Raw Story

As President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration approaches, his plan to issue pardons to rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as one of his first official presidential acts is an alarming prospect that could pave the way for dangerous consequences, according to a former federal prosecutor.

The “unprecedented nature” of the prospective presidential pardons is compounded by the fact that they would be issued to “people who were essentially his co-conspirators in crime,” law professor Frank Bowman told HuffPost.

“That’s never happened,” he added in an article published Monday.

Among the chief concerns alarming to Bowman, a former state and federal prosecutor and author of “High Crimes & Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump,” include Trump’s free reign from a Republican Party that "is far too cowardly to stand up to him.”

“The American public gave Trump the figurative permission to do what he’s about to do,” Bowman told HuffPost “He didn’t hide the fact that he was very likely to issue pardons to these people; he said it repeatedly during the course of his election campaign. I think it’s unspeakably scandalous and a terrible commentary on the state of our politics. I think it’s a bad harbinger of things likely to come.”

ALSO READ: It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press

Congress is extremely unlikely to impeach Trump for “anything” – including misusing pardons, he said.

"We have a Republican-majority Congress that can’t even bestir itself to reject lunatics from high offices," he said. "Are they going to impeach Trump for something the population has given him permission to do? Of course not."

And the idea of blanket pardons being handed out to Jan. 6 rioters would create a devastating effect, Bowman said.

“Bottom line: Do I think this is really bad? Yeah, it’s essentially saying, henceforth, presidents who commit the gravest crimes against the Constitution, as long as they can stay in office, can use the power of the pardon to create a zone of impunity for all of their co-conspirators,” Bowman said in the HuffPost interview. “I think that’s terrible. I think that’s deeply dangerous.”

He concluded that the public response to “a president issuing lots and lots of pardons to people who assaulted the Capitol, hurt officers” would be “quite negative” but added: “There’s not a darn thing anybody can do.”

President-elect Donald Trump was expected to meet with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at Mar-a-Lago on Monday as the social media company faces a potential ban starting Jan. 19.

CNN host Kaitlan Collins reported that Chew's meeting would come hours after Trump said he would consider saving TikTok when he takes office on Jan. 20.

"We'll take a look at TikTok," Trump said at a news conference. "You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."

The president-elect suggested TikTok's reach with young voters could have helped him win the 2024 election.

In a request Monday, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to block a law requiring its Chinese owner to sell the company to continue operating in the U.S.

ALSO READ: We're watching the largest and most dangerous 'cult' in American history

"The Act will shutter one of America's most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration," TikTok's lawyers said in the filing. "This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern."

Former Solicitor General Noel Francisco, a staunch defender of Trump, represented the company.

Voting rights advocate Marc Elias touted another big win Monday against MAGA in his ongoing battle to defend elections.

In Kansas, a court permanently blocked a voter suppression law "that targeted voter registration organizations with criminal penalties for 'false representation,'" Elias said on Bluesky.

The GOP-led legislature passed two laws, Democracy Docket said. House Bill 2183 made it illegal to assist voters or collect their ballots and House Bill 2332 required signature verifications for voters.

ALSO READ: New Trump foreign affairs pick has history of forging ties with right-wing authoritarians

The court ruled Monday that the laws violate the state's constitution by enforcing an "undue burden" on voters.

Organizations including the League of Women Voters of Kansas, Loud Light, Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, and Topeka Independent Resource Center sued to stop the laws.

On Dec. 13, the trial court granted the parties’ joint motion for a permanent injunction of the false representation claim.

by Michel COMTE

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland quit Monday in a surprise move after disagreeing with Justin Trudeau over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's tariff threats.

Freeland also stepped down as finance minister, and her resignation marked the first open dissent against Prime Minister Trudeau from within his cabinet and may threaten his hold on power.

Liberal Party leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election.

"Our country today faces a grave challenge," Freeland said in her resignation letter, pointing to Trump's planned 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.

"For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada."

First elected to parliament in 2013, the former journalist joined Trudeau's cabinet two years later when the Liberals swept to power, holding key posts including trade and foreign minister, and leading free trade negotiations with the EU and the United States.

Most recently, she had been tasked with helping lead Canada's response to moves by the incoming Trump administration.

Canada's main trading partner is the United States, with 75 percent of its exports each year going to its southern neighbor.

In her resignation letter, Freeland said Trudeau wanted to shuffle her to another job, to which she replied: "I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the cabinet."

As finance minister, she explained the need to take Trump's tariffs threats "extremely seriously."

Warning that it could lead to a "tariff war" with the United States, she said Ottawa must keep its "fiscal powder dry."

"That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford," she said in an apparent rebuke of a recent sales tax holiday that critics said was costly and aimed at bolstering the ruling Liberals' sagging political fortunes.

- Trouble for Trudeau -

Dalhousie University professor Lori Turnbull called Freeland's exit "a total disaster."

"It really shows that there is a crisis of confidence in Trudeau," she said. "And makes it much harder for Trudeau to continue as prime minister."

Until now, the cabinet has rallied around Trudeau as he faced pockets of dissent from backbench MPs, noted Genevieve Tellier, a professor at the University of Ottawa.

Freeland's rejection of his economic policies poses "a big problem," she said, and shows his team is not as united behind him as some thought.

Freeland's departure comes on the same day she was scheduled to provide an update on the nation's finances, amid reports the government would blow past Freeland's deficit projections in the spring.

"This government is in shambles," reacted Poilievre's deputy leader, Andrew Scheer, to Freeland's news, saying "Even she has lost confidence in Trudeau."

Housing Minister Sean Fraser, who also announced Monday he was quitting politics, described Freeland as "professional and supportive."

One of her closest friends and allies in cabinet, Anita Anand, told reporters: "This news has hit me really hard."

Freeland said she would run in the next election, expected in 2025.

© Agence France-Presse

A report published Monday by a coalition of human rights groups estimates that as many as 1,360 children who were separated from their parents under the first Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy have yet to be reunited, causing immense suffering for families ensnared in the punitive effort to deter border crossings.

The 135-page report was produced by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, and it comes as immigrant rights advocates brace for President-elect Donald Trump's return to power alongside officials who helped develop and implement the large-scale family separations.

"Forcible separation of children from their families inflicted harms that were severe and foreseeable," states the report, which examines public and internal government documents, materials from legal proceedings, and the findings of government investigations and features interviews with parents and children who were forcibly separated by the Trump administration.

"Once parents realized they would not be immediately reunited with their children, they were distraught," the report continues. "Some children sobbed uncontrollably. Many felt abandoned. Nearly all were bewildered, not least because immigration officials would not tell them where their parents were or gave responses that proved to be lies."

The groups estimate that the first Trump administration separated more than 4,600 children from their families during its four years in power, and nearly 30% of the children are unaccounted for and "may remain separated from their parents."

"A government should never target children to send a message to parents."

While family separations predated Trump's first term and have continued under President Joe Biden, experts argue the Trump administration's policy was uniquely expansive and cruel. The groups behind the new report said the Trump administration's family separation efforts "constituted enforced disappearance and may have constituted torture."

"We need to take away children," Jeff Sessions, then Trump's attorney general, reportedly said during a May 2018 call with five federal prosecutors, the report observes, citing handwritten notes from one of the prosecutors.

Michael Garcia Bochenek, senior children's rights counsel at HRW and an author of the new report, said in a statement Monday that "it's chilling to see, in document after document, the calculated cruelty that went into the forcible family separation policy."

"A government should never target children to send a message to parents," Bochenek added.

The separations traumatized both parents and children, according to the report.

"Migrant children who have been forcibly separated from their parents demonstrate greater emotional and behavioral difficulties than children who have never been separated," the report notes. "Parents repeatedly told Al Otro Lado, a legal services organization based in Tijuana, that forced separation from their children was 'the worst thing they had ever experienced' and reported 'continued disturbances in sleep, nightmares, loss of appetite, loss of interest, fear for the future, constant worry, hopelessness, and loss of the ability to concentrate.'"

"In May 2018," the report adds, "a man killed himself after [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] agents forcibly separated him from his children."

HRW, TCRP, and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic called on Congress and the Biden administration to "put in place comprehensive measures to remedy the wrongs these families suffered" and urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—soon to be led by far-right South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem—to "adopt standards that presumptively keep families together, separating them only when in a child's best interest."

Trump campaigned during the 2024 election on a pledge to launch the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history," and he said during an interview aired last week that "we don't have to separate families."

"We'll send the whole family, very humanely, back to the country where they came," Trump said, suggesting he'll also deport children who are U.S. citizens.

When pressed on whether he intends to revive the "zero tolerance" policy, Trump said, "We need deterrence."

"When somebody comes here illegally, they're going out. It's very simple," he added. "Now if they come here illegally but their family is here legally, then the family has a choice. The person that came in illegally can go out, or they can all go out together."

The ACLU, which has represented separated families in court, has pledged to take swift legal action if the incoming Trump administration brings back "zero tolerance."

"I am hopeful that the Trump administration recognized the outpouring from the American public and the worldwide revulsion to ripping little children away from their parents and will not try to separate families again," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt toldTIME magazine last month. "But if it does we will be back in court immediately."

Pete Buttigieg has earned a reputation as a rare Democrat who can go on Fox News and hold his own, but he said there's no secret to his success there.

The transportation secretary sat down with Rolling Stone for a wide-ranging exit interview on his time in President Joe Biden's administration, and he was asked to comment on his technique in communicating to a conservative TV audience.

"I don’t know if there’s any magic to it," Buttigieg said. "A lot of it’s just simply going there. If there is a technique, what I do is I think about people in my life, or people in the community where I came from, who I might jostle with or spar with or disagree with, but I also actually like. And I imagine that’s the viewer, and I imagine I’m talking to them."

"Because another thing — and I say this without meaning in the least bit to propose that the answer is ideological centrism — it results not only in a lot of ugliness, but something that’s even more dangerous, which is people checking out," he added.

That dynamic reminded Buttigieg of his time as a student in Tunisia under the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

"I mean, framed pictures of the dictator in your dorm, and on the street, and everywhere," Buttigieg said. "Everything seemed to be named after the 7th of November. The main square, the avenue. I kept asking, 'What is this?' And they’re like, 'Ah, something historical.' Because that was the day in 1987 when the leader took power. But what you felt wasn’t this overbearing — well, it was overbearing. A lot of what made that authoritarianism work was that a lot of people were just checked out. Or at least they created the impression of being checked out."

ALSO READ: It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press

"The newspaper didn’t have an opinion page," he added, "and if you talked to people, even young people, students, they just didn’t want to engage in it. And that’s even more dangerous, and I think that happens when politics is exhausting. And politics is less exhausting if we imagine it as a dialogue."

Buttigieg butted heads publicly with tech billionaire Elon Musk, and he was asked to comment on the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's influence on President-elect Donald Trump.

"It’s not unusual for the richest person in a country to be very powerful in that country," Buttigieg said. "It’s a little more unusual for them to have a government or quasi-government role, but not unheard of. What I think hasn’t happened in a while is the concentration of so much wealth and so much power in the hands of so few people.

"And we’ve talked about that generically as a problem in our politics and economy for the last 20, 30, 40 years. But in the last three, four, five years, we’ve seen whole new forms of it that I think will require us to change and think differently about how we manage the access that some people, who haven’t been elected to anything, get to power over everybody’s life. And I think those are the questions that are at stake when you have very powerful, wealthy people given sweeping, undefined roles in or around government."