WASHINGTON: The U.S. government on Friday imposed sanctions on Iran's intelligence agency and its leadership in response to malicious cyberattacks on Albanian government computer systems in July.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Esmail Khatib, who heads the ministry, for what it said were cyber-related activities against the U.S. and its allies.
Albania, a NATO member, cut diplomatic ties with Iran and expelled its embassy staff this week over the cyberattack. It was the first known case of a country cutting diplomatic relations over a cyberattack.
The Albanian government has accused Iran of carrying out the July 15 attack, which temporarily shut down numerous Albanian government digital services and websites.
Microsoft, which assisted Albania in investigating the cyberattack, said in a blog post Thursday that it was moderately confident the hackers belong to a group that has been publicly linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
It said the attackers were observed operating out of Iran, used tools previously used by known Iranian attackers and had previously targeted “other sectors and countries” consistent with Iranian interests. The destructive malware deployed was also previously used by a “known Iranian actor,” it said.
“Iran’s cyber attack against Albania disregards norms of responsible peacetime State behavior in cyberspace,” Brian Nelson, Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.
“We will not tolerate Iran’s increasingly aggressive cyber activities targeting the United States or our allies and partners," he said.
Since at least 2007, Iran's intelligence agency and its proxies have been accused of conducting cyber operations targeting public and private entities around the world.
Treasury, which uses an Obama-era executive order that targets people and entities that engage in malicious cyber activities as an authority to impose the sanctions, has been ratcheting up its financial penalties on Iran this year.
This comes as President Joe Biden’s administration has been working to renew the tattered Iran nuclear deal, which placed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which Iran insists it has never received.
US sanctions Iran intelligence over Albania cyberattack
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US sanctions Iran intelligence over Albania cyberattack
- Albania, a NATO member, cut diplomatic ties with Iran and expelled its embassy staff this week over the cyberattack
- Since at least 2007, Iran's intelligence agency and its proxies have been accused of conducting cyber operations
Republican-led US House votes to limit judges’ power to block Trump’s agenda
- Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has touted it as an alternative to calls by some of Trump’s allies in the chamber to impeach judges who block the Republican president’s agenda
Republican-led US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to curtail the ability of judges to issue nationwide injunctions blocking government policies after key parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda have been stymied by such court rulings.
The House voted 219-213 along largely party lines in favor of the No Rogue Rulings Act, a bill that top Republican lawmakers have called a priority after numerous judges ruled against Trump’s executive orders and policies used to implement his immigration crackdown and government downsizing initiatives.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where it faces long odds of securing the 60 votes needed to become law. Republicans have only a 53-47 majority in the Senate, where similar legislation to limit nationwide injunctions is pending.
Such nationwide orders from judges have risen over the last two decades in response to challenges to policies issued by Republican and Democratic administrations, prompting calls in both parties over the years for reform.
Yet the latest bill was introduced only after judges in some of the 170-plus lawsuits challenging Trump’s flurry of executive orders and initiatives began issuing a wave of rulings blocking policies they deemed unlawful or unconstitutional.
“Since President Trump has returned to office, left-leaning activists have cooperated with ideological judges whom they have sought out to take their cases and weaponized nationwide injunctions to stall dozens of lawful executive actions and initiatives,” US Representative Darrell Issa, the bill’s lead Republican sponsor, said on the floor on Tuesday.
Under his bill, judges would have to limit the scope of their rulings to the specific parties before them, though they could still issue nationwide orders in class action lawsuits.
Cases by two or more states would be heard by randomly assigned three-judge panels, whose rulings could be appealed directly to the US Supreme Court.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has touted it as an alternative to calls by some of Trump’s allies in the chamber to impeach judges who block the Republican president’s agenda.
“No one single activist judge should be able to issue a nationwide injunction to stop a president’s policies,” Johnson told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night ahead of the vote. “That’s not the way the framers intended this to work, and we’re going to put them back in check.”
Democrats lambasted the bill as an effort to change the rules to ensure judges could not fully block anything unlawful Trump does while in office, after many of former President Joe Biden’s own initiatives were blocked by courts.
“The whole idea of suddenly blocking nationwide injunctions because Donald Trump is losing every single day in court defeats the whole concept of the rule of law,” Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said at a committee hearing last week on the bill.
Raskin said had it been law, the bill would have prevented federal judges in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland from issuing the nationwide injunctions that have blocked Trump’s “blatantly unconstitutional” attempt to restrict automatic US birthright citizenship as part of his immigration agenda.
The Trump administration has asked the US Supreme Court to narrow those injunctions to cover just the plaintiffs that brought the cases, saying the justices “should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched.”
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has yet to act on that request.
But it has handed Trump a series of recent victories, halting judges’ orders that required the administration rehire thousands of fired employees and reinstate millions of dollars in teacher training grants and blocked the administration from pursuing deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members using a 1798 wartime law, though that decision imposed limits.
The Trump administration welcomed Wednesday’s action in Congress, which a US Justice Department spokesperson said would “reinforce the separation of powers.”
“This Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s policies and will continue to do so whenever challenged in federal court by rogue judges who think they can control the president’s executive authority,” the spokesperson said.
US intel investigating whether FBI was involved in 2020 Capitol riot
- Trump's aide Gabbard forms task force to investigate intelligence community weaponization
- Justice Department report debunks FBI involvement in Capitol attack
WASHINGTON: The top US spy’s chief of staff on Wednesday said the US intelligence community is investigating whether the FBI was involved in planning the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.
“We’re looking into it right now,” Joseph Kent, chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said during a Senate intelligence committee hearing on his nomination to head the US National Counterterrorism Center.
He did not elaborate on which of the 18 US intelligence agencies is conducting the probe. Gabbard oversees the FBI’s intelligence functions.
A US Justice Department watchdog report released in December debunked claims by far-right conspiracy theorists who falsely alleged that FBI operatives were secretly involved in the Capitol attack.
The report found there were 26 FBI informants in Washington on the day of the attack. But, it said, the FBI did not authorize any to enter the Capitol or engage in violence.
Kent’s comments came in response to questions from Democratic Senator Mark Kelly about the attack by Trump supporters trying to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
Trump falsely claimed he lost the contest due to widespread voting fraud. In January, he pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in the assault by a mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to overturn his election defeat.
Kelly asked Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA officer and staunch Trump loyalist, what evidence he had to back up a post on what is now the social media platform X that the FBI and US spy agencies were involved in planning the assault on Congress.
“We’ve already identified that there were multiple confidential human informants run by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that were present in the crowd that day, directing, removing barriers, those types of things,” Kelly said. “That has been investigated widely. We continue to look into that intelligence.”
He alleged that the FBI and law enforcement elements that he did not identify “attempted to suppress the fact” that informants were among the thousands of rioters.
Information that forewarned of violence indicated that there had been “some degree of intelligence infiltration” of groups who stormed the Capitol, he said.
Kent said that it “probably” was the bureau’s Washington Field Office that was involved and that it was “being looked into” by the intelligence community.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s office referred to her announcement on Tuesday that a new task force she has formed is “executing” Trump’s executive orders to rebuild trust in the intelligence community “starting with investigating weaponization, rooting out deep-seeded politicization, exposing unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence, and declassifying information that serves a public interest.”
Gabbard campaigned for Kent during his failed 2022 run to represent Washington state’s 3rd congressional district.
He was quoted by local media as questioning the validity of Biden’s victory and called the Capitol attack an “intelligence operation,” and rioters charged in the assault “political prisoners.”
Several Democratic senators questioned Kent about his participation in a group chat on the Signal messaging app in which top Trump national security officials discussed plans for March 15 airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen.
Kent said that material posted in the chat was unclassified, but he declined to answer questions, saying the matter is the subject of litigation.
The Pentagon’s Inspector General’s office announced earlier this month that it was opening a probe into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to coordinate the strikes.
Trump targets ‘Anonymous’ author and former top cybersecurity official in escalation of retribution
- Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in Trump’s first term, is being targeted for writing an article critical of Trump's policies in 2018
- Trump also slammed Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official, for declaring the 2020 election that Trump lost to be secure and the ballot counts to be accurate
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump intensified his efforts to punish his critics on Wednesday by signing a pair of memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration and stripping them of any security clearances they may have.
Trump’s targeting of Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in Trump’s first term, and Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official, came as the president has sought to use the powers of the presidency to retaliate against his adversaries, including law firms.
Trump also on Wednesday retaliated against another law firm, Susman Godfrey, as he seeks to punish firms that have links to prosecutors who have investigated him or employed attorneys he sees as opponents.
Although Trump has ordered security clearances to be stripped from a number of his opponents, including former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the president’s order Wednesday directing the Justice Department to broadly investigate the actions of Taylor and Krebs marks an escalation of Trump’s campaign of retribution since he returned to power.
Taylor, who left the Trump administration in 2019, was later revealed to be the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed in 2018 that was sharply critical of Trump. The person writing the essay described themselves as part of a secret “resistance” to counter Trump’s “misguided impulses,” and its publication touched off a leak investigation in Trump’s first White House.
Taylor later published a book under the pen name “Anonymous” and publicly revealed his identity days before the 2020 election.
Trump said Wednesday that Taylor was “like a traitor” and that his writings about “confidential” meetings were “like spying.”
“I think he’s guilty of treason,” he said.
Taylor responded by saying Trump had proved his point.
“Dissent isn’t unlawful. It certainly isn’t treasonous. America is headed down a dark path,” he wrote on X.
Trump named Krebs the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency but became angered with him after he declared the 2020 election that Trump lost to be secure and the ballot counts to be accurate.
Krebs did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.
Trump has falsely claimed he was cheated out of reelection in 2020 by widespread fraud, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Recounts, reviews and audits in the battleground states where he disputed his loss all affirmed Biden’s victory. Judges, including some he appointed, rejected dozens of his legal challenges.
“It’s bizarre to see a president investigate his own administration and his own appointee,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer and coauthor of “The Big Truth,” a book about Trump’s 2020 election lies.
Becker noted that Krebs issued his reassurances about the security of the upcoming election for months during 2020 without pushback from the then-president, with Trump only souring on him after the votes were counted.
“The reason he can sit in the White House today and govern from that position is because our election system is secure and has accurately determined who has won the presidency,” Becker said.
Susman Godfrey, the firm Trump targeted in an order Wednesday, represented Dominion Voting Systems in a lawsuit that accused Fox News of falsely claiming that the voting company had rigged the 2020 presidential election. Fox News ultimately agreed to pay nearly $800 million to avert a trial.
The order bars the firm from using government resources or buildings, according to White House staff secretary Will Scharf.
Trump has issued a series of orders meant to punish firms, including by ordering the suspension of lawyers’ security clearances and revoking federal contracts. He’s succeeded in extracting concessions from some who have settled, but others have challenged the orders in court.
Fearing deportation, migrants in US send more money home
- Fearing deportation, some migrants from Central and South America have cut short their journeys to the United States and returned home
GUATEMALA CITY: Central American migrants in the United States sent home around 20 percent more in remittances in the first quarter of 2025, official data showed this week, a trend economists said reflected their fear of deportation by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Nearly one-quarter of the GDP of impoverished Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua is made up of money sent from US-based migrants to relatives in their homelands.
Guatemala’s central bank said this week it had recorded $5.64 billion in remittances in the first quarter, a 20.5 percent increase over the same period in 2024.
Honduras’s central bank, for its part, said the country received $2.62 billion, a 24 percent increase on the first quarter of 2024.
El Salvador and Nicaragua do not yet have complete data for the first quarter, but in January and February, remittances to both countries increased by 14.2 percent and 22.6 percent respectively, compared to the same months in 2024.
El Salvador received $1.4 billion and Nicaragua $909 million in the first two months of 2025, according to their central banks.
In Nicaragua, the figure includes remittances not only from the United States, but also from Costa Rica ($68.2 million) and Spain ($48.6 million).
The president of Guatemala’s central bank, Alvaro Gonzalez, attributed the increase in remittances to migrants’ fear of being deported from the United States.
Guatemalan economic analyst Erick Coyoy took a similar view, telling local media that the surge was “an anticipated reaction by migrants to the perceived risk of deportation.”
It is unclear, however, whether they sent more money home to ensure that, if deported, they would be able to access their savings or whether it was to help their relatives benefit from their situation in the United States while they can.
Trump returned to the White House in January on a promise to conduct the biggest wave of migrant deportations in US history.
Fearing deportation, some migrants from Central and South America have cut short their journeys to the United States and returned home.
Some House Republicans threaten Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget and tax cut bill ahead of floor vote
Some House Republicans threaten Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget and tax cut bill ahead of floor vote
- Trump admonish Republican holdouts to "stop grandstanding" amid opposition to his budget plant allowing trillions of dollars in tax breaks
- The rebellion from Trump's conservative Republican base comes as the US economy is convulsing over his trade wars
WASHINGTON: With a shove from President Donald Trump, House Republicans were working to hoist their budget framework to approval late Wednesday, trying to flip conservative GOP holdouts who had raised grave misgivings over allowing trillions of dollars in tax breaks without deeper spending cuts.
Speaker Mike Johnson almost dared the Republican hard-liners to defy Trump and risk upending what the president calls the “big, beautiful bill,” which is central to his agenda of tax cuts, mass deportations and a smaller federal government. The GOP speaker cannot afford many defections from his slim majority, when faced with unified Democratic opposition.
“Stop grandstanding!” Trump had admonished Republicans during a black-tie fundraising dinner at the National Building Museum Tuesday night.
Trump told them, “Close your eyes and get there.”
But by Wednesday afternoon, the conservative Republicans stood firmly against the plan, throwing the schedule in flux. Several of them met privately with Senate GOP leaders to insist on deeper cuts. Johnson later pulled a group of Republicans into a private meeting room off the House chamber.
“The intention is to have the vote by this evening, and we’ll see when that time is,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “Very positive, productive discussions. Everybody is moving forward.”
Pushing the budget framework forward would be a milestone for Johnson, who had set a deadline of the congressional spring break recess Thursday for advancing the resolution. But a failed vote, particularly as the economy is convulsing over Trump’s trade wars, would prove a major setback for the embattled speaker and the Republican agenda in Washington.
It’s coming as Trump’s tariff onslaught has left lawmakers on edge. Hours before the House was ready to vote, Trump paused much of his ambitious tariffs scheme, giving financial markets a bounce after days of turmoil and warnings of a US recession.
“We are at a critical inflection point, with a generational opportunity,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the chair of the House Budget Committee, at a rules meeting ahead of voting.
But House GOP conservatives, including several of those who met personally with Trump at the White House this week, remain concerned that the Senate GOP’s blueprint, approved last weekend, does not slash spending to the level they believe is necessary to help prevent soaring deficits.
“The Math Does Not Add Up,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted on social media. He said he would not support it.
In an unusual move, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the chair of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, and others walked across the Capitol to met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and other Senate GOP leaders.
Sen. John Barrasso, the GOP whip, exited a short time later calling it a very positive meeting. “The House and the Senate Republicans are all on the same page, and we’re all committed to serious and significant savings for the American taxpayers,” Barrasso said.
Wednesday’s vote would be another step in a weeks, if not months, long process. The House and Senate must resolve their differences with more votes ahead on the final product later this spring or summer.
Democrats, in the minority, do not have enough votes to stop the package, but have warned against it.
Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the ranking Democrat on the budget committee, said whether the House or Senate version, the proposed GOP budget cuts would deeply harm Medicaid, the health care program used by tens of millions of Americans.
“This will have a devasting impact on my district, my state — and all 435 congressional districts throughout our land,” Boyle said.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the Republicans’ budget plan is reckless and callous as it proposes slashing budgets to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
“We’re here to make it clear,” Jeffries said. “Hands off everyday Americans struggling to make ends meet.”
The budget framework starts the process of the Republican effort to preserve the tax breaks approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term, while potentially adding the new ones he promised on the campaign trail. That includes no taxes on tipped wages, Social Security income and others, ballooning the price tag to some $7 trillion over the decade.
The package also allows for budget increases with some $175 billion to pay for Trump’s mass deportation operation and as much for the Defense Department to bolster military spending.
It all would be partly paid for with steep cuts to domestic programs, including health care, as part of the $2 trillion in reductions outlined in the House GOP version of the package, though several GOP senators have signaled they are not willing to go that far.
To clip costs, the Senate is using an unusual accounting method that does not count the costs of preserving the 2017 tax cuts, some $4.5 trillion, as new spending, another factor that is enraging the House conservatives.
Two Republican senators voted against their package during an overnight weekend session — Maine Sen. Susan Collins objected to steep cuts to Medicaid in the House’s framework, while Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul argued the whole package relied on “fishy” math that would add to the debt.
The package would also boost the nation’s debt limit to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Trump had wanted lawmakers to take the politically difficult issue off the table. With debt now at $36 trillion, the Treasury Department has said it will run out of funds by August.
But the House and Senate need to resolve their differences on the debt limit, as well. The House GOP raises the debt limit by $4 trillion, but the Senate GOP boosted it to $5 trillion so the Congress would not have to revisit the issue again until after the fall 2026 midterm election.
With Trump’s trade wars hovering over the debate, House Republicans tucked a provision into a procedural vote that would prevent House action – as the Senate has taken – to disapprove of Trump’s tariffs.
