Politics

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — If last month’s election wasn’t painful enough for Florida Democrats, they’re losing another state House seat after one of their members announced Monday that she’s switching parties.

State Rep. Susan Valdés, a former school board member who was reelected as a Democrat last month, said on X that she is “tired of being the party of protesting.”

Valdés ran to be chairperson for her local county’s Democratic executive committee earlier this month. She won her current term by nearly 5 percentage points but can’t run for reelection again because of term limits.

Republicans have controlled the governor’s office and both branches of the Legislature since 1999. Valdés is serving her final two years before leaving office due to term limits. Republicans now have an 86-34 majority in the House.

“I got into politics to be part of the party of progress,” Valdés wrote. “I know that I won’t agree with my fellow Republican House members on every issue, but I know that in their caucus, I will be welcomed and treated with respect.”

House Speaker Daniel Perez reposted Valdés’ statement and welcomed her into the House, where Republicans have a supermajority of 86-34. House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell said she was surprised and disappointed by Valdés’ announcement.

“It is sad that she has elevated her own aspirations above the needs of her district,” Driskell wrote in a statement on X.

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his administration, Republican governors and lawmakers in some states are already rolling out proposals that could help him carry out his pledge to deport millions of people living in the U.S. illegally.

Lawmakers in a growing number of states are proposing to give local law officers the power to arrest people who entered the country illegally, mirroring recent laws in Texas and elsewhere that have been placed on hold while courts weigh whether they unconstitutionally usurp federal authority.

Other legislation filed ahead of next year’s legislative sessions would require local law enforcement agencies to notify U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they take someone into custody who is in the country illegally, even if the charges have nothing to do with their immigration status. Though not specifically requested by Trump, many of the state proposals would complement his immigration policies.

“We would be finding people who are in violation of this law, and we would be sort of hand-delivering them to the nearest port of deportation so that they could be removed in a safe and orderly fashion,” said Missouri state Sen. Curtis Trent, who is sponsoring one of the proposals.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S. as of 2022, the latest statistics available. While campaigning, Trump talked about creating “the largest mass deportation program in history” and called for using the National Guard and domestic police forces in the effort.

Some Democratic-led states already are raising resistance. The California Legislature has convened a special session to try to shield people from potential Trump policies, including by boosting legal aid for immigrants facing deportation.

Lawmakers in numerous states are likely to try to thwart or cooperate with Trump’s immigration agenda, Tim Storey, CEO of the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Monday.

In Missouri, Trent’s bill would empower local law officers to arrest people for a new state crime of “improper entry by an alien,” punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and a court-ordered ride to the U.S. border.

A separate bill by Missouri state Sen.-elect David Gregory also would create a state crime and offer a $1,000 reward to informants who tip off police about people in the country illegally. It would allow private bounty hunters to find and detain them.

While some jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, “we’re stepping up and finding a way to help,” Gregory said in a statement Tuesday.

Missouri’s Republican Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe hasn’t endorsed a specific legislative plan after campaigning against illegal immigration and the scourge of fentanyl smuggled across the U.S. border. But he told The Associated Press: “If they’re here illegally, it definitely should trigger something more than it does now.”

Although many Americans support a path to citizenship for people living in the U.S. illegally, support for deportation also has grown. More than 4 in 10 voters said most immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally should be deported to the country they came from, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters in this year’s election. That’s up from about 3 in 10 in 2020. More than half of voters said most immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be offered a chance to apply for legal status, down from about 7 in 10 who said this in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.

Many Republicans point to Texas as a model for immigration enforcement. Its $11 billion Operation Lone Star program has erected razor wire and other barriers along the Mexican border, stationed state troopers and Texas National Guard members in border towns and bused thousands of migrants to Democratic-led “sanctuary cities” such as New York, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia and Washington. Texas law officers also have made tens of thousands of arrests, including many for trespassing on private property.

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” visited Texas last month and said its border security tactics can be a model for the Trump administration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office confirmed that it’s been in regular contact with Trump’s team about strategies.

Following Texas’ lead, Republican-led legislatures in Iowa, Louisiana and Oklahoma passed measures allowing law officers to arrest people who are in the U.S. illegally. Shortly after Trump’s election, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced he was working on a plan to deport some of the more than 500 immigrants currently in Oklahoma prisons who are not legal citizens.

Arizona voters last month also approved a ballot measure letting local police arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering from Mexico, though it won’t kick in until a similar law in Texas or another state has been in effect for 60 consecutive days.

Other Republican state measures seek to boost cooperation between local law officers and federal immigration officials.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently announced an initiative to improve coordination with federal officials to identify undocumented immigrants in the state’s criminal justice system and turn them over for deportation. Cox said there will be “zero tolerance” for “those who demonstrate a threat to public safety while in the country illegally.”

A Georgia law enacted earlier this year requires jailers to check the immigration status of inmates and apply to help enforce federal immigration laws. The measure gained traction after the murder of University of Georgia student Laken Riley. A Venezuelan man who had entered the U.S. illegally was convicted of killing her and sentenced to life in prison.

North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature last month overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to enact a law directing sheriffs to comply with federal immigration agents’ requests to hold inmates. That came after several Democratic sheriffs from urban counties refused to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Other Democratic governors dealing with Republican-led legislatures are pushing back against the potential for sweeping deportation plans. Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said she supports deporting people who commit crimes while living in the U.S. illegally, but she won’t send the National Guard to help enforce federal immigration laws.

Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who also faces a Republican-led Legislature, said illegal immigrants “are a really important part of our economy” in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump has picked former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Ronald Johnson, as the next United States ambassador to Mexico, he said on social media on Tuesday.

Johnson served as the ambassador to El Salvador from 2019 to 2021. Trump also cited Johnson’s more than 20 years of experience with the CIA in his announcement.

Trump made illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border a key issue during his election campaign.

Mexico has played a key role in implementing U.S. immigration policy in recent years, accepting migrants from countries to which the U.S. struggles to deport people, such as Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

U.S. government estimates, though, also suggest nearly half of the immigrants living in the U.S. illegally are Mexican.

“Ron will work closely with our great Secretary of State Nominee, Marco Rubio, to promote our Nation’s security and prosperity through strong America First Foreign Policies,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has been tapped by Trump for secretary of state.

Mexico is bracing for the arrival of large numbers of its citizens deported from the U.S. once Trump takes office in January. It has argued, however, the deportations are unnecessary, pointing to the contribution of Mexicans to the U.S. economy.

Mexico is seeking an agreement with Trump to ensure it does not receive deportees from third countries in case of large-scale deportations of migrants from the United States, President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday.

Trump has threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico until they clamped down on drugs and migrants crossing the border.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday picked Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host turned political fundraiser, as the next U.S. ambassador to Greece and Tom Barrack, the chair of his 2016 inaugural committee, the next ambassador to Turkey.

Guilfoyle has been engaged to Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. since December 31, 2020.

“For many years, Kimberly has been a close friend and ally,” Trump said in a post on social media platform Truth Social. She is “perfectly suited to foster strong bilateral relations with Greece, advancing our interests on issues ranging from defense cooperation to trade and economic innovation,” he said.

Guilfoyle is not the first appointee with family ties.

In November, Trump announced plans to nominate his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, as ambassador to France and to appoint Massad Boulos — the father-in-law of his youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump — as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle East issues.

Trump’s pick for ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack is a longtime friend of the Republican president-elect. He’s also a private equity executive and has been previously been charged with unlawfully acting as an agent of the United Arab Emirates and was acquitted in 2022 of all nine counts he faced.

Trump described Tom as a “well-respected and experienced voice of reason,” in his post announcing the appointment.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in West Palm Beach, Florida and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Michael Perry)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Eager to preserve President-elect Donald Trump ’s hush money conviction even as he returns to office, prosecutors are suggesting various ways forward — including one based on how some courts handle criminal cases when defendants die.

Trump’s spokesperson called the ideas “pathetic.”

In court papers made public Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books.

The proposals include freezing the case until Trump is out of office, or agreeing that any future sentence wouldn’t include jail time. Another idea: closing the case with a notation that acknowledges his conviction but says that he was never sentenced and that his appeal wasn’t resolved because of presidential immunity.

The last is adopted from what some states do when a criminal defendant dies after being convicted but before appeals are exhausted. It is unclear whether that option is viable under New York law, but prosecutors suggested that Judge Juan M. Merchan could innovate in what’s already a unique case.

“This remedy would prevent defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding,” prosecutors wrote. But at the same time, it wouldn’t “precipitously discard” the “meaningful fact that defendant was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers.”

Expanding on a position they laid out last month, prosecutors acknowledged that “presidential immunity requires accommodation during a president’s time in office,” but they were adamant that the conviction should stand. They argued that Trump’s impending return to the White House should not upend a jury’s finding.

Trump is pressing for the case to be thrown out altogether in light of his election. His communications director, Steven Cheung, called prosecutors’ filing “a pathetic attempt to salvage the remains of an unconstitutional and politically motivated hoax.”

“This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said in a statement.

Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said he fudged the documents to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier.

He says they did not and denies any wrongdoing. Trump portrays the case as a political attack ginned up by D.A. Alvin Bragg and other Democrats.

Trump’s legal team argues that letting the case continue would present unconstitutional “disruptions” to his upcoming presidential term. Trump’s attorneys also have cited President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges. Biden complained that his son was unfairly prosecuted for political reasons — and Trump’s lawyers say he was, too.

Trump’s lawyers have argued that the possibility of a jail sentence — even if it’s after he leaves office — would affect his presidency. Prosecutors suggested Merchan could address that concern by agreeing not to put him behind bars.

It’s unclear how soon Merchan may decide what to do next with the case. He could grant Trump’s request for dismissal, go with one of the suggestions from prosecutors, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court, or choose some other option.

Trump, a Republican, takes office Jan. 20.

He had been scheduled for sentencing late last month. But following Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the former and future president’s sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.

Merchan also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds.

A dismissal would erase Trump’s conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.

The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.

Since the election, special counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases, which pertained to Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold. Trump denies wrongdoing in all.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina election officials won’t order another recount in a close state Supreme Court race after a partial hand recount failed to suggest the trailing Republican candidate could overtake the Democratic incumbent.

Following the completion of a machine recount of over 5.5 million ballots last week, Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs maintained a 734-vote lead over Republican Jefferson Griffin, who is currently a state Court of Appeals judge. Griffin then requested a partial hand recount in which randomly chosen ballots from 3% of the voting sites in all 100 counties were reexamined.

The law says a statewide hand recount would have been required if the sample results differed enough so that the result would be reversed if the difference were extrapolated to all ballots. But the sample tabulations, which finished Tuesday, showed Riggs actually picking up more votes than Griffin. As a result, the State Board of Elections said a total recount won’t be ordered.

The election, however, has not been fully resolved. The five-member state board was scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on protests previously filed by Griffin and three GOP legislative candidates who also are in very close elections.

Riggs, one of two Democrats on the seven-member court, declared victory again on Tuesday, and her campaign renewed calls for Griffin to concede. Griffin didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The protests going before the state board, which question if well over 60,000 ballots should have been counted, cover three categories of voting. They include votes cast by people with voter registration records that lack driver’s licenses or partial Social Security numbers; overseas voters who have never lived in North Carolina but whose parents were deemed state residents; and military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots.

Separately Tuesday, a Court of Appeals panel unanimously declined Griffin’s request to order the state board to rule on the protests before Wednesday’s meeting to accelerate the process.

The board could dismiss the protests or — if problems are found — order corrected ballot tallies, more recounts or new elections. Decisions by the board — with a 3-2 Democratic majority — can be appealed to state courts. Other protests filed by Griffin and the legislative candidates are being first considered by county boards.

The state Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit last week seeking to block the State Board of Elections from ruling in any way to throw out the disputed ballots. The Democrats’ lawyers say federal law prohibits such systematic challenges to voter eligibility for an election that has already passed. Some of the protests focus on activities that Republicans already sued over before the November election.

Democratic officials and their allies held a news conference early Tuesday outside the state Supreme Court building and strongly criticized Griffin and other Republicans for initiating claims they say would disenfranchise legal voters. North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said she fears the state Supreme Court could ultimately side with Republicans and remove the challenged ballots.

“We are trying to make sure that people are raising their voices, that we are filing lawsuits where we can,” Clayton said. “And we are also trusting the process of our board of elections officials to do their job and to count every single vote.”

Griffin led Riggs by about 10,000 votes on election night, but that lead dwindled and flipped to Riggs as qualifying provisional and absentee ballots were added to the totals. Other types of protests filed by Griffin and the legislators are being considered by county boards.

The Associated Press has not called the Supreme Court race and two of the three legislative races highlighted in the protests. In one of the two, Republican state Rep. Frank Sossamon trails Democratic challenger Bryan Cohn. A Cohn victory would mean Republicans fall one seat short of retaining their current veto-proof majority starting next month.

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Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner has filed to run for a seat on the New York City Council, launching a potential political comeback after his once-promising career was destroyed by sexting scandals and later a criminal conviction for having illicit online contact with a child.

Campaign finance records list a campaign committee that was set up on Friday for Weiner called Weiner 25, in addition to listing him as a candidate for a council seat in lower Manhattan.

In a phone conversation Tuesday with The Associated Press, Weiner, a Democrat, said he is “still exploring” whether to actually campaign for the office. He said he opened the committee late last week so he could participate in a forum held by the Downtown Independent Democrats later this week.

He referred additional questions to recent statements he made on his weekly radio show, “The Middle with Anthony Weiner,” where he said: “I haven’t decided if I want to do this yet” while considering the personal dynamics of a return to politics.

Weiner represented a congressional district in New York City for about 12 years before he resigned in 2011 after sending lewd photos to several women. He tried to make a comeback in 2013 to run for mayor but was damaged by new revelations of explicit photos Weiner had sent under the online alias “Carlos Danger.”

Weiner pleaded guilty in 2017 to having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl and was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. He was released in 2019 and was ordered to register as a sex offender.

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Izaguirre reported from Albany, N.Y.

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By Jody Godoy

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump tapped Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the consumer protection and antitrust agency, Trump said on social media on Tuesday.

Ferguson, one of two Senate-confirmed Republican FTC commissioners appointed by President Joe Biden, will be “the most America First, and pro-innovation FTC Chair in our Country’s History,” Trump said.

“Andrew has a proven record of standing up to Big Tech censorship, and protecting Freedom of Speech in our Great Country,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

Trump said in a separate post that he would nominate Mark Meador, a partner at law firm Kressin Meador Powers and former antitrust counsel to Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee, to become an FTC commissioner.

Lee previously proposed legislation that would remove federal antitrust authority from the FTC, which shares it with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Once confirmed, Meador would fill the spot currently occupied by FTC Chair Lina Khan, whose term on the commission has expired.

Ferguson, Virginia’s former solicitor general, wants the FTC to investigate censorship of conservative viewpoints online. If social media platforms collaborate to suppress such views or advertisers coordinate pulling business from platforms such as Elon Musk’s X, they should be charged with violating U.S. antitrust law, Ferguson has said.

“We must vigorously enforce the antitrust laws against any platforms found to be unlawfully limiting Americans’ ability to exchange ideas freely and openly,” Ferguson said in a recent statement.

Ferguson previously served as counsel to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The agency became a political flashpoint under Khan, who promoted antitrust enforcement as a check on corporate power. Her efforts won fans among some Republicans, including incoming Vice President JD Vance, but drew criticism as overly aggressive from some antitrust lawyers and business groups.

Ferguson would inherit a full slate of cases against Big Tech companies, a lawsuit against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, and at least a half-dozen lawsuits by companies arguing the FTC has outstripped its authority.

It is unclear whether he would continue with unfinished probes, including into practices at Microsoft that competitors have complained keep customers from switching to other cloud service providers, and potential privacy concerns involving OpenAI.

In other enforcement matters related to AI and privacy, Ferguson has said he believes Khan and the FTC’s Democratic majority have sometimes led the agency to overstep its authority.

A Republican-led FTC could also shift course in two major cases against Amazon.com. One targets tactics the agency says keep sellers bound to its platform and help Amazon unlawfully dominate the landscape for online marketplaces, and another over practices allegedly meant to trick Prime subscribers out of cancelling service.

Ferguson would also oversee a case brought against Meta Platforms, then known as Facebook, in 2020, during Trump’s first term. 

The agency is seeking to unwind the tech company’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. But the judge overseeing the case has cast doubt on whether the agency can prevail at trial in April.

Trump said last week that he would appoint Vance adviser Gail Slater to lead the DOJ’s antitrust division, which is overseeing cases against Google.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Matthew Lewis and Saad Sayeed)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional task force investigating the attempts to kill Donald Trump during his presidential campaign is recommending changes to the Secret Service, including protecting fewer foreign leaders during the height of election season and considering moving the agency out of the Homeland Security Department.

The 180-page report by the bipartisan task force released Tuesday is one of the most detailed looks so far into the July assassination attempt against Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and a second attempt in Florida two months later.

Like the series of other investigations and reports, the task force railed at the agency tasked with protecting the top echelon of America’s democratic leaders.

“The events of July 13, 2024, were tragic and preventable, and the litany of related security failures are unacceptable,” the authors wrote. “The Secret Service’s zero fail mission allows no margin for error, let alone for the many errors described in this report.”

In the July shooting, a gunman opened fire from the roof of a nearby building, wounding Trump in the ear, killing one rallygoer and wounding two others. He was killed by a countersniper.

In another assassination attempt in September, a gunman waited for hours for Trump to appear at his golf course in Florida, but a Secret Service agent thwarted the attack by spotting the firearm poking through some bushes.

Here are the highlights of the new report and its recommendations:

The report’s authors noted that the number of people the agency is tasked with protecting has “greatly expanded.” At the same time, the presidential campaign season is getting longer and more intense.

The agency is also tasked with protecting foreign dignitaries during the U.N. General Assembly, when heads of state and government flood into New York. That event happens every September, which comes at the “height of campaign season,” the report noted, adding to the agency’s staffing crunch.

“Congress, DHS, and the USSS should jointly consider the protective role the USSS plays for foreign leaders and consider whether such duties can be transferred or abrogated in order to focus on the USSS’s primary duty: to protect the President and other critical U.S. leaders,” the report said.

The Secret Service is known for its high-profile work of protecting the president, the vice-president, presidential candidates, their families and others.

But agents also carry out a wide range of investigations not related to their protective mission — investigating fraud and financial crimes, for example. Stemming from when the agency was part of the Treasury Department, those investigations are an important part of training Secret Service officers for skills they’ll need on protective details, agency leaders say.

But the task force recommended reviewing these investigative responsibilities — especially during campaign season — so the agency “can prioritize the protection of U.S. leaders and candidates running for office.”

“These non-protective, investigative functions require systemic review because of the USSS’s stunning failure to protect President-elect Trump on July 13,” the report said. “The Secret Service’s protective mission is at the core of the agency’s purpose — anything that distracts or diverts resources from the agency’s zero fail mission must be reconsidered.”

After DHS was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Secret Service was moved there from the Treasury Department.

The task force suggested reevaluating that move. During the time Secret Service has been in the Homeland Security Department, “USSS has not benefited from stable leadership,” the lawmakers said.

They said the structure “potentially weakens USSS, a small but critically important agency, in advocating for its budget and other priorities inside a much larger entity.”

“A fresh look at whether USSS might benefit from the status of an independent agency, with more freedom to make budget requests and advocate for itself, would be a healthy discussion for former USSS leaders to have with Congress,” the task force said.

The task force said the gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, Thomas Crooks, exploited gaps in protection because of a lack of assets and staff.

Specifically, the panel noted that the Secret Service, already dealing with the increased tempo of a presidential campaign, was protecting not one but two high-profile people that day in close vicinity to each other, with first lady Jill Biden at a nearby event.

In one example highlighting the lack of resources at the Trump rally, the task force said there should have been a counter-surveillance unit in Butler, and if there had been one assigned that day, it might have spotted the shooter earlier.

Such a counter-surveillance team was in place for the Biden event, the report noted, although that event was indoors.

“From interviews with special agents on the ground, it appears that the main factor in the decision to not request (the counter-surveillance unit) was an assumption that the request would be denied due to the protectee’s status as a former President at the time of the event,” the report said.

Much of the criticism in the aftermath of the July assassination attempt has centered on how the shooter could have gotten access to a roof with a clear line of sight to Trump and why there was such poor communications between the Secret Service and local law enforcement.

The Secret Service often relies on local law enforcement to secure large events. The report detailed how local law enforcement had one idea of its responsibilities while the Secret Service had another.

But the task force emphasized that ultimately the Secret Service is responsible for ensuring that coordination runs smoothly.

“The Secret Service must own responsibility for the security of the site,” the report said.

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By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump is set to challenge policies aimed at boosting diversity at companies and universities when he takes office next month, throwing the weight of the U.S. government behind growing conservative opposition to such practices.

The Justice Department and other federal agencies are likely to start investigations and bring lawsuits over diversity, equity and inclusion policies as they argue that many of those practices violate anti-discrimination laws.

“DEI is unlawful discrimination,” said Mike Davis, the founder of the Article III Project, a conservative advocacy group, who has advised Trump on legal issues. “It’s illegal for the government to do it. It’s illegal for universities to do it. And it’s illegal for companies to do it.”

The plans would turn the power of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — created in 1957 to enforce laws aimed at stopping discrimination against Black people and other marginalized communities — against policies designed to benefit those groups.

Trump signaled his intent late on Monday when he tapped lawyer Harmeet Dhillon as his pick to oversee the division as an assistant attorney general, saying that her career highlights included “suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers.”

Proponents of DEI policies say they are needed to address longstanding racial inequities in U.S. society, while opponents argue that many of the policies are exclusionary and focus on race and gender at the expense of individual merit.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funds, could empower the Justice Department to challenge university admissions practices and racial equity programs in healthcare.

“The argument is going to be to the extent that there’s a consideration of race in any context by any entity that receives federal funds, that’s a problem under Title VI,” said Danielle Conley, the head of the anti-discrimination practice at law firm Latham & Watkins.     

UNIVERSITIES IN FOCUS

Trump vowed in a campaign video to direct the Justice Department to pursue civil rights investigations into universities, saying they had been captured by the “radical left.”

“We are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all,” Trump said in the video, posted in July.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Legal challenges could include claims that universities are not following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling barring consideration of race in college admissions. The Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden has defended an exemption allowing U.S. military academies to continue using affirmative action policies, a stance Trump could reverse.

During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department sued Yale University alleging that its admissions practices discriminated against Asian American and white applicants. The lawsuit was later dropped under the Biden administration.

A BROADER CAMPAIGN

Even in situations where the Justice Department does not have direct enforcement authority, the government could still weigh in on existing cases to argue that its interpretation of civil rights laws aligns with others challenging DEI policies.

America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has brought 15 lawsuits since 2022 targeting major companies like Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms and Amazon.com over their diversity efforts.

Seven of those cases, including the complaints against Meta and Amazon, have been dismissed after judges found that the person or group suing did not suffer harm that would allow them to sue. America First Legal has appealed some of those decisions.

America First Legal did not respond to requests for comment.

‘BETRAYAL OF THE MISSION’

The America First Legal cases are part of a larger effort to pressure companies to scrap practices aimed at boosting racial and ethnic representation in the workplace. 

Many of their legal challenges were brought on behalf of white men using laws passed during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s designed to support Black Americans.

“It would be a betrayal of the mission of the Civil Rights Division to turn it into a legal force that protects primarily the interests of white men,” said Thomas Healy, a Seton Hall University law professor who has written about civil rights issues.

DEI opponents note that federal anti-discrimination laws are race neutral and generally apply to all forms of exclusion based on race or gender.

Civil rights advocates fear that even the threat of government scrutiny will cause companies to back away from prior commitments on diversity.

“The risk I see is that employers may be worried about getting sued and roll back their programs,” said Amalea Smirniotopoulos, a senior policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “At the heart of these attacks is fundamentally an attempt to hoard opportunity for a limited group of people.”

Walmart in late November became the latest major U.S. corporation to scale back its DEI efforts, following JPMorgan Chase and Starbucks.

About half of the American public believes that federal and state governments and powerful U.S. institutions need to do more to address inequities caused by structural racism, according to an October Reuters/Ipsos poll. One in three disagreed with the idea, the poll found.

Anti-discrimination lawyers said many DEI policies may be able to withstand legal scrutiny if they’re focused on measures that do not involve explicit consideration of race, such as expanding employee recruiting and setting aspirational goals for diversity. 

“It is not pre-ordained what the outcome of the various challenges will be,” said Debo Adegbile, head of the anti-discrimination practice at law firm WilmerHale.

LEGAL OBSTACLES

The Justice Department will face some obstacles in any effort to combat DEI policies. Its Civil Rights Division does not enforce federal laws banning racial discrimination in hiring and contracting against private employers, according to experts in discrimination law. 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the only federal entity empowered to sue companies over employment discrimination. The five-member EEOC is expected to have a Democratic majority until at least 2026, which could stymie some of Trump’s plans.

But the Civil Rights Division can bring employment discrimination cases against state and local governments.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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