TV News LIES

President Donald Trump said Thursday he was moving to suspend the security clearances of attorneys at a prominent law firm linked to Democratic-funded opposition research during the 2016 presidential campaign into ties between the Republican candidate and Russia.

The sanction against Perkins Coie is the latest in a series of retributive moves by Trump and his administration targeting a broad cross-section of perceived adversaries, including Justice Department prosecutors, career intelligence officials and most recently private-practice attorneys. Taken together, the actions appear designed not only to settle scores from years past but also to deter both government officials and private sector workers from participating in new inquiries into his conduct.

“This is an absolute honor to sign. What they’ve done is just terrible. It’s weaponization — you could say weaponization against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again,” Trump said after being presented with the executive order at the Oval Office.

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President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the legal community pose “a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself,” according to a court filing submitted Friday by more than 500 law firms.

The brief represents the most organized pushback to date against a series of White House executive orders that have sought to punish some of the country’s most elite firms and to extract concessions from them. Some of the targeted firms have sued to halt enforcement of the orders, while others have struck deals with the White House either to avert an order or to have it rescinded.

The filing was submitted as part of a lawsuit filed by Perkins Coie, which is among the firms that have challenged the orders in court. The order against that firm and others demands that security clearances of its lawyers be suspended, that federal contracts be terminated and that employee access to federal buildings be restricted.

Thousands of protesters in cities dotting the nation from Midtown Manhattan to Anchorage, Alaska, including at multiple state capitols, assailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk ‘s actions on government downsizing, the economy, immigration and human rights.

On the West Coast, in the shadow of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle, protesters held signs with slogans like “Fight the oligarchy.” Protesters chanted as they took to the streets in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, where they marched from Pershing Square to City Hall.

Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs.

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The Department of Justice on Saturday placed on leave one of its top immigration lawyers one day after he questioned in court the Trump administration's handling of the deportation of a Maryland man to El Salvador that was carried out in error.

Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed in a statement the suspension of Erez Reuveni, who represented the government Friday when a federal judge ruled the Trump administration acted illegally by mistakenly deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences," Bondi said.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ordered 29-year-old Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States. The judge gave the administration until 11:59 p.m. Monday to remove Abrego Garcia from the violent El Salvador prison where he is being held and return him to U.S. soil.

TVNL Comment: Democracy be damned.  Defend the Government, right or wrong.

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Nationwide protests are set to take place Saturday in opposition to the Trump administration and its allies, with leaders vowing to stand up to push back against the “most brazen power grab in modern history.”

The “Hands Off!” rallies are taking place in more than 1,000 cities across all 50 states, and nearly 400,000 people have signed up to attend them, according to the progressive organization Indivisible, which is one of the almost 200 groups partnering to organize the movement.

Other partner organizations include the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and various advocacy groups focusing on issues like climate change and voting rights.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them,” the movement’s website states. “They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them. On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!”

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