to stop a school shooting. In 2023, Scot Peterson, a sheriff’s deputy who worked as a security officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was acquitted of similar charges. Five years earlier, a gunman had killed 17 students, teachers and staff members at the school.

    Gonzales’ trial took place before Judge Sid Harle in Corpus Christi, more than 200 miles from Uvalde, after the defense argued that a change of venue was necessary to obtain an impartial verdict. Jurors began deliberating early afternoon Wednesday.

    Gonzales, in a blue suit and a tie patterned with crosses, wept and hugged one of his lawyers after the verdict was read. He had not testified in his own defense, but prosecutors played an hour-long video, recorded not long after the shooting, in which he recounted his actions at the school.

    Christina Mitchell, the district attorney for Uvalde County, had told jurors that returning a guilty verdict would send a message to all law enforcement officers about their duties to members of the public and children in particular.

    The children inside Robb Elementary had followed their lockdown training, staying quiet and hidden, she said, while Gonzales did not run to confront the shooter, as his training suggested.

    “We’re not going to continue to teach children to rehearse their own death and not hold [officers] to the training that’s mandated by the law,” Mitchell said. “We cannot let 19 children die in vain.”

    Mothers of several of the children killed in the massacre cried together outside the Nueces County courthouse Wednesday night. Relatives of another victim, 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares, reacted with fury immediately after the verdict.

    “I’m angry,” said her father, Javier Cazares, in video provided by local television station KSAT. “We had a little hope, but it wasn’t enough.”

  • Washington Post seeks court order for government to return electronics seized from reporter’s home

    Washington Post seeks court order for government to return electronics seized from reporter’s home

    WASHINGTON — The Washington Post asked a federal court on Wednesday for an order requiring federal authorities to return electronic devices that they seized from a Post reporter’s Virginia home last week, accusing the government of trampling on the reporter’s free speech rights and legal safeguards for journalists.

    A magistrate judge in Alexandria, Va., temporarily barred the government from reviewing any material from the devices seized from Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home. The judge also scheduled a Feb. 6 hearing on the newspaper’s request.

    Federal agents seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive, and a Garmin smart watch when they searched Natanson’s home last Wednesday, according to a court filing. The search was part of an investigation of a Pentagon contractor accused of illegally handling classified information.

    “The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials,” the Post said in a statement.

    The seized material spanned years of Natanson’s reporting across hundreds of stories, including communications with confidential sources, the Post said. The newspaper asked the court in Virginia to order the immediate return of all seized materials and to bar the government from using any of it.

    “Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant,” the Post’s court filing says.

    The Pentagon contractor, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, was arrested earlier this month on a charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. A warrant said the search of Natanson’s home was related to the investigation of Perez-Lugones, the Post reported.

    Natanson has been covering Republican President Donald Trump’s transformation of the federal government, The Post recently published a piece in which she described gaining hundreds of new sources from the federal workforce, leading one colleague to call her “the federal government whisperer.”

    Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the search was done at the request of the Defense Department and that the journalist was “obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”

    Perez-Lugones, a U.S. Navy veteran who resides in Laurel, Md., has not been charged with sharing classified information or accused in court papers of leaking.

    The Justice Department has internal guidelines governing its response to news media leaks. In April, Bondi issued new guidelines restoring prosecutors’ authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

    The new guidelines rescinded a policy from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations.

    Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press president Bruce Brown said the unprecedented search of the reporter’s home, “imperils public interest reporting and will have ramifications far beyond this specific case.”

    “It is critical that the court blocks the government from searching through this material until it can address the profound threat to the First Amendment posed by the raid,” Brown said in a statement Wednesday.