Raw Story

A judge ruled against President Donald Trump's administration in a decision Monday over the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney posted on X.

The USIP's goals are to promote conflict resolution and peacebuilding globally through a congressionally funded, independent, non-profit organization, its website says. Judge Beryl Howell said that having the executive branch take it over is not legal and "should be treated as null and void," said Cheney.

Trump established DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, through an executive order upon entering office on Jan. 20. The goal was to make significant budget cuts to reach $2 trillion in savings by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse," as tech billionaire Elon Musk described in a March Fox News interview.

ALSO READ: 'I would not be happy': GOP senator wants DOGE to back off as agencies heads confirmed

Among those cuts was the USIP — which is actually under the purview of Congress, not the president.

Judge Howell's ruling reads: "As an independent entity exercising inconsequential government power and de minimis, if any, executive power, Congress’s ability to restrict the President’s removal power is even greater than that outlined in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197 (2020), and the Supreme Court’s other seminal presidential removal power cases. Applying those cases, Congress’s restrictions on the President’s removal power of USIP Board members are squarely constitutional, and the President and his Administration’s acts to the contrary are unlawful and ultra vires."

"The actions that have occurred since then—at the direction of the President to reduce USIP to its 'statutory minimums'—including the removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration ('GSA'), were thus effectuated by illegitimately-installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void.

Read the full court ruling here.

President Donald Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick is emulating his boss by transferring away "his ownership interests in multiple affiliated companies" to trusts that will benefit his adult children, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Lutnick, a billionaire, served as chairman and chief executive of financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald until he was appointed to Trump's cabinet in February.

In keeping with "a government ethics agreement," Lutnick created the trusts to benefit sons Brandon Lutnick and Kyle Lutnick, "as well as Lutnick’s other adult children."

In addition, former Cantor Fitzgerald affiliates "agreed to buy back more than 16.4 million shares of its stock from Lutnick," leaving him $151.5 million richer.

Add to that $127 million from real-estate adviser Newmark Group, which agreed to buy back 11 million shares from Lutnick, the company's former executive chairman.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

"Lutnick won’t have to pay capital gains taxes on the sales as long as he puts the proceeds into Treasuries or a broadly based mutual fund — assets that don’t pose a conflict of interest," Bloomberg reported.

Brandon Lutnick, who serves as chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald said in a statement, “Kyle and I are honored to continue building on our father’s legacy, leading Cantor Fitzgerald alongside the exceptional executive team we have in place today."

Donald Trump has come under fire for remaining in charge of his businesses despite transferring his assets to "a trust managed by his children while he is working overtime to lead the country to economic prosperity," according to a White House spokesperson.

The New York Times reported this month that sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have raked in billions of dollars in recent deals that "directly benefit the president."

The deals include a luxury hotel in Dubai, a residential tower in Saudi Arabia, two cryptocurrency ventures, a new golf course complex in Qatar, and a new private club in Washington that "will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also President Trump himself," the Times reported.

Read The Wall Street Journal story here.

Donald Trump Jr. accused Democrats of not being able to take a joke about former President Joe Biden's stage four prostate cancer.

In a post on X, Trump wondered how former First Lady Jill Biden, a doctor of philosophy, could have missed her husband's cancer and called it a "coverup."

"What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup?" he asked.

The president's son faced backlash online for failing to understand the difference between a PhD and a medical doctor.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

"I sometimes forget that part of the mental disorder of leftism is an inability to understand sarcasm," Trump wrote Monday in his defense. "So for the confused libs out there, I'm well aware that Jill Biden is a fake doctor, not a real one...Unlike the Dems who were calling for her to be Surgeon General in 2020."

Trump ended his missive with a clown face emoji.

President Donald Trump didn't hide his disgust when asked Friday why he was allowing white South African farmers into the United States but "closed off that door" to many other refugees.

A U.S.-funded charter flight brought close to 60 Afrikaner families to the the U.S. state of Idaho earlier this week under a humanitarian program designed for people fleeing war or persecution.

Afrikaners are white South Africans of Dutch descent.

"What message does that send? Why is that fair?" the reporter is heard asking on an audio recording made aboard Air Force One as Trump returned to the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East.

EXCLUSIVE: Breastfeeding mom of US citizen sues Kristi Noem after being grabbed by ICE

“I think if I see people in distress, I don’t care what color, what they look like, what anything—their size, their height, their eyes. I don’t care,” he said.

“But, I think that from all evidence, the farmers in South Africa are being treated brutally. And it’s been reported, and nobody wants to cover it, but they happen to be white. And if they were Black, I’d do the exact same thing. And we treat people very well when we see there’s a genocide going on,” he said. “So if it’s a genocide, that’s terrible. And I happen to believe it could very well be.”

In February, the South African courts ruled that talk of a "white genocide" is merely a myth.

Trump then branded the reporter's question as “nasty.”

“And I’m not looking for reporting because, believe me, it’s easier for me not to do anything. It’s a lot easier because I don’t get nasty questions like that,” the president said.

“But the fact is that we’re about saving lives, and we’re gonna do that. So we’ve made a home, and we’ll make a home for other people that are treated badly, no matter what their color.”

Listen to the audio here.

President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to lift lower court orders preventing him from continuing his mass firings of the civil service, reported The Associated Press on Friday.

These firings have been on hold in part due to a ruling by a federal judge in San Francisco last week.

The report noted that the lawsuit in question was brought by an array of plaintiffs, including "the cities of San Francisco, Chicago, and Baltimore; the labor group American Federation of Government Employees; and the nonprofit groups Alliance for Retired Americans, Center for Taxpayer Rights, and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks."

EXCLUSIVE: Breastfeeding mom of US citizen sues Kristi Noem after being grabbed by ICE

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, "questioned whether Trump's Republican administration was acting lawfully in trying to pare the federal workforce," the report noted.

She "directed numerous federal agencies to stop acting on Trump's workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management," although her order will expire on its own next week.

Since taking office, Trump has sought to slash personnel at agencies across the board, much of it with the blessing of tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force.

In many cases, these firings had to be walked back simply because critical functions broke. In one of the most high-profile cases, Trump fired hundreds of vital workers at the National Nuclear Safety Administration and had to re-hire many of them.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz tried to turn down the temperature on Friday in a heated online feud being waged by former Barack Obama campaign strategist and press official Johanna Maska.

Maska took particular umbrage over Luntz's appearance on a podcast with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and said she "wanted to slap" him over it in a video posted to X.

"Frank Luntz, you may know, is a Republican pollster, he does these focus groups," Maska said. "He was also involved in Newt Gingrich's rise. He was involved in reforming welfare. He actually bragged on the podcast about reforming welfare. And if you remember in the '90s, that meant that moms, who have a job, by the way, job is being a mom, had to go find a job outside of the home.

"And on this same podcast today that I'm listening to, Frank Luntz had the audacity to say that it is moms who are causing the current political division because we're not turning off screens. I wanted to slap him!"

"He was involved in setting the stage for this division!" she continued. "He is part of the problem. And I am sorry, but moms not being able to control what is addictive, that we have allowed unregulated to take over our children's brains, not because of moms, but because of underregulation. You're going to say it's our fault? Frank Luntz, you caused this division!"

Luntz, a Trump-skeptical pollster who had been attempting to make a point that social media is doing deep social harm to the next generation, responded to the post.

"Johanna, you say you want to hurt me physically over a podcast comment. You even plan to track me down so you can hit me," wrote Luntz. "I assume you don't really mean it — but maybe you do? That's the problem with social media; it's often used by people like you to threaten people like me. And when children threaten each other the same way, moms and dads need to take the phone away and kick their kids off the computer."

"I agree with you: We need some regulations to keep children away from online toxicity. But parents who teach respect will be far more effective than any regulation," he added. "I'm sorry I made you so angry. But nothing I said deserves the response you gave — you actually made my point perfectly."