TV News LIES

An exodus of Justice Department employees has left behind a trail of emotional farewell notes warning that agency values are eroding.

The big picture: The writers, who are among the thousands who have departed the DOJ under Trump 2.0, did not mince words about "potentially irreversible damage," a retreat from ethics, a "toxic work environment" and potential harm to vulnerable groups.

Context: The Justice Connection, a network of DOJ and FBI alumni, has collected dozens of farewells, many overflowing with gratitude for the agency's mission while also warning about the consequences of damaging the institution.

Executive Director Stacey Young said in a recent statement that the department's workforce is "being asked to put loyalty to the President over the Constitution, the rule of law, and their professional ethical obligations."

What they're saying: The "current incarnation" of the DOJ "defines 'justice' in a way that I do not recognize," former trial attorney Carrie A. Syme wrote in a March farewell, adding, "please remember that the vast majority of DOJ attorneys are people of good will who are trying to maintain a true sense of justice."

Devon Flanagan, who served as a trial attorney in the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section, warned that damage will accelerate as more employees "find these stressful and demeaning conditions untenable."

Zoom in: Three assistant U.S. attorneys who resisted dismissing New York Mayor Eric Adams' case addressed their April resignation notice to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, saying that the DOJ has "decided that obedience supersedes all else."

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President Trump’s heated rhetorical attacks on Democratic lawmakers, whom he called out as “traitors” who deserve to be jailed, have left his Republican allies in Washington dumbfounded and skeptical about any bipartisan dealmaking at the end of 2025.

Republican lawmakers and strategists fear Trump is undermining his own credibility and ability to get anything done before the midterm election.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that Trump labeling his political opponents as traitors was “reckless” and “irresponsible.”

“If you take it at face value, the idea that calling your opponents ‘traitors’ — and then specifically saying that it warrants the death penalty — is reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible,” Paul told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Other GOP lawmakers were quick to distance themselves from the president.

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The Trump administration has ordered a review of all refugees already cleared to enter the U.S. during the Biden era and may require them to undergo a re-interview, according to a memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services obtained by USA TODAY.

All refugees admitted between Jan. 20, 2021, the day before former President Joe Biden took office, and Feb. 20, 2025 will have their applications re-reviewed even if they were already admitted entry to the U.S., according to the memo, which is dated Nov. 21. Refugees admitted outside that time frame could also be re-reviewed, the memo states.

Refugees who were already admitted also may need to submit to another interview to prove they face "past persecution or a well-founded fear," according to the memo. Refugees whose applications are rejected will have no pathway to appeal the decision, it reads.

Almost 197,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. from 2021 to 2024, an increase from the 118,000 admitted during Trump's first term, but still less than under any other president for the previous half-century, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

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Charges will be filed against a teenager suspected of partaking in a large-scale arson attack this month on Palestinian factories and farmland in the West Bank, law enforcement announced Saturday night.

It marked the first charges filed against one of the suspected assailants in the raid on November 11, which saw dozens of settlers set fire to a factory and surrounding agricultural lands near the villages of Bayt Lid and Dayr Sharaf, in the northern West Bank.

The defendant, a minor who was nabbed at the scene by security forces, was one of four people who were arrested during the attack. A prosecutor’s statement was filed against him on Saturday, police said, and he was set to be charged Sunday by Central District prosecutors.

Four Palestinians were injured in the attack, and settlers later set their sights on the troops, attacking soldiers who were dispatched to the scene, the IDF said at the time.

According to the police’s statement, “more than 50 indictments have been filed against individuals involved in severe violent incidents in Judea and Samaria” since the start of the year.

However, enforcement against settler violence under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has plummeted on the whole over the past three years, according to a recent Channel 12 report, with a 73% drop in the number of investigations opened into settler violence since 2023.

TVNL Comment:  Judea and Samaria are names given to this region which has been under illegal Israeli occupation since 1967.

Ramiz Alakbarov briefed on conditions in the battered enclave and the occupied West Bank, before touching on developments in Lebanon and Syria.

“Today we meet at a moment of renewed hope,” he said, speaking from Jerusalem. 

“While progress on the ground is fragile and deep uncertainty persists, we must seize the opportunity before us to chart a better future for Palestinians, Israelis and the wider region.”

Last month, Israel and Hamas reached agreement on the first phase of a ceasefire and hostage release following a plan put forward by United States President Donald Trump.  

However, recent Israeli airstrikes on populated areas have caused numerous casualties and destruction, while Palestinian militant attacks on Israeli soldiers have resulted in fatalities.

“This violence is jeopardizing the fragile ceasefire,” Mr. Alakbarov said, urging all parties “to exercise restraint and fulfill their commitments under the agreement.”

The Security Council “has also taken an important step in the consolidation of the ceasefire” with the adoption of resolution 2803 (2025), he added.

The text endorses the US plan and the deployment of a temporary international force for Gaza.

“While still facing unbearable living conditions and seemingly insurmountable destruction, the people in Gaza have experienced at least the first glimmers of respite from the near constant bombardment of the last two years,” he said.

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The United States-proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan now has fewer points following negotiations in Switzerland to try to make the draft proposal more acceptable to Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official close to the matter.

The initial 28-point peace plan now has 19 points, according to the official. It is unclear what points were removed.

The updated proposed peace agreement does not include a strict limit on the size of the Ukrainian army, a source briefed on the matter told ABC News. Under the initial proposal, the army would have been limited to 600,000 personnel.

The issue of amnesty for acts committed during the Russia-Ukraine war will not be included in the new version of the draft peace proposal, the source added. The initial plan had stated that all parties involved in the conflict "will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war."

U.S., European and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss the contentious proposal put to Kyiv last week, with terms critics say would constitute a Ukrainian capitulation.

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The North Dakota supreme court revived the state’s abortion ban on Friday, once again making it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure except in medical emergencies or in some cases of rape or incest.

The supreme court’s decision reverses a lower-court ruling from last fall that had frozen the ban, in part on the grounds that its exceptions were unconstitutionally vague. Although three of the court’s five justices agreed with the lower court, they fell short of the supermajority needed under state law to declare laws unconstitutional.

“This decision is a devastating loss for pregnant North Dakotans,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. The center represented the plaintiffs in the case, which included multiple doctors and an abortion clinic that has moved out of North Dakota and into neighboring Minnesota.

“This decision is a devastating loss for pregnant North Dakotans,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. The center represented the plaintiffs in the case, which included multiple doctors and an abortion clinic that has moved out of North Dakota and into neighboring Minnesota.

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Viola Ford Fletcher, who as one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Oklahoma spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child, has died. She was 111.

Her grandson Ike Howard said on Monday that she died surrounded by family at a Tulsa hospital. Sustained by a strong faith, she raised three children, worked as a welder in a shipyard during the second world war and spent decades caring for families as a housekeeper.

Tulsa’s mayor, Monroe Nichols, said the city was mourning her loss. “Mother Fletcher endured more than anyone should, yet she spent her life lighting a path forward with purpose,” he said in a statement.

She was seven years old when the two-day attack began on Tulsa’s Greenwood district on 31 May 1921 after a local newspaper published a sensationalized report about a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman. As a white mob grew outside the courthouse, Black Tulsans with guns who hoped to prevent the man’s lynching began showing up. White residents responded with overwhelming force. Hundreds of people were killed and homes were burned and looted, leaving about 35 city blocks decimated in the prosperous community known as Black Wall Street.

“I could never forget the charred remains of our once-thriving community, the smoke billowing in the air, and the terror-stricken faces of my neighbors,” she wrote in her 2023 memoir, Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.

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