Trump Administration
Payout Fund: The Trump administration was indefinitely barred on Friday from setting up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming they were persecuted by the government. A federal judge said her order was needed because of mixed messages from the government over the fund. Read more ›
Kennedy Center: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington is fighting a judge’s order to remove President Trump’s name from its marble facade by the end of the day. Read more ›
Surveillance Law: Current and former intelligence officials said that the expiration of a key surveillance power at midnight means that the United States is about to “go dark” to foreign terror plots, crippling cyberattacks and other grim threats. But the reality of Congress’s failure to reauthorize the law is more complicated. Read more ›
Alan Feuer
Reporting from Federal District Court in Virginia
A federal judge on Friday barred the Trump administration until further notice from setting up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming to have been unfairly prosecuted by the government, saying that her order was needed because of mixed messages about the scheme from President Trump.
The ruling by the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, was the strongest effort to date by anyone in government to hold the administration to its word that the proposal to create the fund had actually been set aside. While Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, told Congress last week that the fund would not move forward, Mr. Trump has been much more circumspect, insisting that he still loves the idea and believes that people who suffered in court at the hands of the government should get financial compensation.
Judge Brinkema seized on the president’s statements during a hearing in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., suggesting they left open the possibility that the fund could be brought back to life despite Mr. Blanche’s promises and assertions made in court papers that the fund was no longer moving forward.
“We just don’t have the absolute certainty that this fund won’t rear its head in another form,” she said.
Judge Brinkema did, however, give the administration a way out. She said she would consider rescinding her order if, within a week, the Justice Department sent her a declaration, filed under penalty of perjury, that the fund was dead once and for all. She told Andrew Block, a department lawyer who appeared in court for the government, that the declaration needed to be signed by Mr. Blanche and Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary.
Judge Brinkema’s ruling extended a temporary pause on the fund that she had put in place at the end of May. And it came two days after a federal judge in Washington, Richard J. Leon, refused to issue his own order putting the fund on hold.
Judge Leon took the Justice Department at its word that the plan had been shelved, but still warned the administration not to play games with him by pretending it was dead, if it was not.
“Don’t play possum with this court,” he said.
The fund has created a political headache for the White House almost from the moment it was first announced on May 18 — in no small measure because of concerns that it could be used to funnel taxpayer money to hundreds of rioters prosecuted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judge Brinkema underscored those concerns by reading aloud a passage about payments being made to the rioters that appeared in a brief criticizing the fund that was submitted to her last week by two senators, Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, and Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana.
“A scheme deliberately designed to recast insurrectionists — including those who perpetrated violence against law enforcement officers — as victims and legitimate prosecutions as persecution does not merely rewrite history,” the judge read from the bench. “It creates incentives for similar conduct in the future, with the explicit encouragement of the officials responsible for administering justice.”
The lawyers who challenged the administration in front of Judge Brinkema celebrated her order, saying it would keep the fund in check, despite “the administration’s shifting explanations” about its future.
“The court recognized the serious legal concerns raised by the Trump-Vance administration’s attempt to create a secretive, taxpayer-funded compensation program operating outside the constitutional safeguards that govern public spending,” said Skye Perryman, the president and chief executive of Democracy Forward.
The nonprofit group brought the case on behalf of five clients — among them, a former federal prosecutor fired after working on Jan. 6-related cases — who asserted they had been wronged by the Trump administration and would be prevented from filing claims with the fund because it was designed to compensate people alleging harm by Democratic administrations.
The fund emerged from an extraordinarily unusual ploy to settle a $10 billion lawsuit that Mr. Trump had filed against the I.R.S., a federal agency that he technically controls. The suit accused the I.R.S. of not doing enough to stop a contractor from leaking his tax information to The New York Times in 2019.
As part of the same deal, the I.R.S. and the Justice Department gave the president an even more remarkable and personal benefit, granting him, his family and businesses broad protections from tax investigations.
Judge Brinkema made clear on Friday that her order applied only to the compensation fund, not to the tax provision. She noted that the entire settlement deal — including both the fund and the I.R.S. protections — was being scrutinized as a potential act of fraud by the federal judge in Miami, Kathleen M. Williams, who oversaw the original lawsuit.
Shortly after being assigned the I.R.S. suit, Judge Williams, an Obama appointee, had questioned whether it presented an actual conflict that she could consider, given that Mr. Trump was effectively on both sides of the matter. When she closed the case, she noted there was no “settlement of record,” but shortly after, the Justice Department released its agreement dismissing the suit.
Judge Williams effectively reopened the case last month after 35 former federal judges urged her to examine whether Mr. Trump’s legal team and the Justice Department had colluded to reach the deal in a way that avoided any scrutiny or oversight.
As part of her inquiry, Judge Williams has given Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers until the end of Friday to tell her in writing whether the dismissal of the suit was “premised on deception” and whether it should be formally reopened because she was the “victim of a fraud.”
Aishvarya Kavi contributed reporting from Washington.
Julia Jacobs
A federal judge rejected a request by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to retain President Trump’s name as part of the institution while the case is appealed.
In declining to halt his own order to strip the president’s name, which is prominently on its marble facade, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington said that the Kennedy Center had already taken steps to comply with the ruling. “These efforts undermine the notion that defendants face irreparable harm in complying with the order in full,” the judge wrote.
The deadline to remove the president’s name is today.
Elizabeth Williamson and Julia Jacobs
Reporting from Washington
Christine Lienert and Debra Wilfong kept their celebratory champagne on ice until 10:30 on Thursday night. But as news emerged that President Trump’s name would not be coming off the front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as they had hoped, they slipped the bubbly back into the fridge.
There it sits as some in Washington, and the wider world, await a judge’s review and Mr. Trump’s next move.
The center is currently staring down a legal deadline of Friday to remove the president’s name from the building, based on a federal judge’s order declaring the rebranding unlawful. On Thursday, lawyers for Mr. Trump and the center appealed the decision and sought a stay from the court.
Should Mr. Trump lose his battle to halt the order, “we’re ready to roll,” Ms. Lienert said. “We’ll reload the cooler and come right over,” to toast the removal of the 18 letters that have irked them since they went up nearly six months ago.
The couple live in the Watergate complex next door to the Kennedy Center, where life revolves around its events, restaurant and grounds. Ms. Lienert says that she took a poll at a recent gathering for new residents, and many of them said the Kennedy Center was the reason they moved in. Some are keeping vigil over the signage on the marble, grilling anyone who looks knowledgeable for the latest on its fate.
Lawyers for the center have asked Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington to stay his order pending the appeal. If he denies the request, the center can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But the timeline of such a process is not clear, and legal observers say the judge’s original order suggests that the center has until midnight to take the name down.
In December, the Kennedy Center board voted to put Mr. Trump’s name on the building in recognition of what officials have described as his dedication to the institution and his effort to secure $257 million to finance what the center’s board said was a much needed renovation.
Early Friday morning a jogger ran up the sun-blasted granite steps leading to the building’s front entrance, craning his neck toward the facade. Seeing the sign still there, he trotted back down, shaking his head as he dug out his phone, ostensibly to share an update.
Bike rack barricades, erected Thursday afternoon, still surround the disputed section of facade, where security guards, photographers and television camera operators mill about. Scaffolding began to be erected on Friday morning.
Residents and tourists walk past or ride up on bicycles and scooters, asking anyone with a camera or a badge what is happening. Some pause for selfies with a sign that most believe will not remain on the building for long.
Two volunteer organizations that were created after the major changes at the Kennedy Center, Hands Off the Arts and Free the Kennedy Center, teamed up to live-stream the signage on the building. One member offered a balcony at the Watergate to host the webcam, which was installed on Monday night.
“It’s our little piece of magic,” said Mallory Miller, who co-founded Hands Off the Arts. Ms. Miller was an assistant manager in the dance programming department when Mr. Trump gutted the center’s board and took over as chair, and she started a union organizing drive with her co-workers. She was fired from the center in August.
Allerton Kilborn, 79, brought a book to occupy him on Friday while he waited for what he hoped would be the removal of the lettering. He had traveled to the center from his home in Chevy Chase, Md.
“For the adventure of it — this is history,” he said.
“I’m so old that I once met John Kennedy and have been an enormous fan of his,” he said. He said he thought the addition of Mr. Trump’s name been a desecration of the memorial to Kennedy.
“I’m not religious,” he said, “but I see it in religious terms.”
Julia Jacobs
Today is the deadline for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to take President Trump’s name off the building’s facade, after a federal judge ordered that the rebranding of the institution was unlawful. But shortly before midnight, the center asked the judge to stay his order pending an appeal.
Now, all eyes are on Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington. If he orders the center to continue with the removal, the president could go to an appellate court. But the clock is ticking.
Julia Jacobs
Reporting from Washington
Lawyers for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts have escalated a fight to keep President Trump’s name on the marble facade of the arts institution, appealing a federal judge’s order to remove it from the building.
The notice of appeal was filed on Thursday night, as a legal deadline loomed for taking Mr. Trump’s name off the building in Washington. The Kennedy Center also challenged the judge’s decision to temporarily block the president’s plan to close the center for two years of renovations.
Finding that the board did not have the power to unilaterally change the name of the arts center, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington had ruled that Mr. Trump’s name must be taken down by Friday.
As the clock counted down, lawyers for Mr. Trump and the Kennedy Center, where he is chairman, requested a stay from Judge Cooper pending their appeal of his decision.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued in the filing that removing the name, only to later replace it after a successful appeal, would mean squandering “time and money.”
“Moreover, requiring a name change now, only to potentially revert back to the current name after appeal,” the lawyers wrote, “would be incredibly confusing for the public.”
In a court filing opposing the stay, lawyers for Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat of Ohio and an ex officio member of the board whose lawsuit prompted the judge’s ruling, called the request a frivolous “eleventh-hour” gambit.
If Judge Cooper denies the Kennedy Center’s request, it can ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for a stay.
For days, it seemed as though the Kennedy Center may have been relenting on the divisive decision by its board to rename the institution the “Trump Kennedy Center.” Mr. Trump’s name was scrubbed from the top of the center’s website, social media accounts and marketing materials to comply with the judge’s order.
But on Thursday, the center’s board, which is composed almost entirely of Mr. Trump’s allies, voted to appeal the ruling. A person with direct knowledge of the board’s meeting, which was held virtually, said that Mr. Trump was on the line as board members — and a guest attendee, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — spoke positively about the president’s influence on the arts center.
Representatives for the Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump’s name was added to the building in December, less than a day after the board voted to rename the institution the “Trump Kennedy Center.” The decision prompted an immediate outcry from Democratic legislators and led to a series of cancellations by artists scheduled to perform there.
Ms. Beatty filed a lawsuit arguing that the name change was unlawful. Judge Cooper agreed late last month, writing in his order that “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
At first, Trump-allied officials at the Kennedy Center announced that they would fight the ruling over the name change, saying they were confident that an appellate court would uphold the “board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center.”
The plans for an appeal grew less certain after Mr. Trump responded to the judge’s ruling with a tirade on social media. Unless he had control over the center’s affairs, Mr. Trump wrote, he had “no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.’”
Last week, Kennedy Center officials instructed staff members to remove Mr. Trump’s name from certain official materials “immediately.” The memo sent to the staff acknowledged that outdoor signage would need to be removed by Friday.
Judge Cooper ordered that the center file with the court a sworn declaration “from a responsible official of the Kennedy Center” that it had complied with the order.
In his order, the judge scrutinized the board’s assessment of the president’s plan to shutter the center for two years, finding that it had been “derelict” in its responsibility to consider the consequences of such a decision. But he also said he would not permanently prevent a closure if the board did a more thorough review.
In his 94-page order, the judge noted that board members were more than “mere figureheads.”
“They are still duty-bound to fulfill their roles with due care and some modicum of independence,” Judge Cooper wrote. “That tenet holds especially true for board members tasked by Congress with managing property held in trust for the enjoyment of the American people.”
An appeal of the judge’s decision only deepens the uncertainty at the institution as it faces what could be an extended legal fight.
Since Mr. Trump took over the Kennedy Center, it has seen a cascade of artist boycotts, declining ticket sales and upheaval in its leadership ranks. Its staff has been depleted by firings, departures and layoffs. For months, the center had been preparing to close after Independence Day, leaving its programming calendar largely bare.
Earlier Thursday, journalists and onlookers gathered at the Kennedy Center in anticipation of the president’s name being taken down. A parking lot sign had white tape pasted over the word “Trump,” and by the end of the day, buses that were lined up in front of the building had new stickers with the center’s original name on them. Once word spread that the board had voted to appeal the ruling, the visitors trickled out.
Elizabeth Williamson contributed reporting.
Dustin Volz
Dustin Volz writes about cybersecurity and intelligence, including U.S. surveillance policy.
A key surveillance power is on track to expire after midnight after Congress deadlocked over renewing it, prompting warnings from President Trump, members of Congress, and current and former U.S. intelligence officials that the United States is about to “go dark” to foreign terror plots, crippling cyberattacks and other grim threats.
But the reality is more complicated. A legal quirk would most likely allow the program authorized by the law — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — to continue operating well into next year, although technology companies that cooperate could resist doing so, potentially leading to some gaps in intelligence collection.
That dynamic — and the existence of other legal tools for surveillance that will still be on the books past Friday — has prompted some lawmakers and privacy experts pressing for changes to the law to argue that the deadline is little more than a mirage intended to generate a false sense of urgency to assure its survival with minimal changes.
Here’s what you need to know as Section 702 lapses for an extended period for the first time since it was enacted in 2008.
As Congress tried and failed over the past couple of weeks to reach a deal to extend the law, proponents suggested the stakes could not be any higher.
Its expiration comes during a war with Iran and as the United States begins to host World Cup matches and prepare for its semiquincentennial celebration this summer — huge events that will require heightened security.
Failing to extend the statute risks “catastrophe in our national security,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican. Speaker Mike Johnson accused Democrats, some of whom objected to renewing the program because of opposition to Mr. Trump’s selection of a loyalist, Bill Pulte, as acting director of national intelligence, of risking a “serious calamity on our shores.”
Section 702 lets the government collect from U.S. companies like Google and AT&T the private messages of foreigners abroad, even when the targets are communicating with Americans. The gathering of U.S. data without a warrant has long drawn bipartisan scrutiny and calls for changes, but never before has Congress allowed a lengthy lapse to occur.
Virtually everyone in Congress agrees the spy program that Section 702 authorizes is vital to U.S. national security, though Mr. Trump, whose administration is pushing for its renewal, has in the past condemned it and FISA more broadly. Officials at the National Security Agency, the eavesdropping agency that serves as the main hub for data obtained by the government under the law, have said it contributes on average to about 60 percent of classified intelligence found in the President’s Daily Brief, a compendium of the sharpest security insights furnished by all U.S. spy agencies.
The electronic spying program is annually certified by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which last recertified it in March. That means the N.S.A. could legally continue its operation through March 2027 even with the statute expired, according to former U.S. officials and surveillance law experts. Those certifications approve categories of foreign surveillance that can occur under Section 702, such as threats related to terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
Some opponents of a clean extension of the program have cited the legal technicality and the existence of other surveillance powers, including a Reagan-era executive order that grants broad spying powers to intelligence agencies, to argue that renewing the law is not as urgent as proponents have claimed.
“FISA does NOT go completely dark on Friday,” Representative Keith Self of Texas, a Republican member of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, which favors more privacy protections on Section 702, wrote on social media this week. “While Section 702 would lapse, the United States would still retain numerous authorities and capabilities to identify, monitor, and disrupt foreign threats against our nation and its citizens. Claiming otherwise to justify warrantless surveillance of Americans is a weak argument.”
Heavily redacted government documents from 2024, when Congress last passed a substantial renewal of the law, that were obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed senior Biden administration officials discussing the court certifications as a safety net, but expressing concern about potential litigation. While not disclosing their identities, the files appear to show that some American service providers had threatened to stop handing over data.
U.S. officials have said that certain companies that are compelled under the law to participate in the Section 702 program have again indicated in recent weeks that they may stop complying should it expire. Even a momentary blip in surveillance coverage from one or two providers could lead to the N.S.A. missing intelligence about an urgent threat, proponents say.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday that some companies that furnish data under the law may halt compliance, and that relying on the court’s certifications to keep the programing functioning without interruption “is, obviously, a high-risk proposition.”
Glenn Gerstell, the former top lawyer at the N.S.A., said that the annual certifications would remain in effect if the statute expired, but that it was still possible intelligence collection could be interrupted during any ensuing litigation.
The FISA court has up to 30 days to decide whether to grant a government motion to compel compliance with Section 702 in the event a provider stopped sharing data, but nothing prevents the court from acting immediately.
“It’s entirely possible that some internet or telecom companies will insist on an explicit court order before complying with the government’s request to hand over customers’ communications,” Mr. Gerstell said. “There’s precedent for that, and some have already informally told the government that it shouldn’t take compliance for granted.”
He added: “Even if it’s not a big risk, why are we taking chances with national security?”
Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said the law is clear that the surveillance court certifications remain in force until their own expiration date regardless of a sunset of the law itself, which was an intentional safety mechanism built into the statute when it was enacted in 2008.
She noted that the issue had already been tested under a predecessor law that contained nearly identical language. When Yahoo refused to comply with a directive to share information, it was threatened with fines of $250,000 a day and lost its case. The law is even clearer today, Ms. Goitein said.
Section 702 providers “have zero incentive to stop cooperating,” Ms. Goitein said, adding that even if they did, the FISA court would almost certainly immediately compel compliance. The fear of “going dark,” she added, is “a myth being used by opponents of reform to pressure members to pass either short-term extensions or bills that preserve the status quo.”
Mr. Warner is among the many Democrats who in the past have warned about the risks of allowing Section 702 to lapse. But he and others in his party who had been working with Republicans on a potential compromise renewal bill walked away from those efforts last week over opposition to Mr. Trump’s selection of Mr. Pulte, the top housing official, as acting director of national intelligence.
Democrats have demanded that Mr. Pulte, who has used his perch as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to exact retribution against Mr. Trump’s perceived political enemies, not be installed in the intelligence post even temporarily. Republican congressional leaders also told the president that the Section 702 renewal most likely could not move as long as Mr. Pulte was in line for the job, but Mr. Trump has not backed away from his choice.
On Thursday, after members of Congress had already departed Washington failing to renew the law, Mr. Trump said he would nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as his permanent pick for spy chief.
Republicans were moving quickly to get Mr. Clayton confirmed, but with the House in recess until June 23, an extension bill was unlikely to move before then. Even then, bipartisan concerns about the measure — including a push to require that the F.B.I. obtain a warrant before searching Section 702 communications — could still hamper its swift renewal.
Olivia Diaz contributed reporting.
Eileen Sullivan
Some federal agencies have told employees who work in Washington to telework on Friday and Monday because of road closures related to the Ultimate Fighting Championship event being held on Sunday at the White House. The Office of Personnel Management said this is not unusual when the city hosts high-profile events, and each agency sets its own policy.
Advertisement
