Judge Ties Trump’s Hands on Changes to Kennedy Center

A federal judge ordered the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to give at least 30-days notice before beginning any construction on the prestigious national theater—including its demolition.

In a brief order Thursday, Judge Christopher Cooper said the Donald Trump-appointed Board of Trustees needed to provide written notice to Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, the plaintiff in the court case against the venue’s closure, more than 30 days before “any changes to the scope of the project plans … including but not limited to any ‘demolition’ of the Center’s main building.”

The order comes after Trump was spotted through the window of Air Force One looking at a large posterboard emblazoned with the words “KENNEDY CENTER DEMOLISH,” and a legal observer said in court filings Wednesday night that she had seen a “forklift run into and hit the pillars on the building several times.”

Speaking to reporters on the tarmac earlier that evening, Trump made it clear that he couldn’t be bothered to renovate a former president’s memorial because he hadn’t been allowed to plaster his name on it.

“I’d like to be able to save it but it’s going to take a lot of subsidy into the future and for us as an administration to want to do that, I think the Trump administration should be recognized,” he said.

It’s not clear what the legal recourse would be for the president’s handpicked board if they skirt the judge’s order—and it wouldn’t be the first time Trump or one of his allies tried to ignore a court decision.

The board voted Tuesday to immediately close the famed venue for renovations, shortly after a federal court blocked Trump’s attempt to put his name on the building. Two days later, Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center’s executive director and chief operating officer, announced the center would close immediately for at least seven days due to “acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration.”

In his order Thursday, Cooper denied Beatty’s request for an emergency hearing to challenge the sudden closure.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, which has sent observers to monitor every U.S. federal election for the past two decades, has yet to receive an invitation from the Trump administration, the group told Democracy Docket Thursday.

The group typically plans a “needs assessment mission” in order to evaluate the environment, preparations, and electoral processes ahead of an upcoming federal election in the United States. With less than a month before early voting begins in some states, the organization says it’s still waiting for a call.

“The Office sends a needs assessment mission upon receiving an invitation from the OSCE participating State where the elections are occurring,” a spokesperson for the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights said in a statement. “We are currently waiting on that invitation from the United States.”

The group’s website indicates that it has no current plans to send a mission ahead of the November midterms. While the size and scope of its missions have varied over the years, the United States has consistently extended an invitation to OSCE observers since 2002.

The exclusion of election watchdogs is a troubling escalation of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to undermine the credibility of our nation’s elections.

Eric Bjornlund, president of Democracy International, told Democracy Docket that the exclusion of the election watchdogs was par for the course when it came to the Trump administration.

“It seems to be just another data point in this mess where the executive branch of our national government seems to be trying to sow confusion about whether elections are going to be well-run and credible or not,” he said. “And it just seems to be more evidence that they don’t have the commitment to fair elections that past U.S. governments have shown.”

For years, President Donald Trump has pushed conspiracy theories that undermine the safety and security of federal elections—theories he’s attempted to turn into policy since entering office for the second time. Earlier this week, the president threw a massive temper tantrum because the Supreme Court curbed his last-minute effort to gut mail-in voting.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump are trying to bring down Cuba’s government, and their friends and allies are looking to profit from it. 

The Guardian reports that Republican donors, Cuban exiles, and even Trump Organization executives are all eyeing business opportunities from the U.S. pressure campaign against Cuba. Many are charging high sums to help business clients work around the Trump administration’s new sanctions and set themselves up to make even more money if the Communist regime falls. 

Among them are Ray Washburne, who organized the Republican midterm convention in Dallas last week and was the vice chair of Trump’s 2016 Victory Committee, and Albert Huddleston, an oil executive with his own ties to Trump. Both are trying to take over a nickel and cobalt mining joint venture with the Cuban government after a Canadian firm, Sherritt International, was driven out by a Trump executive order in May.  

An Australian firm, Antilles Gold Ltd., also had to end its Cuba operations in June thanks to the Trump administration’s sanctions. That company just received approval from the White House to transfer its stake in a copper-gold mine in Cuba to New York–based investment fund Global Emerging Markets, according to the newspaper. 

Executives in the Trump Organization have recently traveled to the island, as well, sources told The Guardian. They did so under a new moniker, Dominari Holdings, and met with people like Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, to discuss business opportunities. Two major Spanish hotels, Meliá and Iberostar, recently left the island, and these executives, who have visited the country before and even registered the Trump trademark there in 2008, now may be looking to fill the void.

A shipping line based in Florida, Crowley Maritime, is also benefiting from the Trump administration’s sanctions, with all of Cuba’s imports now being routed through Florida. The company is a major donor to Florida Republican Representatives Mario Díaz-Balart and María Elvira-Salazar, both Cuban Americans. 

“If I had done during the Biden administration what Trump’s friends have done now, I’d have been put in jail,” one expert in Cuba policy told The Guardian.

Meanwhile, the Cuban people are increasingly suffering under the U.S. sanctions and fuel blockade. So far, Trump’s efforts have only benefited wealthy interests outside of Cuba—the very reason behind the island’s political revolution in the 1950s. It seems that Trump, Rubio, and their wealthy friends want to control Cuba so they can profit from it at the expense of its people. 

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent long wanted in Minnesota for allegedly shooting a Venezuelan immigrant was finally captured by local authorities.

Christian Castro was booked in the Hennepin County Jail on Wednesday. He faces four second-degree assault charges, and another charge for false reporting of a crime, according to the jail’s inmate records. He is being held on a $200,000 bail.

Castro will appear in a downtown Minneapolis courtroom on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. CST. He has not yet entered a plea.

Castro was one of thousands of agents who descended upon Minnesota during Donald Trump’s Operation Metro Surge. On January 14, Castro allegedly chased Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, a DoorDash driver, to the entryway of his home. Upon arriving at the residence, Castro shot Aljorna’s roommate, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, in the leg. Castro claimed at the time that he shot Sosa-Celis in self-defense, purporting that the Venezuelan national had attacked him with a snow shovel.

But even Trump’s Justice Department had a difficult time proving that one. In a rare reversal, the DOJ moved to dismiss charges relating to the assault against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna, and Castro was the one left facing criminal consequences. Surveillance footage of the encounter released in April showed Sosa-Celis tossing the shovel early into his exchange with the ICE agent, and Castro firing shots into the home.

Extraditing the 52-year-old federal officer back to Minnesota proved to be a difficult task, however. Castro was initially arrested in Texas, days after a state court issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest in May. But Texas Governor Greg Abbott refused to hand Castro over to Minnesota, questioning whether Castro qualified as a fugitive since he had not technically fled Minnesota but had rather been transferred to work in Texas by the Department of Homeland Security.

Castro’s fate was stuck in limbo for months as the two states duked it out. He was released from jail in August after the 90-day limit on his detention had expired, and after a federal judge declined to intervene in the cross-country matter.

Yet the complications surrounding Castro’s case don’t end there. Earlier this month, a federal grand jury indicted Castro in a separate case, charging him with six counts of making false statements pertaining to the shooting.

The change was a stunning downgrade from the aggressive civil rights violations initially sought by the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Matthew Evans, who was in charge of prosecuting the case. It was also the result of Washington’s direct intervention.

On September 2, Evans told his staff that Castro would be charged “only with False Statements.” The shift would carry far less severe consequences if Castro is found guilty, but would also allow the DOJ to prosecute the case without having to debate whether the shooting was justified.

“This is being directed by the Main Justice and the U.S. Attorney,” Evans wrote in an internal email obtained by ProPublica. “I objected in the strongest possible terms and fought it as hard as I could. It wasn’t enough.”

The next day, Evans was fired. Castro turned himself in later that week while making his initial appearance in a district court ​in McAllen, Texas. He was then released on bond.

Castro reappeared in Minneapolis this week under an agreement with Minnesota law enforcement, voluntarily driving himself across state lines in order to turn himself in. But state agents got him first, arresting Castro around 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday in Minneapolis, the department shared in a statement.

The FBI believes women pretending to be tradwives are targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in order to dox them, The Guardian reported Thursday.

In February, the FBI in Chicago disseminated a brief memo warning that a “small group of women allegedly were creating fictitious online dating profiles with the purpose of attracting and then doxxing law enforcement participating in immigration enforcement.”

“These profiles were incorporating imagery of a ‘traditional wife’ aesthetic and listing specific interests in an attempt to appeal to … individuals in law enforcement,” the memo continued. “The objective was to lure affiliated law enforcement personnel into an online or in-person interaction under the guise of a date, after which the individuals would be publicly exposed and doxed online. The tactic is intended to generate public embarrassment and deter immigration enforcement activity.”

The memo was obtained through a public records request by Property of the People, a government transparency nonprofit. The memo came shortly after Chaya Raichik, the conservative influencer behind LibsofTikTok, sounded the alarm about groups of TikTokers who were organizing to lure federal agents onto dates and expose their personal information. Her post did not include any mention of “tradwives.” It is unclear if Raichik’s claims were true.

Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, slammed the FBI for issuing such a humiliating memo in the first place.

“It’s absurd the FBI issued a thinly-sourced security alert about ICE agents’ online dating troubles,” he said in a statement. “It’s equally ludicrous the FBI is spending taxpayer dollars to protect ICE agents from possible ‘embarrassment’ at the hands of a supposed ‘small group of women’ who might name and ridicule them online.”

Recently, ICE reportedly began quietly firing new officers hired during the agency’s chaotic push to recruit thousands of “Homeland Defenders,” citing poor performance and red flags that should have been identified in the vetting process.