Trump’s Justice Department launches sweeping cuts targeting Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI agents

Trump’s Justice Department launches sweeping cuts targeting Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI agents
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters is seen in Washington on Dec. 7, 2024. (AP file photo)
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Updated 01 February 2025
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Trump’s Justice Department launches sweeping cuts targeting Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI agents

Trump’s Justice Department launches sweeping cuts targeting Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI agents
  • Department reviews all who worked on Jan. 6 cases
  • FBI officials in major cities are ordered to quit
  • FBI agents group says hundreds could be affected

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration launched a sweeping round of cuts at the Justice Department on Friday that appeared to focus on FBI agents and others who worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the US Capitol.
The shakeup, detailed in two memos seen by Reuters and by three sources familiar with the matter, is the Trump administration’s latest move to remake the US criminal justice system since he returned to the presidency last week. A group representing FBI agents issued a rare public warning of the potential for hundreds of firings at the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

The new administration already has fired more than a dozen prosecutors who pursued criminal charges against Trump in two cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith that have been dismissed. It also has paused all civil rights and environmental litigation and ordered criminal investigations of state and local officials who interfere with his hard-line immigration initiatives.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove on Thursday told the top federal prosecutors in each state to compile a list of all prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on the investigation of the Capitol riot, which was the largest Justice Department probe in modern US history, two sources briefed on the matter said.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
The FBI was ordered to provide by Tuesday a list of all employees who worked on a 2024 criminal case brought by the Justice Department against leaders of the Hamas militant group, according to a memo seen by Reuters. A source briefed on the matter also said the FBI was asked to provide a list of employees who worked on the two Trump cases brought by Smith.
That memo ordered eight FBI officials to resign or be fired, saying that their participation in the Jan. 6 cases represented part of what Trump has called the “weaponization” of government.
In a statement on Friday, the FBI Agents Association, a membership group of more than 14,000 active and former FBI agents, called the moves “outrageous.”
“Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the bureau’s ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and will ultimately risk setting up the bureau and its new leadership for failure,” the association added.
The staff cuts are hitting career FBI officials and prosecutors in nonpartisan roles who typically remain in their posts from administration to administration. The bureau has a history of political independence and is responsible for highly sensitive investigations involving counterterrorism, public corruption and cybersecurity.
In his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20, Trump granted clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged with storming the Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed top federal prosecutor in Washington, has since launched an inquiry into the use of a felony obstruction charge in prosecutions of people accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 attack.

Major cities targetted
At least five top FBI officials in major US cities — Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans and Las Vegas — were ordered to resign or be fired, one of the sources said. Another source said that a sixth senior FBI official, in Los Angeles, was given a similar order.
Another five top officials in FBI headquarters were ordered to leave or face termination earlier in the week, another source told Reuters.
FBI and Justice Department officials declined to comment on the various moves.
“What we are seeing is a raw, unfiltered exercise of presidential authority to purge the government of anyone who put the Constitution first, instead of adherence or loyalty to Donald Trump,” said Bradley Moss, an attorney who represents federal employees.
“At a time when we are facing a multitude of threats to the homeland ... it is deeply alarming that the Trump administration appears to be purging dozens of the most experienced agents who are our nation’s first line of defense,” Democratic US Senator Mark Warner said in a statement. Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, told a US Senate panel on Thursday during his confirmation hearing that he would protect the bureau’s 37,000 employees against “political retribution” if he were confirmed. The same day, the Justice Department said it was investigating the release by an upstate New York sheriff’s office of an immigrant living in the US illegally. This appears to be its first use of a new policy to criminally investigate state and local officials who do not comply with Trump’s directives.
Bove, in a separate Friday memo seen by Reuters, ordered the firings of all prosecutors who had been hired on a probationary basis to work on Jan. 6-related cases, noting that Trump characterized their work as “a grave national injustice.”
About 20 people were fired as a result of that order, according to a source familiar with the move.
Bove also accused the Biden administration of rushing to convert the status of probationary prosecutors to permanent status after Trump won the election in a bid to save their jobs.


White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say

White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say
Updated 20 sec ago
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White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say

White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say
  • The restructuring of the NSC is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies

WASHINGTON: A large restructuring of the White House National Security Council got under way on Friday as President Donald Trump moved to reduce the size and scope of the once-powerful agency, five sources briefed on the matter said.
Staff dealing with a variety of major geopolitical issues were sent termination notices on Friday, said the sources, who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak to the media.
The move comes just weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over from Mike Waltz as national security adviser. The NSC declined to comment.
The restructuring of the NSC is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies, the sources said. The aim is to reduce the size of the NSC to just a few dozen people.
The NSC is the main body used by presidents to coordinate national security strategy. Its staff often make key decisions regarding America’s approach to the world’s most volatile conflicts and play a key role in keeping America safe.
The firings will reduce the NSC’s already pared-down staff. The body had more than 300 staffers under Democratic President Joe Biden, but even before the recent firings under Trump was less than half the size of Biden’s NSC.
The NSC staffers who are cut from the agency will be moved to other positions in government, two of the sources told Reuters.


Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says

Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says
Updated 9 min 9 sec ago
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Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says

Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says
  • Lavrov says Europe encourages Ukrainian drone attacks, seeks to disrupt peace talks
  • Ukraine accuses Moscow of mass drone attacks, says leaders’ meeting should include Trump

MOSCOW: Russia will be ready to hand Ukraine a draft document outlining conditions for a long-term peace accord once a prisoner exchange now under way is completed, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
Lavrov, in statements on his ministry’s website, said Russia was committed to working out a peaceful settlement in the more than three-year-old war pitting Moscow against Kyiv.
He also accused Ukraine of launching waves of drone attacks over several days on Russian targets that caused casualties and disrupted air traffic. He suggested European countries had encouraged Kyiv to launch the attacks to undermine peace efforts led by US President Donald Trump.
Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, an initiative agreed in talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye last week.
“We remain committed to a peace settlement. We are always open to talks...and let me stress that we are committed to the agreements that were achieved recently in Istanbul,” Lavrov said.
“We are working actively on the second part of the agreements which call for preparation by each side of a draft document setting out the conditions for achieving a reliable, long-term agreement on a settlement.”
“As soon as the exchange of prisoners of war is completed we will be ready to hand to the Ukrainian side a draft of such a document which the Russian side is now completing.”
Lavrov said the surge of Ukrainian drone attacks — some 800 sent against Russian targets over the last three days — was “a direct consequence” of support for Ukraine by European Union countries whose leaders visited Kyiv in recent days.
“We are certain that they will be held accountable for their share of responsibility for these crimes,” Lavrov said, referring to the European countries.
“This is clearly an attempt to disrupt peace talks and undermine progress made in Istanbul following the agreements between the presidents of Russia and the United States...We will continue this work no matter what provocations there may be.”
Lavrov’s ministry earlier vowed to respond to the attacks.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Kyiv was waiting for Russia’s proposals on the form of talks, a ceasefire and a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Sybiha, quoted by Ukrainian media, said Kyiv would be in favor of expanding such a meeting to include US President Donald Trump.

“We believe that this meeting could take place in an expanded format,” Sybiha was quoted as saying. “We would like very much for President Trump to be included.”
Upsurge nin drone strikes
Ukraine has offered little comment on the drone strikes, though it acknowledged hitting a battery plant on Friday in Russia’s central Lipetsk region.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of staging periodic mass drone attacks. One such attack on Sunday, described as the largest in the three-year-old war, destroyed homes and killed one woman.
Authorities in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa accused Russia of striking port infrastructure with missiles on Friday, killing two people.
Prosecutors in eastern Donetsk region, the focal point of the war’s frontline, said three people were killed in shelling incidents in different parts of the region.


Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure

Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure
Updated 9 min 7 sec ago
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Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure

Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure
  • Students say their hopes and dreams are at stake

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.: For students around the world, an acceptance letter to Harvard University has represented the pinnacle of achievement, offering a spot among the elite at a campus that produces Nobel Prize winners, captains of industry and global leaders.
That allure is now in jeopardy. In its intensifying fight with the White House, Harvard was dealt its heaviest blow yet on Thursday, when the government blocked the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students. The move threatens to undermine Harvard’s stature, its revenue and its appeal among top scholars around the world.
Even more than the government’s $2.6 billion in research cuts, the administration’s action represents an existential threat for Harvard. The school summed it up in a lawsuit seeking to block the action: “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Within hours of the decision, the consequences started becoming clear. Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth, who just finished her first year in a Harvard graduate program, is waiting to find out if she can return next year, the royal palace said. The Chinese government publicly questioned whether Harvard’s international standing will endure.
“The relevant actions by the US side will only damage its own image and international credibility,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a briefing in Beijing.
A federal judge on Friday blocked the administration’s decision as the lawsuit plays out, but the order is only temporary.
Students say their hopes and dreams are at stake
On the Harvard campus, international students said they were stunned, confused and deeply concerned about what the revocation means for their degrees, their future plans and their legal status in the United States.
Walid Akef, a Harvard graduate student in art history from Egypt, said the Trump administration action would cost him “dreams, hopes and 20 years of my life.”
“Coming to Harvard, I’m not exaggerating. I planned for it for 15 years,” Akef said. He earned two master’s degrees and learned multiple languages before arriving at the university. He also worries what the changes will mean for his family, since his wife is pregnant and will soon be unable to travel.
“So this is absolutely disastrous. I’m going to lose not just stability, but I also lose my dreams and then lose, I don’t know, my beautiful life.”
Akef is cautiously optimistic that Harvard “will take care of this,” but he is also considering other options as US policy becomes increasingly inhospitable to foreign students.
A graduating law student from Asia said he had planned to stay in the United States and find work, “but not anymore.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do, but my future doesn’t appear to be here,” said the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
Changes could erase a quarter of the student body
With a $53 billion endowment, Harvard has the means to weather federal funding losses that would cripple other institutions. But this new sanction strikes at the heart of its campus.
Already, the change is causing disarray, as thousands of students consider whether to transfer elsewhere or risk being in the country illegally. It could wipe out a quarter of the university’s total student body, while halving some of its graduate schools and threatening students who work as lab researchers and teaching assistants. Some sports teams would be left nearly empty.
For many, it has been a time of panicked calls home and huddles with fellow international students. For Kat, a data science math student from China, the news comes as she prepares to graduate from Harvard next week.
“My biggest fear is whether I would get deported immediately, because we’re not sure about our status,” said Kat, who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her first name out of concern about retaliation.
If the government’s action stands, Harvard would be banned from admitting new international students for at least two school years. Even if it regains its place as a global magnet, top students may shy away for fear of future government reprisals, the school said in its lawsuit.
The university enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. India and China send more students to the US than any other countries.
Asked if he was considering restrictions on other universities, President Donald Trump said, “We’re taking a look at a lot of things.”
“Harvard’s going to have to change its ways. So are some others,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. He added, “We don’t want troublemakers here.”
A time to weigh other opportunities
In its court filing, Harvard listed some of its most notable alumni who enrolled as foreign students. The list includes Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia; Empress Masako of Japan; and many leaders of major corporations.
While foreigners set to graduate from Harvard next week can still do so, the remaining current students and those bound for the university in the fall were weighing other opportunities. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, for one, said Friday that it would welcome international students already at Harvard and those who have been admitted.
“It feels like my world has exploded,” said Fang, a Chinese student who was accepted to Harvard for a master’s program. She also spoke on the condition that only her first name be used out of fear that she could be targeted.
Her student visa to the US was approved the day before the latest Harvard news broke. “If America becomes a country that doesn’t welcome me, I don’t want to go there.”
The action has dominated news in countries around the world, said Mike Henniger, president and CEO of Illume Student Advisory Services, a company that works with colleges in the US, Canada and Europe to recruit international students. He is currently traveling in Japan and awoke to the news Friday with dozens of emails from colleagues.
The reactions from the international community, he said, were incredulous: “’Unbelievable!’ ‘Oh My God!’ ‘Unreal!’“
For incoming freshmen who just got accepted to Harvard — and already committed — the timing could not be worse, but they are such strong students that any top university in the world would want to offer them a spot, he said.
“I think the bigger story is the students around the country that aren’t a Harvard student, the students that scraped by to get into a state university and are thinking: ‘Are we next?’” he said. “The Harvard kids are going to be OK. It’s more about the damage to the American education brand. The view of the US being a less welcoming place for international students.”

 


UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents

UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents
Updated 38 min 26 sec ago
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UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents

UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents
  • UNHCR said it has collected reports from family members and others of two separate boat tragedies off the coast of Myanmar
  • About 1 million Rohingya, who are predominantly Muslim, are in camps in Bangladesh after leaving Myanmar

GENEVA: The UN refugee agency said Friday it fears that 427 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar and a refugee camp in Bangladesh may have died at sea this month.
UNHCR said it has collected reports from family members and others of two separate boat tragedies off the coast of Myanmar in May. It acknowledged that details remained unclear but that enough information has been collected and verified to bring the incidents to light publicly.
About 1 million Rohingya, who are predominantly Muslim, are in camps in Bangladesh after leaving Myanmar. They include about 740,000 who fled a brutal “clearance campaign” in 2017 by Myanmar’s security forces, who were accused of committing mass rapes and killings.
A first boat that left from a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and traveled to Rakhine State in neighboring Myanmar to pick up more people sank on May 9, with only 66 survivors among a total of 267 people on board, UNHCR said.
The Geneva-based agency said reports indicated a second boat with 247 people on board that made a similar journey capsized a day later, with only 21 survivors.
“Reports have been coming in and it has been very hard to confirm what has happened, but the fear is that this number of people may have lost their lives at sea in the region,” said UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch.
“Before these two tragedies, some 30 Rohingya were reported to have died or gone missing in boat journeys in 2025,” he said. “So if confirmed, this is a huge jump.”
Thousands of Rohingya each year attempt to cross the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, and often the fates of those who have gone missing go unexplained. Even when officials knew the boats’ locations, maritime authorities to rescue some of them have gone ignored, UNHCR has said.
A total of 657 people died or went missing in the regional waters in more than 150 boat journeys by fleeing Rohingya last year, UNHCR said.
The recent monsoon season brought perilous maritime conditions including strong winds, rain and rough seas, UNHCR said, adding that it was investigating reports about the fate of a third boat carrying 188 Rohingya that left Myanmar on May 14.
Many Rohingya have fled by sea to Indonesia, which has reported an increase in the number of Rohingya refugees in recent months.


Trump’s latest tariff threats knock Wall Street, European stocks and Apple lower

Trump’s latest tariff threats knock Wall Street, European stocks and Apple lower
Updated 56 min 14 sec ago
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Trump’s latest tariff threats knock Wall Street, European stocks and Apple lower

Trump’s latest tariff threats knock Wall Street, European stocks and Apple lower
  • Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on the European Union, saying that trade talks “were going nowhere”
  • Apple dropped 3 percent after Trump warned a tariff “of at least 25 percent” if the company does not move production to the US

NEW YORK: US stocks fell Friday after President Donald Trump threatened 50 percent tariffs on the European Union that could begin in a little more than a week.
The S&P 500 lost 0.7 percent to close out its worst week in the last seven. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 256 points, or 0.6 percent, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1 percent.
Trump threatened the tariffs before the US stock market opened, saying on his Truth Social platform that trade talks with the European Union “were going nowhere” and that “straight 50 percent” tariffs could go into effect on June 1. The European Union is one of the United States’ largest trading partners.
Stocks fell immediately afterward in Europe, with France’s CAC 40 index losing 1.7 percent. The US market also took a quick turn lower, and futures for US stock indexes tumbled after earlier suggesting only modest moves at the open of trading.
The S&P 500 lost as much as 1.3 percent shortly after trading began, but it pared its loss as traders weighed whether Trump’s latest threats were just negotiating tactics aimed in hopes of getting a deal or something more.
Apple dropped 3 percent and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 after Trump went after the company specifically. He said he’s been pushing Apple CEO Tim Cook to move production of iPhones to the United States, and he warned a tariff “of at least 25 percent must be paid by Apple to the US” if it doesn’t.
Trump later clarified his post to say that all smart phones made abroad would be taxed and the tariffs could be coming as soon as the end of June.
“It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product,” Trump said. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair.”
Trump has been criticizing companies individually when he’s frustrated with how they’re acting because of his tariffs and because of the uncertainty his trade war has created. He earlier told Walmart it should “eat the tariffs,” along with China, after the retailer said it would likely have to raise prices to cover the increased cost of imports.
Deckers Outdoor, the company behind the Hoka and Uggs brands, became one of the latest companies to say all the uncertainty around the economy means it won’t offer financial forecasts for the full upcoming year. Instead, it gave forecasts only for the upcoming quarter, and they fell short of analysts’ expectations for revenue and profit.
That sent its stock down 19.9 percent, even though the company reported a stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected.
Ross Stores fell 9.8 percent after it pulled its financial forecasts for the full year, citing how more than half the goods it sells originate in China. “As such, we expect pressure on our profitability if tariffs remain at elevated levels,” CEO Jim Conroy said.
The off-price retailer gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that included a hit taken from tariffs, and it fell short of analysts’ expectations. That dragged its stock down even though the company also reported a better profit for the latest quarter than expected.
On the winning side of Wall Street was Intuit, which rose 8.1 percent after the company behind TurboTax and Credit Karma reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Perhaps more importantly, Intuit also raised its forecasts for revenue and profit over its full fiscal year.
Stocks in the nuclear industry also rallied after Trump signed executive orders to speed up nuclear licensing decisions, among other measures meant to charge up the industry. Oklo, which is developing fast fission power plants, jumped 23 percent.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 39.19 points to 5,802.82. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 256.02 to 41,603.07, and the Nasdaq composite sank 188.53 to 18,737.21.
Trump’s latest tariff threats stirred up Wall Street after it had recovered most of the losses it had earlier taken because of the trade war. The S&P 500 dropped roughly 20 percent below its record at one point last month, when worries were at their height about whether Trump’s stiff tariffs would cause a global recession. The index then climbed back within 3 percent of its all-time high after Trump paused his tariffs on many countries, most notably China.
In the bond market, Treasury yields fell after swinging back and forth a few times. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.51 percent from 4.54 percent late Thursday.
It had been running higher earlier in the week, in part on worries about how Washington’s efforts to cut taxes could add trillions of dollars to the US government’s debt.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Asia, where markets closed before Trump issued his latest tariff threats. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent, while stocks fell 0.9 percent in Shanghai.