Tag: donald trump

Donald Trump Cancels Flights for 1,600 Refugees: Report

President Donald Trump has cancelled flights for 1,660 refugees from Afghanistan who were previously cleared by the government to come to the U.S., according to Reuters.

The 1,660 Afghan refugees who have been taken off flights include family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, unaccompanied minors flying to the U.S. to reunite with family, and those who fought for the former U.S.-backed Afghan government.

Trump’s suspension of U.S. refugee programs and subsequent cancelling of flights is detailed in a report from Shawn VanDiver, the head of the #AfghanEvac, a coalition of U.S. veterans and advocacy groups, and an anonymous U.S. official.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump transition team for comment via email outside of business hours. Newsweek also reached out to the U.S. Department of State for comment via a form on their website outside of working hours.

Trump’s suspension of U.S. refugee programs is significant because he is following through with the immigration crackdowns he mentioned during his presidential campaign.

Further, by cancelling the flights of Afghan refugees, the president is mirroring actions from his first term, as he signed an executive order barring people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days in 2017.

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President Donald Trump Pardons Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht

President Donald Trump, fulfilling a promise made at the Libertarian Party’s National Convention in May, pardoned Ross Ulbricht today. Ulbricht had been serving a life sentence for his role in founding and operating the dark web marketplace Silk Road.

As Trump put it in a Truth Social post: “in honor of [his mother Lyn Ulbricht], and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross.” He said “the scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern-day weaponization of government against me.”

As I reported on his sentencing in May 2015 (he has been in prison since his October 2013 arrest):

Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison with no parole…by Judge Katherine Forrest in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York. Ulbricht was convicted back in February on seven charges, all related to the operation of the darkwebsite called Silk Road, which used Tor-enabled anonymity and the cryptocurrency bitcoin to allow people to buy and sell often illegal items in safety and security, with the site providing an escrow service between buyer and seller to ensure both were satisfied.

Ulbricht was a clever entrepreneur, enthralled by libertarian ideas derived from the likes of Murray Rothbard and Samuel Konkin about the richness and justice of truly free markets not hobbled by government threats.

The charges were: “narcotics trafficking; distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet; narcotics trafficking conspiracy; continuing criminal enterprise; conspiracy to aid and abet computer hacking; conspiracy to traffic in fraudulent identity documents; and money laundering conspiracy.”

None of the charges were related to either personally selling an illegal substance to anyone—Ulbricht merely ran a website that facilitated it—and none were related to causing direct harm to anyone’s life or property.

Given the amazing water-muddying the prosecution achieved by talking about, but never trying Ulbricht for or proving in court beyond a reasonable doubt, allegedly planned, but never executed, murders for hire, one wonders whether the judge allowed any thoughts of those rumors, even subconsciously, to shape her sentencing decision.

Silk Road’s innovative mail order using bitcoin, combined with user reviews of sellers, imposed some real market discipline on dealers, kept buyers from the occasional dangers of physically obtaining drugs, and allowed people not violating others’ lives and property to buy and sell drugs with less (but not zero) legal risk.

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Trump expected to commute Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s life sentence

President Trump is expected to commute the lifetime prison sentence of Ross Ulbricht, founder of the notorious dark web site Silk Road, The Post has learned.

A source close to the White House said at midday Tuesday that the Ulbricht pardon was “incoming.”

Brandon Sample, Ulbricht’s clemency lawyer, told The Post in an email Tuesday: “We do expect President Trump to grant clemency.”

In response to a follow-up asking when he expected the order to come through, Sample responded: “The president, when a candidate, said that he would release Ross on his first day in office. We have no doubt the president will follow through on his commitment to release Ross. Ross, his family, and all his supporters are forever grateful to President Trump for his willingness to show mercy to Ross.”

Trump, 78, had vowed in May to reduce Ulbricht’s life sentence on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering “down to time served” if he won the 2024 election.

Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013 in San Francisco and accused of running the notorious website — which sold drugs and other illegal products while accepting bitcoin as payment — under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Now 40, Ulbricht was convicted in February 2015 on charges including drug trafficking and conspiracies to commit money laundering and computer hacking. He was sentenced that May to two life terms in prison, plus 40 years.

Ulbricht has unsuccessfully appealed his conviction and sentence up to the Supreme Court, leaving him to serve out his time at a maximum security prison in Arizona.

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sent a letter to Trump asking him to show mercy. “I write to urge you to follow through on your stated intention to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. Mr. Ulbricht is serving two life sentences plus forty years without parole for nonviolent offenses related to the website he launched in early 2011,” Paul’s letter read. 

“Like so many others, I am shocked by the harsh sentence imposed on this first-time offender.”

Paul argued that Ulbricht’s sentence is “vastly disproportionate to his crimes,” since “the worst drug sellers on the site received significantly more lenient sentences.”

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Trump failed to deliver ‘Day 1’ promise to grant clemency to Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road

President Trump did not pardon or commute the prison sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the anonymous marketplace website Silk Road, despite his promise on the campaign trail to free him on “day one.”

Ulbricht was convicted because his website, which was founded in 2011 and used cryptocurrency for payments, was used to sell illegal drugs, even though he did not sell any of the illicit substances himself.

After being sworn into office on Monday, Trump issued several executive actions, including efforts to reduce immigration, designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move to resume federal executions and pardoning or commuting sentences to time served of people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

But Trump’s first day back in the White House came to an end with Ulbricht still behind bars without a pardon or commutation from the president, who pledged to do so last spring.

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Trump’s New DEA Head Blamed Marijuana For School Shootings And Claimed Rescheduling Push Was Politically Motivated

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has a new interim leader—and he’s no fan of marijuana, previously linking cannabis use to school shootings and repeatedly insisting that the Biden administration”hijacked” the rescheduling process from the agency for political purposes.

DEA announced on Monday that Derek Maltz, who retired from the agency in 2014 after 28 years of service, will be serving as acting administrator. With President Donald Trump still having yet to name his choice to run DEA as administrator, it’s unclear if Maltz is positioned to receive that nomination or if he will ultimately be replaced.

But for cannabis advocates and stakeholders, Maltz’s return to DEA for now—especially as anxieties around the fate of the ongoing marijuana rescheduling process grow—represents a troubling development.

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Trump pauses all court date notices for illegal border crossers, tells Border Patrol they are ‘aliens,’ not ‘migrants’: report

President Donald Trump has ordered the use of court dates and notices to appear (NTA) for illegal immigrants when they are taken into custody by Border Patrol to be halted. This comes as he has announced the end to catch-and-release policies implemented by former President Joe Biden

According to NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley, direction for Border Patrol went out on Monday night stating that they would be “halting the use of ‘NTAs’ (court dates) while reverting to the previous pursuit and use of force policy.”

Some of those policies include, according to Bradley, “No alien will be released from custody on an NTA/OR or otherwise without approval from Deputy Chief,” as well as the policy that the government will “no longer refer to aliens as migrants, noncitizens, etc. The legal term is alien and as law enforcement we will use the legal term.”

In addition to these new border and immigration policies, Trump ended the function of the CBP One application on Monday after he took office. The app has been used by immigrants traveling to the United States to set up asylum appointments at the border, whether or not their claims to asylum were legitimate. 

What happened under Biden is that those who set appointments were usually released into the United States with a “notice to appear” or a date for immigration court, sometimes years later down the line. The action from Trump ending those policies sets in motion more strict and secure border policies and will disincentivize people from coming to the border en masse. 

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Justice! President Trump Revokes Security Clearances of ALL 51 ‘Spies Who Lied’ and Former NSA Advisor John Bolton

Tonight, in his first evening back in the Oval Office, President Trump signed a slew of Executive Orders and commuted the sentences of 14 Jan 6 hostages and pardoned all of the remaining political prisoners from the protests at the US Capitol.

He withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization.

He reversed a plethora of Joe Biden’s Executive Orders, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “Promoting Access to Voting” EO 14019, which allowed all federal agencies to be utilized essentially as voter registration drives.

But perhaps one of the most significant EOs, besides the pardoning of 1500 J6ers, is the “Holding Former Government Officials Accountable For Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information.”

The order highlights the 51 former intel officials who coordinated with the Biden campaign to suggest that the Hunter Biden laptop was “a part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

The letter was in response to the New York Post article written by Miranda Devine that led to widespread censorship on Twitter, now X, Facebook, YouTube that would get you banned for simply mentioning the article in some cases.

Some of the officials that were signatories to that letter held security clearances and maintained ongoing contractual relationships with the CIA.

According to the EO, senior CIA officials were aware of the contents of the letter after it was submitted to the CIA Prepublication Classification.  It was later learned that the FBI at that time had possession of the laptop and had validated its authenticity.

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Trump Signs Executive Order to Withdraw U.S. from Globalist World Health Organization

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to officially withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), citing its failure to hold China accountable and its role in pushing radical globalist health agendas that undermine American sovereignty.

Trump’s executive order will halt all U.S. funding to the WHO, redirecting those resources to domestic health initiatives that prioritize American interests and values.

WHO has long pointed to its mishandling of global health crises, its cozy relationship with China, and its dangerous push for vaccine mandates and digital health passports.

Recall that the Biden regime publicly affirmed their commitment to a “legally-binding” accord back in 2023, which will give the World Health Organization (WHO) control over U.S. pandemic policies, though work remains in certain areas.

Once a health emergency is declared every signatory, including the United States, must submit to the authority of the WHO. This includes caving to them on treatments, lockdowns and vaccine mandates along with government surveillance.

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After Four Years of Covering Up Biden’s Dementia, President Trump Shocks Media by Taking Questions From Reporters in Oval Office While Signing Executive Orders and J6 Pardons

President Trump shocked the media by engaging reporters in an extended Q & A in the Oval Office Monday night while signing executive orders and pardons and commutations for supporters prosecuted over the January 6 riot. The signing event went on for about 45 minutes as Trump took questions from reporters while he signed the orders and pardons. It was a stark contrast from the four years of the media covering up Joe Biden’s dementia.

Will Scharf, who was one of Trump’s personal attorneys in his court battles last year and was appointed by Trump to be White House staff secretary, handed Trump the binders with executive orders and pardons, explaining to Trump and the reporters about each one.

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Can Trump Fix Our Broken Foreign Policy?

By the time most of you read this column, we will have a new US President. Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated for his second term today at 11:30 AM, Eastern time, and many Americans are hopeful that the disastrous foreign policy of the past four years under Biden will be improved. There is good news and bad news.

First the good news. It is no surprise that Trump’s appointees to foreign policy and national security positions are to the person very hawkish on China. However Trump, as he often does, has defied conventional wisdom on what his China policy might be by not only inviting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the inauguration, but actually picking up the telephone and having a conversation with his Chinese counterpart.

According to a read-out of the call, the two discussed “trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and other subjects” and agreed to remain in regular contact. Winston Churchill is often (inaccurately) credited with the phrase “jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but nonetheless it is an accurate statement. It is much better to engage even with “adversaries” than to refuse contact and add more sanctions. Those who prefer sanctions over communications are the true isolationists.

On TikTok, the popular application has credited Trump with preventing the Congressional ban from taking effect. If true, it is another good Trump move in favor of our Constitutional free speech guarantees.

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