Trump Suffers Highest-Profile Loss Yet as Judge Frees Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil is finally being released from ICE custody, more than three months after he was detained for his involvement in Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests.  

In a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz found that Khalil did not present a flight risk or a danger to his community and that the government should release him on bail, according to Lawfare’s managing editor, Tyler McBrien. 

Farbiarz asserted that there were extraordinary circumstances surrounding Khalil’s detainment, including a chilling effect on his First Amendment rights. The judge also noted that Khalil’s invocation of a due process punishment claim, meaning that the government was attempting to use immigration law as a punitive measure, was substantial enough to warrant his release. 

The judge has asked the government to determine conditions for Khalil’s release, which has been set to take place later Friday.

Dr. Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, released a statement in response to the judge’s order. “After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” she said, referring to the couple’s infant son. 

“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”

Last week, Farbiarz ruled that the government could not deport the green card holder on the grounds that he was a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests or would create a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” if released. But Farbiarz then sided with the government, which argued that it could continue to detain Khalil because he had supposedly lied on his green card application. 

The U.S. government alleged that Khalil purposefully failed to divulge his work as an unpaid intern for the United Nationals Relief and Work Agency and “withheld his membership of certain organizations” when applying for a visa, which was grounds for his removal. The U.S. government also claimed Khalil had failed to disclose his work with the Syria office in the British Embassy in Beirut, as well as his involvement with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian activism group at his school. 

Khalil entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 and applied for permanent residency in 2024. He is married to an American citizen.

Across the country, federal judges have ordered the release of multiple students and faculty detained as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. Khalil has remained in ICE custody since March, forcing him to miss the birth of his child. 

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump, ever the sore loser, wants a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election, which he lost by more than seven million popular votes.

“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning. “A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America!”

“What this Crooked man, and his CORRUPT CRONIES, have done to our Country in 4 years, is grossly indescribable! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump’s call for a special prosecutor follows years of him pushing lies about fraud in the 2020 election and even rallying his supporters to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win. Trump’s team filed more than 60 lawsuits in the aftermath of the election over various claims alleging a stolen election. The judges, many of whom were appointed by Trump or other Republican presidents, did not find any evidence of widespread fraud.

The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm at the time declared the election was “the most secure in American history.” Trump was also twice indicted over his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.

Still, that isn’t stopping Trump from reviving the lies. In 2023, Trump vowed to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the U.S.A., Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family and all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders and the country itself.”

Now it seems he’s finally making good on that revenge threat.

In a desperate attempt to exonerate himself of drug use allegations, Elon Musk actually just doxxed himself.

Last month, there were multiple reports detailing Musk’s rampant drug use throughout Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which were published ahead of his brisk “departure” from the White House and eventual social media feud with the president himself.

On Wednesday, the still-fuming tech billionaire posted the results of a hair analysis to X, which showed that he had tested negative for a wide range of drugs.

“The WSJ & New York Times fake ‘journalists’ lied through their teeth about me. Now let’s see their drug test results,” he wrote. “They will fail.”

Setting aside the outlandish demand that two newspapers’ worth of journalists submit themselves to drug testing, it seems that Musk must’ve been in such a hurry to prove his innocence that he forgot to edit the last four digits of his Social Security number out of the image.

When combined with other personal information, the last four digits of a SSN can make it far easier for Musk to be targeted by hacking and fraud.

Musk seems to still be taking his ouster from the Trump administration extremely hard. On Thursday, the billionaire CEO lashed out yet again, calling the White House presidential personnel director Sergio Gor a “snake.”

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan slammed a decision Friday that empowers the courts to ignore federal agencies by undermining agencies’ authority to interpret their own statutes.

In a 6–3 decision along ideological lines in McLaughlin v. McKesson, the Supreme Court held that the Hobbs Act did not require federal courts to abide by the Federal Communications Commission’s interpretation of a law restricting telemarketing—and that it should be left to the courts to decide the law’s meaning.

In a scathing dissent, Kagan argued that the court’s conclusion to rely on a “default rule” that allows lower courts to decide whether a statutory interpretation was correct in enforcement proceedings was “wrong.”

“The text of the Hobbs Act makes clear that litigants who have declined to seek preenforcement judicial review may not contest the statutory validity of agency action in later district-court enforcement proceedings,” she wrote. “And this Court’s prior decisions have said just that.

“Today’s majority evades the Hobbs Act’s most natural meaning by relying on a novel ‘default rule,’ which demands that Congress use a certain form of words—really, that Congress create statutory redundancy—to preclude parties from bringing down-the-road challenges to agency action.

“That rule has no foundation in our law; it emerges fully formed today from the majority’s head. And it prevents the Hobbs Act from functioning as Congress wanted—by allowing regulated parties to end-run the Act’s pre-enforcement judicial review scheme, and thereby undermine the stability and efficacy of administrative programs,” she wrote.

The FCC had split federal courts after it issued an order excluding “online fax service” from the definition of “telephone facsimile machine” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In the majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh found that “the Hobbs Act does not bind district courts in civil enforcement proceedings to an agency’s interpretation of a statute.”

“District courts must independently determine the law’s meaning under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation while affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation,” he said.

Friday’s ruling could unleash a spate of additional lawsuits against the FCC, as litigants will attempt to test whether they have to comply with any FCC regulation under the TCPA.

Last year, the court ruled to overturn the Chevron deference, a 40-year-old doctrine that required judges to defer to a federal agency when determining the meaning of any ambiguous laws that agency should try to enforce. The decision was criticized as judicial overreach.

Donald Trump threatened to send the National Guard to other American cities after a major legal win in California’s case against him. 

A three-judge federal appeals court panel sided Thursday night with Trump over California Governor Gavin Newsom, who challenged the president’s decision to call in the National Guard after sweeping immigration raids in Los Angeles sparked protests. 

The court was considering U.S. District Judge Stephen Breyer’s temporary restraining order, which would have forced Trump to remove the troops while litigation continues. But the panel ultimately unanimously decided to give deference to Trump, who has the power to federalize the National Guard when “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Trump celebrated the decision in a post on Truth Social Thursday night—and threatened to expand his efforts. 

“BIG WIN in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the President’s core power to call in the National Guard! The Judges obviously realized that Gavin Newscum is incompetent and ill prepared, but this is much bigger than Gavin, because all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done,” Trump wrote. 

“This is a Great Decision for our Country, and we will continue to protect and defend Law abiding Americans. Congratulations to the Ninth Circuit, America is proud of you tonight!”

Trump has already threatened to expand his immigration crackdown to other Democrat-led cities, following widespread protests on “No Kings” day.  

The Los Angeles Dodgers blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering their stadium on Thursday, as Donald Trump escalates his crackdown on immigrants in the city of angels.

“This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots,” the L.A. Dodgers said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight’s game will be played as scheduled.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that masked agents and DHS officials were stationed outside Dodger Stadium in the morning, near the downtown parking lot entrance. It’s unclear whether anyone in the area was arrested. A source told the Times that the agents had gathered near the stadium for a briefing, but they left by the time images of their presence began to spread on social media.

Protesters arrived at Dodger Stadium after the agents’ photos and videos spread on social media, and the source told the Times that the Dodgers asked police to intervene after demonstrators arrived. Police officers formed a line in front of one of the stadium entrances, and the protest thinned out, LAist reported.

The L.A. Dodgers denying ICE agents entry to the stadium is a major move—especially as Trump has set his sights on Los Angeles as he ramps up his immigration war. Earlier this month, Trump sent both the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles to help ICE carry out its immigration raids and to crush the anti-ICE protests that had broken out in the city.

The Trump administration has found a new way to block Democrats from highlighting the reportedly appalling conditions at ICE facilities: flout the law.

The Department of Homeland Security is imposing new restrictions on visits that members of Congress and their staff can make to ICE facilities, in violation of federal law. Under the yearly appropriations act, sitting members of Congress are allowed to enter any DHS facility being used to “detain or otherwise house aliens” without providing prior notice in order to conduct an oversight visit.

But under new rules released earlier this month, lawmakers must provide ICE with at least 72 hours’ notice before visiting a facility. Previously, congressional staffers only needed to give 24 hours’ notice. The new guidance also gives ICE the right to “deny a request or otherwise cancel, reschedule or terminate a tour or visit” for a number of reasons, including “operational concerns” or if ICE officials or facility managers “deem it appropriate.”

Representative Bennie Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called the policy “an affront to the Constitution and Federal law.”

“There is no valid or legal reason for denying Member access to ICE facilities and DHS’s ever-changing justifications prove this,” Thompson said in a statement. “To be clear, there is no agency or department that is ‘too busy’ for oversight. If ICE has nothing to hide, DHS must make its facilities available.”

The policy change comes amid disturbing trends both inside and outside ICE facilities. Since Donald Trump took office, immigrant detentions have ramped up rapidly, with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller demanding ICE make upward of 3,000 arrests per day. The arrested people—very few of whom are the “violent criminals” Trump promised to deport and some of whom are American citizens—are reportedly being held in appalling conditions.

Meanwhile, Democratic members of Congress who have attempted to enter ICE facilities on oversight visits have been denied entry. Representatives Maxine Waters and Judy Chu were denied entry on separate visits to California facilities, while Representatives Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman were blocked from entering an ICE office in New York. Representatives Delia Ramirez, Chuy Garcia, Danny Davis, and Jonathan Jackson were also kept out of an ICE center in Chicago for two days in a row.

The most dramatic visit was in New Jersey, when Representatives LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez attempted to enter an ICE facility in Newark. Law enforcement agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was with the legislators and was ultimately charged with trespassing.

New Jersey acting attorney general and former Trump lawyer Alina Habba later dropped the charges against Baraka, only to charge McIver with “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement.”

McIver has slammed the charges as “purely political,” warning they were intended to “criminalize and deter legislative oversight.”

The Trump administration is reportedly considering nuking Iran.

The Guardian on Wednesday claimed that the U.S. military has reservations regarding the success of using a bunker-buster bomb, a nonnuclear weapon, to eliminate Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility, buried deep in a mountain. Two defense officials were reportedly briefed that only a tactical nuclear weapon could reach the facility, but The Guardian noted that Trump is not considering using a tactical nuke.

On Thursday, Fox News senior White House correspondent Jaqui Heinrich reported that the White House told her otherwise.

“I was just told by a top official here that none of that report is true, that none of the options are off the table, and the U.S. military is very confident that bunker busters could get the job done at Fordo,” Heinrich said.

After days of bombings and further escalation from Israel and the U.S., Trump is now openly floating nuking a country of 90 million to stop it from building the nukes the West has claimed it’s been building for decades. This disgusting provocation would leave countless innocents dead, poison the region for decades, and almost certainly lead to even deeper international conflict. All this from a president who ran on a promise to end endless wars and bring peace to the Middle East.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she wouldn’t “engage in hypotheticals” when asked two major questions on Trump’s plans for Iran.

First, she was asked whether Trump would circumvent Congress to strike Iran.

“[If] the U.S. were to take some type of military action, would the president go to Congress to seek war authority?” a reporter asked Leavitt at her Thursday press conference, referring to the power afforded to Congress by the Constitution.

“I’m not gonna engage in hypotheticals. I gave you the statement from the president, he’ll make a decision in two weeks,” she responded.

Leavitt referred to another valid question as a worthless hypothetical again a minute later, when asked about Iran potentially retaliating with an attempt on the president’s life, as it has been accused of doing in the past.

“As for your question regarding Iranian retaliation, I’m not gonna engage in hypotheticals again. But I can assure the American public and the world that this administration is prepared and ready to defend American interests and assets, not just in the region but here on our homeland as well,” she said.

The Trump administration has already been supporting Israeli intelligence and helped them shoot Iranian missiles down. The United States is already at least tangentially involved, while seeming to inch closer to full participation by the day. These “hypotheticals” that Leavitt shirks are being asked because they appear to be extremely likely outcomes, not just some random scenario that reporters are trying to sensationalize. It’s deeply troubling that the press secretary is dodging questions about whether the president will respect congressional war powers or launch us into another one of Israel’s wars, leaving a massive door open for Trump to avoid future accountability.

The world is on edge waiting for Donald Trump to decide if he will order the U.S. military to attack Iran. And according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, everyone will have to wait a little longer—two weeks, to be exact.

Leavitt revealed Trump’s decision-making timeline during a press briefing at the White House Thursday.

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” Leavitt said, reading out a statement from Trump.

A reporter then pointed out that Trump often sets two-week deadlines only to move them to suit his needs, as he has done while tepidly trying to convince Russia to stop its war in Ukraine.

“How can we be sure that he’s going to stick to this one on making the decision on Iran?” asked AFP’s Danny Kemp, referring to a similar two-week deadline Trump has repeatedly given Russia to stop bombing Ukraine (with no tangible results).

Leavitt stammered as she claimed that Iran negotiations and Russia-Ukraine negotiations were completely different before pivoting to a tried-and-true fallback: blaming Joe Biden.

Trump has previously claimed that Iranian officials want to come to Washington and negotiate an end to Israel’s war, which has so far killed at least 639 people in Iran, according to human rights groups.

Tehran, for its part, has said that “no Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House.”

“The only thing more despicable than [Trump’s] lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader,” the Iranian mission to the U.N. wrote on X Wednesday.

Either way, making a people under attack wait two weeks to see if they will face further bombardment is a bonkers decision. It also marks a significant change in tone for Trump, who has so far indicated he is open to attacking Iran and has repeatedly demanded “unconditional surrender” from the Middle Eastern nation. But maybe he’s content to sit back and let Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do all the dirty work.