States And Advocacy Groups Fearing Trump Changes Make Quick Moves To Join Obama-Era Cases

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Within 24 hours of President Trump's executive order on immigration taking effect on Friday, legal challenges were filed in federal courts nationwide, and opponents promised more to come against that order and other parts of Trump's agenda.

But a separate, quieter legal fight against the White House's agenda was already underway. In the days after Trump's inauguration, Democratic state attorneys general, members of Congress, and civil rights groups went to court asking judges for permission to intervene in pending cases to defend positions they fear the new administration will step away from.

The cases at issue to date touch on the environment, sex discrimination, for-profit colleges, and consumer protection. The would-be intervenors argue that the Justice Department and agency lawyers may now no longer represent their interests, pointing to Trump's pledges to roll back federal regulations and undo the Obama administration's policies.

If their efforts are successful, it means that those cases wouldn't end if the Justice Department or other agency involved decides to withdraw, switch sides, or otherwise adjust their position.

Andrew Bradt, an expert on civil case procedure at UC Berkeley School of Law, said he couldn't recall a previous presidential transition period that so quickly saw so much action in court. As the Trump administration has swiftly moved on its policy agenda, opponents have had to act fast, he said.

"We’re not dealing in a world where various interest groups have had time to strategize a litigation approach. Rather, we have a bit of a free for all. And when there’s a free for all, that’s when intervention makes sense, because courts want to make sure that all of the relevant parties have a seat at the table," Bradt said.

The intervention requests filed to date are largely preemptive. The Justice Department and other agency lawyers involved haven't made any announcements about whether they plan to change their litigation posture. But the lawyers seeking to intervene argue that Trump and his advisers have said and done enough to convince them that they needed to step in right away.

"There is a real concern about whether the new administration is going to continue to defend regulations and other laws that were passed during the Obama administration ... Where there are legal challenges to these rules, they are entitled to a zealous defense," said Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. The center is representing two Democratic lawmakers seeking to intervene in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, which was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform package.

There is precedent for other parties stepping in to defend litigation when the White House and Justice Department change course. In one especially high-profile example, House Republicans said they would defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court after the Obama administration announced it would no longer do so. The US Supreme Court struck down the law in June 2013.

To intervene, parties have to show that they have a concrete interest in the outcome of the case that the existing litigants wouldn't adequately represent.

Requests to intervene tied to the new administration have been filed in at least four federal court cases since Trump took office. In two of the cases, lawyers for the government had asked judges to push back deadlines to give them time to coordinate with the new administration. In the other two cases, the government hasn't filed anything acknowledging the change in administration.

CONSUMER PROTECTION: Three groups have separately asked to intervene in the Consumer Financial Protection Board case, which is being litigated in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. A three-judge panel ruled in October that the board's single-director structure was unconstitutional. On Nov. 18, the board — represented by its own in-house lawyers, not the Justice Department — asked a full sitting of the court to rehear the case. The Justice Department filed a brief in support. The court has yet to decide if it will grant that request.

On Jan. 23, state attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia asked to intervene. They wrote that "there is reason to believe that the new administration will not maintain its defense of the CFPB." It was possible, they said, that Trump would replace the director appointed by Obama, Richard Cordray, and replace him with "a person with a different policy agenda." Days later, two Democratic members of Congress — Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Maxine Waters — filed a request to intervene in the CFPB case, as did a group of public interest organizations and other entities with a connection to the board.

The Consumer Financial Protection Board and the Justice Department haven't responded to the intervention requests, but the companies that brought the original challenge oppose it. They filed papers on Jan. 27 arguing the court should deny the intervention request because it was filed after the deadline and the states failed to show that they had a direct interest in the outcome of the case.

ENVIRONMENT: In another case in the DC Circuit, involving a challenge to new greenhouse gas emissions standards for large trucks and other medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, a group of eight state attorneys general filed papers on Jan. 23 asking to intervene.

The motion didn't explicitly reference the Trump administration, but the states wrote that although their interests at the moment appeared to align with those of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "that has not always been the case in the past and may not always be the case in the future."

EDUCATION: On Jan. 24, five states and the District of Columbia asked to intervene in a case before the US District Court for the District of Columbia involving a major accreditor of for-profit schools, Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. The company is challenging the US Department of Education's decision to no longer recognize it.

In a statement, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said that her office had intervened in the emissions case, the for-profit schools case, and the Consumer Financial Protection Board case to protect against "rollbacks by the Trump administration."

CIVIL RIGHTS: In the Sixth Circuit, which sits in Cincinnati, the American Civil Liberties Union on Jan. 26 filed a request to intervene in a sex discrimination case that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought against a funeral home. The ACLU, representing the transgender woman at the heart of the case, wrote in its motion that given the change in administration, their client "was reasonably concerned that the EEOC may no longer adequately represent her interests going forward."

One pre-inauguration attempt to intervene in a pending case was rejected. In December, two individuals who said they benefitted from the Affordable Care Act asked to intervene in a challenge brought by congressional Republicans to how a piece of the health care law was funded. A federal district judge ruled in favor of Republicans in May 2016, but put her ruling on hold pending an appeal. The Justice Department took the case to the DC Circuit.

A three-judge panel denied the intervention request on Jan. 12 in a one-paragraph order, writing that the would-be intervenors had "not demonstrated that they are entitled to intervene in this case." The court cited a 1994 case that laid out the standard for intervening, but didn't specify which factors weren't satisfied.

A lawyer familiar with the case told BuzzFeed News that it was possible the DC Circuit felt the request was premature, but that the challengers could make another attempt to join the case if "circumstances change." Trump has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and signed an executive order on Jan. 20 ordering the executive branch to "minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the" law in the meantime.

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Trump Reportedly Called The Supreme Court Finalists To DC Before Announcing His Final Decision

Carlos Barria / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump plans to announce his nominee for the Supreme Court later Tuesday — but not before adding one more signature Trump move into the process.

CNN reported Tuesday afternoon that Trump is bringing both of his finalists — federal appeals court judges Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman — to DC in advance of Tuesday night's prime-time announcement.

Gorsuch, 49, is traveling to DC from Denver, where he sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Although less high profile than some of the other 20 names on Trump's 21-person list of potential Supreme Court nominees, Gorsuch has been one of the names conservatives have said would be a great pick.

Gorsuch is perhaps best known for siding — strongly — with Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor in the challenges brought by for-profit and non-profit entities, respectively, to the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act.

Thomas Hardiman, 51, is coming to DC from Pittsburgh, where he sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Described recently by SCOTUSblog's Amy Howe as a "dark horse" possibility for Trump's nomination initially, he had become one of the clear front-runners in recent weeks.

Hardiman has laid out a solid conservative record on the Second Amendment that would fit with the significant attention Trump gave to gun rights during any campaign discussion of the high court.

The nomination is coming 50 weeks after Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly, leaving the court for almost a year with only eight members. Although President Obama soon thereafter nominated Judge Merrick Garland — the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit — to fill the vacancy, Senate Republicans refused to consider the nomination, saying the matter would be left to the winner of November’s election.

The result was a somewhat lower-profile court over the past year that took fewer cases and also reached a series of 4-4 tie votes — split decisions that left lower court decisions in place but did not create a national precedent.

Now, however, in the midst of a nationwide debate over Trump’s refugee and travel ban executive order and 24 hours after he fired the acting attorney general for directing Justice Department attorneys not to defend the executive order, Trump is scheduled to announce his nominee at 8 p.m. Tuesday night.

Gorsuch came to Washington, DC, as a child when his mother, Anne Gorsuch, was named to head the Environmental Protection Agency under President Reagan. After Harvard Law School, Gorsuch clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the DC Circuit and then retired Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy. After a decade in private practice, Gorsuch briefly worked in the Justice Department before being nominated to his current seat on the Tenth Circuit.

In addition to his religious liberty stances, Gorsuch also has laid out important views on law in more arcane, but nonetheless key, areas involving administrative law — a key issue as Trump's administration begins taking significant executive actions — and the so-called "Dormant Commerce Clause," which limits state actions hurting out-of-state commerce.

Hardiman does not have the background of many of his would-be colleagues on the high court. As the Washington Post detailed in a profile of the judge, "He was the first in his family to graduate from college, did not attend an Ivy League law school and helped pay for his education by driving a taxi." He does, however, serve on the Third Circuit with the president's sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry.

In addition to Second Amendment issues, Hardiman has raised the attention of outside observers for his First Amendment decisions, often siding with the government in free speech claims — another position that likely would be an easy sell to Trump.

Trump also had considered Judge William Pryor from the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, although his chances of getting the nomination appeared to diminish in recent weeks.

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Missouri Is Set To Execute A Man For The 1998 Murders Of A Family

Missouri Department of Corrections via AP

Mark Christeson is set to be executed in Missouri on Tuesday for a 1998 triple murder. Christeson, 37, was sentenced to die for killing Susan Brouk; her 12-year-old daughter, Adrian; and her 9-year-old son, Kyle.

Christeson's lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court on Monday to stop his execution on the grounds that his trial lawyers missed the one-year deadline for filing a federal court appeal — a standard procedure to grant death row inmates a post-conviction review of their death sentence.

The attorneys also argued that Christeson had an IQ of 74 and that his "severe cognitive disabilities" may have prevented him from understanding his legal rights and relying entirely on his attorneys.

This argument was also the focus of Christeson's 2014 appeal to the Supreme Court which halted his execution hours before he was set to die, the Associated Press reported.

In its response to Christeson's Supreme Court appeal, Missouri said that his trial attorneys' miscalculation of the filing deadline was "not sufficient" to warrant a stay of execution.

The state last executed an inmate in May 2016, which was its only execution last year.

In February 1998, Christeson and his 17-year-old accomplice, Jesse Carter, broke into Susan Brouk's home where she lived with her two young children. During the home invasion, the two bound her children, and Christeson raped Brouk at gunpoint, according to court documents. After being recognized by one of the children, Christeson told Carter, "we got to get rid of them."

They forced Brouk and her children into Brouk's car along with items they stole from her house and drove to a pond. According to court records, Christeson stood on Brouk and slit her throat. He cut 9-year-old Kyle's throat twice and drowned him in the pond. Christenson then suffocated 12-year-old Adrian to death and threw Brouk — who was still alive — into the pond along with her dead children.

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Wall Street Journal Editor: Stop Calling The Travel Ban Countries “Majority Muslim”

Pool / Getty Images

Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerry Baker has instructed editors to stop referring to the countries targeted in President Trump’s travel and refugee executive order as “seven majority Muslim countries” in news coverage, a move that has irked some reporters in the paper’s Washington bureau.

“It's very loaded. The reason they've been chosen is not because they're majority Muslim but because they're on the list of countries Obama identified as countries of concern,” Baker wrote to top editors in an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The seven countries are Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

During his campaign, Trump called for a “total and completely shutdown of Muslims” until US officials could “figure out what is going on.” The administration has maintained that the executive order is “not a Muslim ban,” but rather an effort to prevent the entry of “radical Islamic terrorists.”

“Would be less loaded to say ‘seven countries the US has designated as being states that pose significant or elevated risks of terrorism,’” Baker wrote in the email.

“We shouldn't be swallowing the administration's talking points uncritically. I get the point he was making but that's not the way to do it,” a Journal reporter said.

Following the publication of this story, a Dow Jones spokesperson emailed the following statement:

This email was part of a larger conversation discussing late breaking developments as a story was being edited on deadline. In this same email chain, Gerard Baker also pushed to include, and prominently feature, quotes from more critics of Trump's policy. Since the news broke on Friday, the Journal has accurately and thoroughly reported on the policy and will continue to do so.

Revising language and updating stories is part of breaking news. In keeping with its long tradition of fair reporting, the Journal will continue to prominently note that the suspension applies to Muslim majority nations as well as presenting the Trump administration's rationale for the action.

Baker did not immediately return a request for comment.

Baker’s note was in response to a WSJ story posted late Monday about the White House’s firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she ordered Justice Department lawyers to not defend the executive order in court.

An updated version of the story includes the following paragraph: “The administration has said the travel ban doesn’t represent a religious test, noting there are dozens of Muslim countries that aren’t affected. Critics have denounced it as targeting Islam because the seven countries — Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen — have majority populations of Muslims. The administration notes that the seven countries were initially identified by the Obama administration as posing significant security risks.”

Note: This reporter, Steven Perlberg, most recently worked for the Wall Street Journal before joining BuzzFeed News.

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Acting Attorney General Orders Justice Department Not To Defend Trump's Ban, Reports

AP Photo/J. David Ake

WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Sally Yates has ordered Justice Department attorneys not to defend President Trump's executive order limiting immigration and temporarily halting the refugee program, several outlets reported Monday evening.

"[F]or as long as I am the Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order," she wrote, detailing that she is "not convinced" that defending the order met with her responsibilities as head of the Justice Department "to always seek justice and stand for what is right."

Yates took over as acting attorney general upon former Attorney General Loretta Lynch's departure from the job. She previously had been confirmed by the Senate as deputy attorney general in 2015.

The striking move, which follows five district court rulings over the weekend halting enforcement of parts of the order, comes the evening before the Senate Judiciary Committee is due to vote on Trump's nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions.

This is a developing story. Please check back at BuzzFeed News for further developments.

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Trump Ordered An Expedited Dakota Access Pipeline Review. But Feds Don't Know How Long It Will Take.

The protest camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Terray Sylvester / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The US Army Corps of Engineers doesn't know how long it will take to "expedite" its review of the Dakota Access pipeline following President Trump's executive actions last week on the topic, a lawyer from the US Department of Justice told a federal judge on Monday.

Pressed by the judge to at least provide a timeframe for when the Army Corps would know how long the review will take, the lawyer said he didn't know that either. Officials were "actively working on" responding to Trump's recent directive to speed up the review, he said.

That answer didn't satisfy the judge. US District Judge James Boasberg, who sits in the District of Columbia, ordered the government come back to court in a week, on Feb. 6, to provide an update on its schedule.

Litigation over the pipeline has been pending since July, when the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued the Army Corps of Engineers to block federal approval of the pipeline. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe later joined the court challenge.

Trump on Jan. 24 signed a presidential memorandum ordering agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers, "to expedite reviews and approvals for the remaining portions" of the pipeline. It was a departure from the Obama administration, which halted construction in December amid protests and called for an environmental review of the project.

Boasberg said on Monday that he wanted a concrete timeframe from the government to avoid a situation in which he issued a ruling, only to have the government announce a decision on the pipeline that could make his decision a non-issue. That happened last year: Boasberg denied the tribes' request to halt construction, and then the White House announced that it was stopping the pipeline from going forward.

To write another opinion and then have the government change course again "would be hardly an efficient use of resources," Boasberg said.

The company building the pipeline is also eager to find out how long the new review will take. Dakota Access LLC's attorney, David Debold, told Boasberg on Monday that they supported having the court set a deadline for the government to report on its timeline. There is "nothing like an order from a judge" to spur action, he said.

Lawyers for the pipeline also will have to come back to court next week. They are to tell the judge then what would happen if the Army Corps approves the easement needed to continue construction. A lawyer for the Standing Rock tribe told Boasberg they were worried that construction would pick up immediately once the Army Corps granted the easement, before the tribe had time to seek a court order stopping it.

Boasberg told Dakota Access LLC to tell the court by Feb. 6, when the next hearing is scheduled, how long it would take from the granting to the easement until oil was flowing through the pipeline.

Boasberg told Dakota Access LLC to give a full construction timeline to the court by the hearing, laying out the process from the granting of the easement until oil wold be flowing through the pipeline. He said he thought it was in everyone's interest to be prepared once the Army Corps made a decision.

Boasberg set the hearing for Monday, as opposed to Friday, which is what the pipeline's lawyer requested.

"A lot happens over the weekend these days," Boasberg said.

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How Many Lawyers Actually Looked At Trump’s Executive Order Before It Was Signed?

Brian Snyder / Reuters

WASHINGTON — After President Trump on Friday signed a sweeping immigration executive order, federal employees, lawyers, and many others scrambled overnight and into the weekend to understand what exactly parts of it meant.

As a new president with only part of his cabinet confirmed — notably, not his attorney general or secretary of state nominees — Trump did so without significant parts of his legal and policy infrastructure in place.

And aside from arguments that Trump’s immigration order is unconstitutional, critics have charged that the text is poorly worded and confusing, raising questions about the extent to which lawyers who understand US immigration law and policy and constitutional law scrutinized it before Trump signed it.

“One of the reasons there’s so much chaos going on right now, in fact, is that nobody really knows what the order means on important points,” Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, wrote on the blog Lawfare.

The fact that five federal judges so far have temporarily blocked enforcement of pieces of the order suggests that it’s on shaky legal footing, said Harold Koh, a professor at Yale Law School who served as the legal adviser to the State Department from 2009 to 2013.

“When you have garbage in, you get garbage out,” Koh said, referring to reports that the order may not have gone through robust interagency legal vetting.

A senior Justice Department official told BuzzFeed News on Sunday that the White House did seek a review by the Office of Legal Counsel “for form and legality” of the executive orders that Trump has signed so far. The Office of Legal Counsel historically has done a “form and legality” review for all executive orders, and also answers specific legal questions posed by the White House and federal agencies.

The DOJ official would not say if the Office of Legal Counsel found that Trump’s immigration order was lawful on its face, a narrow question that isn’t the same as whether DOJ lawyers believe an order could survive a court challenge. Even if the Office of Legal Counsel did find that the order was unlawful or otherwise problematic, that wouldn’t stop Trump from signing it. Its findings are binding on agencies, but not the president.

A senior administration official told reporters on Sunday evening that the Office of Legal Counsel approved Trump’s executive orders. Trump hasn’t announced a nominee to run the office, but in the meantime it’s being led on an interim basis by Curtis Gannon, who was brought in by the new administration as the principal deputy assistant attorney general. Gannon, a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, had worked in the US solicitor general’s office since 2007.

The broad order signed Friday takes a number of actions: The order halted the entire US refugee program for 120 days; ended it indefinitely as to Syrian refugees; and blocked travelers to the United States from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen for 90 days. It caused immediate confusion as foreign-born travelers, including those with permission to come to the United States, were held at US airports, spurring protests nationwide.

In the recent past, when major immigration actions were signed, there’s been a fair amount of legal process in the lead up to the actual signature.

In November 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration, including programs that would defer deportation for potentially millions of undocumented immigrants. The legal vetting that those programs went through before they were rolled out spanned multiple federal agencies over the course of many weeks, according to former Obama administration officials involved.

The White House asked the Office of Legal Counsel for a formal opinion about several questions of law related to the proposed immigration actions, which included a program known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA, and the expansion of an earlier program for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The legal counsel’s office wrote a 33-page memorandum, which was made public. The office concluded that DAPA was lawful for parents of US citizens or lawful permanent residents, but not for the parents of individuals who benefited from DACA. A federal judge in Texas halted the 2014 executive actions pending a court challenge.

There is no such public memo explaining legal findings about Trump’s immigration order — though that isn’t necessarily unusual. The Office of Legal Counsel doesn’t always release its conclusions to the public, especially if they aren’t formal written opinions.

That the administration was in its first week doesn’t mean it didn’t have time to ask for a formal legal opinion; on Jan. 20, the office published a legal opinion that the Trump administration asked for about whether Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner could work in the White House without violating anti-nepotism laws. (Kushner could, the office concluded.)

Trump isn’t the first president to sign controversial, legally significant executive orders in his first days in office. Two days after Obama was sworn in, he signed a series of orders to close the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to prohibit the Central Intelligence Agency from using torture or other harsh interrogation techniques.

The legal vetting for those executive orders in the weeks before Obama’s inauguration was “massive and extensive,” Koh said. Koh wasn’t at the State Department yet, but said he was one of a number of legal experts consulted during the transition period about what Obama wanted to do.

The Obama administration submitted his early executive orders for review by the Office of Legal Counsel, according to former officials familiar with that process. The office didn’t publish any written opinions at the time.

The Trump administration hasn’t publicly described the type of legal review the immigration order went through before Trump signed it. The White House did not return a request for comment on Sunday evening. A senior administration official told reporters on Sunday that the “top drafters” were “the top immigration experts from Capitol Hill.” According to news reports, career employees at the Justice Department, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security said they were not consulted.

Rudy Giuliani, an adviser to Trump and former prosecutor, said in an interview with Fox News on Jan. 28 that Trump had asked him to find a way to “legally” develop an immigration policy in line with Trump’s calls during the campaign for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. Giuliani didn’t specify when the discussion with Trump took place, but said he brought in former federal judge Michael Mukasey, along with at least two members of Congress, to help with the effort. He said they focused on “danger” to the United States instead of religion.

Giuliani and Mukasey were not immediately available for comment on Sunday.

Besides the Office of Legal Counsel, other lawyers across the federal government are typically brought in to provide input on significant executive actions, according to a former senior DOJ official during the Obama administration.

Lawyers from the White House and agencies with a stake in the action, including the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department, were involved in crafting the immigration executive actions in 2014, according to a former senior Department of Homeland Security official involved in the legal review. He said that officials consulted not just with political appointees but also career government lawyers and agency employees with institutional knowledge.

“Here, the rush to get it out seems to have essentially avoided lawyers altogether,” Koh said.

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Koch Network Focuses On Understanding Trump Voters

Mark Wallheiser / Getty Images

INDIAN WELLS, Calif — In closed-door sessions this weekend, major GOP donors affiliated with billionaires Charles and David Koch's political network went through a case study.

The subject? The defeat last year of former Republican senator Kelly Ayotte, who the Kochs did not back.

Her defeat, the session held, offers a guide for the network’s efforts to hold elected officials accountable under the Trump administration. In Indian Wells, the failing of Ayotte, who lost by a slim margin, was one of principle based on her voting record. And as a result, support was withheld.

The session was just one of several focused on dissecting the 2016 election — and better understanding Trump voters — as the Koch network figures out life under President Trump, who they did not support, and making sure the GOP-controlled Washington doesn't drift to a more populist agenda.

"We thought she didn't stick to free-market principles," said Frayda Levin, one of the 550 donors attending the Koch network's winter retreat, of Ayotte. "And we feel she's a good example of someone who would have won had she stuck to those principles. She would have had our support. She would have had the support of the activists."

Pointing to Ayotte, several donors said the accountability conversations had been a key focus, as Trump's first full week in office wraps up. Most attending the confab said they had a “mixed” view of Trump’s early actions. "Even the worst marriages make it through the first week," one of them said.

The network is making it clear it won't go along with all of the new administration's policies. A top Koch network official came out against the president's executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and donors repeatedly said they oppose a border-adjustment tax plan that House Republicans and the Trump administration are pushing.

Without naming Trump, Charles Koch himself told donors in a presentation that the country could either "go the authoritarian route ... or we can move toward a free and open society. So this is our opportunity."

But 2018, when a slate of favorable seats will be up for re-election, presents a major opportunity — or what could prove to be a bitter affirmation of 2016’s deviation from conservative, and especially libertarian, ideology. The Koch network is still figuring out more specifically how their accountability efforts will shape the minimum $300 million they plan to spend on policy and politics in the next two years. "We're not there yet," Levin said. "Right now we're looking at holding them accountable. We're not talking about who we're going to primary. That's premature."

Liz Wright, another donor attending the retreat from Colorado, added: "Anyone who stands for freedom, we will support. And those who are more populist, not so much. We'll stay true to our principles."

Throughout the weekend, in different sessions for donors, there was an effort to explain the 2016 election and to show donors the frustration working-class voters who supported Trump are feeling. Network officials argued that during this time of change, they are in a prime position to offer up their policy priorities to the voters.

In a presentation to donors, Brian Hooks, co-chairman of the network in a presentation later added: "We see great opportunity to spend the bulk of our time helping this administration pass policies that really improve people's lives."

"This is a tremendous opportunity and we cannot squander it. It's our time to lead right in front of us."

Koch network officials showed testimonials from rust-belt voters who voted for Obama and then flipped to Trump. They presented clips of focus groups from Richmond, Va., and Tampa, Fla., conducted during the election in which middle-class voters talk about their struggles making ends meet.

One session during lunch on Sunday with libertarian political scientist Charles Murray and economist Tyler Cowen was aimed specifically at "improv[ing] (donors’) understanding of the frustration the American people are feeling rooted in decline of key institutions."

It was followed by another panel discussion that included Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs. (Unlike past Koch gatherings where donors had to give up their cell phones before entering, attendees this time could keep their phones with them after putting them in a green pouch that staff locked and unlocked after the session.)

"They're looking for answers to economic insecurity and this feeling that things are still not fair," Hooks said.

"So this is not a partisan message. But the message is very, very clear: The American people are hurting and they need for things to get better," he continued. "And if things don't get better, then we should expect history to repeat itself. Not only will millions of Americans dreams be dashed, but we should expect that the political pendulum will swing with even more force in the other direction next time — even further to the left than Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren."

The network is hosting 550 donors — the most to ever attend such a gathering — at a luxury resort in the Palm Springs area this weekend. These donors, who attend these events known as “seminars” twice a year, make a minimum annual donation of $100,000.

BuzzFeed News was invited to cover the gathering after agreeing to set of ground rules, which include not naming donors without their permission.

In interviews, many of them said understanding the mindset and challenges of Trump voters was helpful as they look to future elections. They also pointed to statistics shared with them that showed the significant number of Obama voters who voted for Trump.

"Those of us who think about politics a lot think that's crazy," said Chart Wescott, a donor from Texas. "But most Americans aren't like the people in this room — or the media for that matter. They're just working types who wanted something different. All they wanted was something different."

Looking ahead to the next election, where 10 Democratic senators are up for re-election in states that Trump won, Wescott said it’s important to understand these voters better. "We're gunning for the super majority [in the Senate]," he said. "We can use the current situation to really turn up the heat on Democratic senators.

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Protesters In New Orleans Say Trump's Refugee Ban Hits Close To Home

Nicholas and Ejaab Pierce

john stanton

NEW ORLEANS — For Nicholas Pierce, President Trump’s executive order barring refugees and Iraqis from entering the United States hits especially close to home.

During an impromptu protest outside New Orleans’ City Hall Sunday, Pierce, a white Muslim American, told the crowd his message to Trump and other Americans worried about Muslim immigration was simple. “We are not terrorists, we are not trying to hurt anyone. I had someone earlier today say to me, ‘why won’t you coexist with me?’ I said, ‘you don’t know me. I’ve been coexisting with you for 27 years!’” Pierce said.

President Trump’s executive order, which bans refugee resettlements to the United States for six months and immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations for 90 days, has sparked nationwide protests and condemnation from Democrats and even some Republicans.

Of particular concern is the impact the ban may have on people who have worked as translators for the American military in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world where ISIS and al-Qaeda openly operate. For those men and women, being forced to return to their home countries could become a de facto death sentence.

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But for Pierce, the ban on refugees is very personal. As a teenager growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the 27-year-old law school student found himself essentially alone following the deaths of first his mother and then both grandparents.

“I was on my own for a little bit, and then I went to live with an uncle. I don’t want to speak ill of him, but he was kind of a drunk. Not the slap you around kind of drunk , but not the come home and take care of you and put food on the table kind of drunk either.”

While he was struggling to make ends meet as a 16-year-old washing dishes, an old coworker, who was a 20-year-old student at Louisiana State University, and his family, who have the last name Abuhajah, eventually took Pierce in. “I was essentially fostered by a Palestinian family,” Pierce said in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

The Abuhajah family weren’t strangers to being displaced: the family had fled Palestine during the 1967 war with Israel, ending up in Kuwait. In 1991, the family again became refugees when Saddam Hussein invaded, and they relocated to Jordan before finally settling in Baton Rouge.

For Pierce, his conversion to Islam was a gradual, natural evolution. “They never pushed Islam as something I had to do, or become. And it’s not something I did immediately after meeting them either. It was just something that, as I started to wrestle with the issue of the death of my parents and all this stuff, and I decided I did believe in God and I needed to put form to that, their example led me to Islam,” he explained.

At 17, Pierce converted, and a year later, he joined the military because “I wanted to help people, and I wanted to show people that not all Muslims hate America.”

While in the military, he met an Iraqi translator who had served with US military forces in northern Iraq. During a mission with a group of Marines, Ali Ahmed was shot in the shoulder by insurgents as he was attempting to lure them away from the American soldiers. Like many Iraqis who have worked with the US military, Ahmed received a green card to live in America.

While that should have, in theory, meant he would remain out of the grasp of ISIS and al-Qaeda, “He’s the exact class of people, should they go home to visit their families or should they even leave the country to go on vacation and try and reenter the country under what Donald Trump proposed, they could be stopped at the border and sent back to their country,” Pierce said.

“And that breaks my heart. What this is, is essentially an American serviceman who is going to be deported back to Baghdad,” he added.

Like many Muslim Americans, Pierce has had problems with people who question his loyalties, but he said he believes that the charged anti-Muslim rhetoric has actually prompted non-Muslim Americans to make a point of reassuring Muslims that they are not alone.

“You’d be surprised where you have the positive ones,” Pierce said, explaining that he and his wife, Ejaab, were in Lake Charles last weekend. “You know, a tiny little town. And she went into a coffee shop said, ‘that’s a beautiful hijab. I think it’s being drawn out by everything that’s going on. People feel the need to reassure.”

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The Supreme Court Nomination Fight Might Now Be About Trump’s Ban

Brian Snyder / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Trump's decision to proceed with his expansive executive order restricting immigration at the end of his first week in office has turned into a massive legal battleground that will shape the consideration of any Supreme Court nominee.

The order ran into legal trouble almost immediately, with several federal courts and key Republicans pushing back in the 48 hours that followed. From here, federal district court rulings overnight Saturday are likely to be appealed, spurring a rolling series of legal debates about one of the first actions taken by President Trump.

And it's about to get more complicated. Trump will now nominate a Supreme Court pick in the midst of a national debate over the powers of a chief executive who is drawing sharp criticism from Democrats and Republicans — including senators who will be holding hearings and voting on his nominee. That justice will provide a crucial vote on the highest-stakes cases in the country — and could wind up ruling on elements of the executive order.

At least three of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee — Sens. Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Ben Sasse — already have criticized aspects of the order.

Amid reports that there was little to no vetting of the order in advance of Trump signing it, the question is what the legislative and judicial branches will do in response. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday made clear that the judiciary is now front and center, saying on ABC's This Week, "The courts are going to determine whether this is too broad."

In the midst of this fight, it appears that Trump is going to attempt to change the conversation by making a new headline. On Sunday afternoon, ABC's Jonathan Karl reported that the White House was considering announcing Trump's Supreme Court nominee as soon as Monday. (Per Karl, two appeals court judges — Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman — are Trump's finalists.)

With the attention already on the courts and their role, however, the nomination, rather than changing the conversation, could crystallize and focus the debate.

In the space of a week, Trump has gone from having the opportunity to begin an administration with a legacy-setting nomination to pushing someone right into a debate about the power of the executive — and potentially changing how his first Supreme Court nominee gets introduced to and scrutinized by the United States Senate.

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The Koch Network Is Cautiously Optimistic About Trump

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — As major airports became protest sites on Saturday night over President Trump's executive order, top officials affiliated with billionaires Charles and David Koch’s political network say they’re going on offense under Trump, who they did not support during the campaign.

The Koch network is gearing up to spend between $300 and $400 million on politics and policy over the two-year 2018 election cycle.

That range of spending is an increase from the $250 million they spent in the last election cycle. "We had by far the most productive year in the history of this network," Charles Koch told donors gathered for the network's winter retreat, despite reports suggesting that the network is retreating.

"We're just getting started," he said, citing a 96% success rate in races they put money into in 2016.

Koch did not mention Trump during his short welcome speech. But top network officials seemed optimistic regarding the new administration.

Though they said it’s too early to judge the Trump administration, they already see opportunities to turn their policy priorities into law after spending the last 14 years playing defense under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

"I think there’s been some good things for sure,” said Mark Holden, co-chairman of the Koch network, citing Trump’s early moves on the Keystone pipeline as an example. "It’s too soon to tell though… It’s only been a week.”

Holden said even though they did not support Trump during the election, he expects them to have a good relationship with the White House. Former staffers who have been affiliated with the network are now working for Trump. Vice President Mike Pence and his staff in particular have ties to the network.

Tim Phillips, president of the network's largest group — Americans for Prosperity, added that "some of [Trump's] appointments were encouraging as well."

Koch refused to meet with Trump during the election, but top network officials met with Trump's staff last year, and Holden described the discussions as "civil meetings."

But asked about specific actions that the Trump administration has taken — an order to construct the wall and an another barring travel to U.S. from certain predominantly Muslim-majority countries, Koch network officials declined to take a stance.

"We think the best way to keep communities safe is to bring people together," said Brian Hooks, co-chairman of the network's gathering. "That's how we view any action."

Pressed on if that meant the network was taking a stance against the orders, Holden said: "I don't think we are right now. They came out last night."

During the campaign, Koch referred to Trump's Muslim ban as a "Nazi Germany" policy, but on Saturday, Holden noted that the executive was different from what Trump proposed during the primary.

They stressed, however, that they would oppose the administration when they felt it was necessary. "Our bread and butter — our secret sauce — is the accountability play," Holden said.

One issue where the network is already opposing the Trump administration and congressional Republicans is: border-adjustment tax reform, which would favor exports over imports.

But it's unclear how far the network will be willing to go in blocking that proposal and taking on Trump early on.

"We’re going to have conversations with members on Capitol Hill," said James Davis, spokesman for the network. "We’re also going to look to educate our activists on this. They need to call their members of Congress and tell them they're not going to be supportive of this new tax and air their frustration."

The network is hosting 550 donors — the most to ever attend such a gathering — at a luxury resort in the Palm Springs area this weekend. These donors, who attend these events known as "seminars" twice a year, make a minimum annual donation of $100,000.

BuzzFeed News was invited to cover the gathering after agreeing to set of ground rules, which include not naming donors without their permission.

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Federal Judge Orders Nationwide Halt To Deportations Under Trump Order

Cora Lewis/BuzzFeed News

A federal judge in Brooklyn on Saturday evening granted a nationwide stay of removal — preventing deportation — for those people affected by President Trump's Friday executive order stopping the refugee program and halting immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries.

"Nobody is to be removed," US District Judge Ann Donnelly told the government lawyers, issuing the stay after holding the first hearing on a challenge to the order.

In the order that followed, Donnelly barred federal officials from removing those with approved refugee applications, valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and individuals from the seven countries where all immigration was halted who are otherwise legally authorized to enter the US. Those seven countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen.

The lawsuit was brought early Saturday on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, two men detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport for several hours after their arrival at the airport in the wake of Trump's signing of the ban.

In addition to the two men, however, the group of lawyers backing the men also filed a motion to turn the lawsuit into a class action, which would result in protection for all of those who would be covered by the class.

Later, they sought immediate action, filing a request that the court issue a stay of removal — an order preventing deportation — not only for the two men, but for the entire proposed class.

At the hearing, Donnelly focused in on whether the people affected by Trump's order would face irreparable harm if deported. When the government, essentially, had no answer to this, Donnelly questioned whether "the government had a full chance to think about this."

Further proceedings in the case, ultimately challenging the constitutionality of Trump's order, are set for February.

The lawyers who brought the case come from International Refugee Assistance Project, National Immigration Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School.

Read the order:

This is a developing story. Please check back at BuzzFeed News for more.

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Tens Of Thousands Of Canadians Are Now Banned From Entering The US

Carlos Barria / Reuters

WASHINGTON — As the world processed the impact of President Donald Trump's immigration and visa orders Saturday, tens of thousands of Canadian citizens — possibly including the country's immigration minister — found themselves suddenly barred from entering Canada's closest neighbor and ally.

Trump's executive action signed Friday bans citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days, even if they are also citizens of another nation.

The action also suspends the entire US refugee program for four months and indefinitely halts the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

There were 35,000 Canadians who shared citizenship with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya or Yemen in 2011, according to Statistics Canada data. Another 75,000 people born in those countries live in Canada but are not full Canadian citizens.

What's unclear is whether Canadian citizens who were born in one of those seven countries but do not have dual citizenship will also be banned from entering the US. If that is the case, the number of affected Canadian citizens would rise to 170,000.

Those numbers all come from the 2011 census and would all-but-certainly be higher today. The 2016 census data will start to be released next month.

One person who may be included in the ban is Ahmed Hussen, who was appointed Canada's minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship earlier this month. Hussen came to Canada as a Somali refugee in 1993. He eventually became a lawyer and human rights activist before being elected as a member of Parliament in 2015.

The Prime Minister's Office told BuzzFeed News it is "not concerned about the ability of the Minister to travel." However, spokesperson Cameron Ahmad did not say whether Hussen would only be able to travel to the US using a diplomatic passport while on government business.

As news of Trump's ban spread Saturday, Hussen tweeted from a citizenship ceremony he was attending.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not directly addressed the immigration ban, but also tweeted a message that appeared to be in response to Trump's executive action.

Meanwhile, Canadian airlines have stopped allowing passport holders from the seven listed countries to board flights to to the US, even if they have green cards or visas.

Canada and the US share the longest undefended border in the world. Tens of thousands of trucks and hundreds of thousands of people cross the border every day. Passports were not even needed to drive across the border until after the 9/11 attacks.

The question now is how Canada will respond to a ban that could significantly impact trade and the mobility of Canadian citizens. It also runs contrary to the worldview Trudeau has championed. Whereas Trump has banned all refugees from entering the US for 120 days, one of Trudeau's first acts in office was drastically increasing the number of Syrian refugees coming to Canada.

Canada has resettled nearly 40,000 Syrian refugees since late 2015, as well as more than 20,000 from Iraq over the past decade.

Transport Canada spokesman Delphine Denis said the department is in touch with US officials "to get more information on the impacts."

The Canadian Immigration, Foreign Affairs, and Public Safety departments did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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"Administration-Related Changes" Lead To Delay In A Key Transgender Rights Case

WASHINGTON — "Administration-related changes" have begun rippling outward one week into the Trump administration, leading to a delay in a transgender rights case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The EEOC asked for and received a one-month delay on Thursday in filing its appeal in the case, brought in support of a transgender employee of a Michigan funeral home.

"The EEOC requests the extension because of Administration-related changes at the Commission," EEOC lawyers wrote in a Thursday filing at the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The EEOC had filed a notice in October that it would be appealing a trial court judge's decision against the EEOC, and its initial deadline for filing the appeal was supposed to be Thursday. With the extension, however, its appeal is now due Feb. 27.

In addition, the ACLU filed a motion to intervene on behalf of the woman, Aimee Stephens, writing that it was doing so because, "based on the change of federal administration as well as the federal government’s actions over the past few days, Ms. Stephens is reasonably concerned that the EEOC may no longer adequately represent her interests going forward."

The EEOC has adopted an aggressive, pro-LGBT litigation posture over the past five years — filing a new lawsuit supporting workers who allegedly faced anti-gay treatment at work as recently as Jan. 20. Now, however, the ACLU is concerned the changes at the commission could lead the commission to back off on the appeal. Victoria Lipnic, a Republican member of the commission, was named chair earlier this week, and there is a vacancy on the commission to be nominated by President Trump.

"Ms. Stephens is concerned that they might change their position in the litigation, but we have not been told that they are or that they have," ACLU LGBT & HIV Project director James Esseks told BuzzFeed News.

Outside a vote of the commission itself, however, the only person authorized to change the litigation posture of the commission is its general counsel.

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Prosecutors Drop Rioting Charge Against A Journalist Arrested During Inauguration Protests

Zach Gibson / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Prosecutors announced on Friday that they had dropped a criminal case against a journalist arrested amid protests in downtown Washington, DC, during President Trump's inauguration.

Evan Engel, a journalist with Vocativ, was among 230 people charged with felony rioting in connection with large, sometimes violent, anti-Trump demonstrations on Jan. 20. Engel's lawyer, former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, notified a judge that Engel was a journalist during his first court appearance on Jan. 21, but prosecutors went ahead with the case against him at the time.

in a statement on Friday, however, the US attorney's office in Washington said that prosecutors decided to dismiss the charge against Engel "after consultation" with his lawyer. Felony rioting is a crime under DC law that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a fine of up to $25,000.

Ruemmler did not immediately return a request for comment. It was an unusual case for the former White House lawyer, whose work now at the law firm Latham & Watkins focuses on white-collar crime. Ruemmler told reporters at the Jan. 21 hearing that her firm has done work for Vocativ, which is how she got involved.

At least five other defendants arrested on Jan. 20 and charged with felony rioting have been identified as journalists. Their cases are pending. They're represented by court-appointed lawyers, according to the case dockets. The US attorney's office said in Friday's statement that it had no comment on the status of cases against any other defendants.

The US attorney's office said that prosecutors were continuing to look at other evidence and "are always willing to consider additional information that people bring forward."

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Melania Trump Can Sue A Maryland Blogger For Defamation, Judge Rules

Pool / Reuters

ROCKVILLE, Maryland — Melania Trump can move ahead with a defamation lawsuit against a Maryland blogger who published claims that Trump worked in the past as a "high-end escort" and suffered a "mental breakdown" during the campaign in part because of those allegations, a judge ruled on Friday.

The judge, who announced her decision from the bench immediately after hearing arguments on Friday morning, said Melania Trump spelled out enough of a claim for defamation at this early stage of the case for her lawsuit to proceed.

"There can be no more defamatory statement than to call a woman a prostitute," said Judge Sharon Burrell, who sits in the Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, Maryland.

The blogger, Webster Tarpley, published an article on his website on Aug. 2, 2016, that, among other things, said that it was "widely known" that Melania Trump had worked in the past as a high-end escort. He cited unnamed sources as saying that Trump was "suffering from from a full-blown nervous breakdown" as a result of the escort allegations spreading during her husband's presidential run and was considering leaving the campaign. Trump said in court papers that those claims were all false.

The favorable ruling for the first lady comes at the end of a week that saw President Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon characterize the press as the "opposition party" to the administration. Trump has a history of suing or threatening to sue journalists who published negative information about him. He criticized the media throughout the campaign and has continued to accuse reporters of publishing false information since he was sworn in on Jan. 20 — at times repeating his own lies in doing so.

Melania Trump is suing Tarpley on her own, and is represented by private lawyers. She was not in court on Friday. Her lead attorney is Charles Harder, the lawyer who represented Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, in his successful defamation lawsuit against the now-defunct website Gawker, which shuttered after facing a multi-million dollar verdict. The Gawker suit was financially backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, who supported Donald Trump during the election and is advising the president now.

In urging to have the lawsuit dismissed, Tarpley's lawyer, Danielle Giroux, argued on Friday that Melania Trump's lawyers failed to lay out in the lawsuit that Tarpley acted with "actual malice," a requirement in defamation cases that involve public figures. Burrell rejected that argument, pointing to language in the lawsuit that said Tarpley published the article "while consciously doubting the truth of the claims."

Giroux said Tarpley had a right to report on rumors, even if he didn't know whether they were true. There was a public interest in knowing about allegations against Melania Trump that could affect Trump's campaign, as well as his presidency if he won, Giroux said. Burrell said that the public interest was different for Melania Trump, who was not running for office.

Burrell did dismiss a second claim that Trump brought against Tarpley claiming that he interfered with her business interests.

In the same case, Trump is also suing Mail Media Inc., claiming it was liable for publishing a separate article on the Daily Mail's US website that reported allegations that Trump worked for a modeling agency that also operated as an escort service. Mail Media argues that it wasn't responsible for publishing the article, and that even if it was, the Maryland court shouldn't hear the case because all of the parties and witnesses were from New York or elsewhere out of state.

Harder argued that the Daily Mail website was accessible in Maryland, engaged with readers in Maryland, and that the media outlet was targeting the market in the state. He also said there was evidence that Mail Media did business in Maryland, such as contracting with freelancers. Mail Media's lawyer, Kelli Sager, said that none of that was enough of a connection to the state to give the court jurisdiction.

Burrell didn't rule on Mail Media's request to dismiss Trump's case, saying that she would release a written ruling later.

Both Tarpley and Daily Mail retracted the articles at issue in Trump’s lawsuit. Tarpley’s lawyer said in court on Friday that Tarpley took the article down because he feared a lawsuit, not because he didn’t believe what he wrote.

According to the lawyers on Friday, Melania Trump is pursuing a separate lawsuit in London against the Daily Mail’s publisher.

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The Trump Administration’s Day One Moves Were Copied From Mitt Romney’s Playbook

Pool / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — When White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked Wednesday about a potential executive order that would revive Bush-era detention and interrogation policies, he flatly denied any knowledge of its existence.

Saying it was “not a White House document,” Spicer added, “I have no idea where it came from.”

But the document is one of more than four dozen potential executive orders prepared for a would-be President Mitt Romney during his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign, BuzzFeed News has learned. Several of these documents appear to have been used by the Trump administration in the president’s first week in office.

Senior policy and legal advisers to Romney prepared the cache of memos and orders — a “menu of options” for “possible presidential directives” — in early September 2012, according to a source familiar with the project who shared them with BuzzFeed News, as well as metadata associated with the documents.

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who led Romney’s transition planning efforts, told BuzzFeed News that the documents were part of extensive transition planning aimed at creating “executive order drafts prepared on various subjects related to commitments Romney made during the campaign.” He noted that they represented an early part of the planning process for the transition and that, given the fact that Romney lost and the transition planning never became an actual presidential transition, Romney himself never reviewed the proposals.

Among the cache was a series of the actions denoted as being “Day 1” priorities for a President Romney — although Leavitt cautioned against reading too much into those priority assertions given the early stage of planning they represented.

Among the “Day 1” actions, however, one was aimed at “Minimizing the Economic Burden of Obamacare Pending Repeal.”

Hours into Trump’s presidency, he signed his first executive order: “Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal.”

The Trump order appears to be an updated, edited version of the Romney document. Notably, however, the Romney draft proposal called for “the prompt and complete repeal” of the ACA, whereas the Trump executive order simply calls for “the prompt repeal” of the ACA.

Trump executive order:

Romney transition planning proposal:

Two other actions taken by the new administration in Trump’s first week in office appear to be similarly updated versions of Romney transition planning proposals, as well as two others reportedly under consideration.

The carbon-copy orders cast a revealing spotlight on the extent to which Trump’s administration — a radical departure from Republican, and American, traditions in some respects — is leaning heavily on decades of conservative policymaking and expertise in others.

A rough count of Trump’s executive actions so far reveals three roughly even categories: some, like Trump’s “American Pipelines” memorandum, that trumpet “America First” nationalism; some rooted in the longtime priorities of the anti-immigration movement, of which Trump ally Kris Kobach is a key figure; and a final third borrowed from the Romney campaign, representing the mainstream small-government, pro-business Republicanism and war on terror policies of the Bush era. There are deep tensions between the third strain and the first two — Romney’s wing of the party, led now by House Speaker Paul Ryan, has championed immigration, for instance. The early split among the actions offers a glimpse at what may prove to be tensions — or may simply be a balancing act — inside Trump’s new administration.

Additionally, as Leavitt pointed out, it makes sense for the Trump administration to turn to the Romney plans given that he was the prior Republican nominee.

“I have no doubt that there were draft executive orders considered in our process that would have formed a great starting place for the Trump team,” Leavitt told BuzzFeed News. “Rather than starting from scratch, it would have made drafting more efficient.”

Noted issues with staffing up of the White House and agencies — and the delayed confirmation timeline for some of Trump’s key nominees — provide another reason why reliance on the previously prepared documents could be sensible.

Regardless of the reason, one of the most traditional of Republican nominees, Mitt Romney, is indirectly helping the most nontraditional president start his administration — despite not being invited to join it.

As Trump took office, the new White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies declaring a “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review.” Had Romney taken office in 2013, according to the documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News, the new chief of staff potentially would have issued the same memo on day one — the draft is even anticipatorily dated Jan. 20, 2013.

While the document is similar to one signed by prior administrations, the memo issued by Priebus contains wording in the Romney memo that is missing from either or both of the memos from President George W. Bush and President Obama’s first chiefs of staff. For example, while Andrew Card referenced an exception for “critical health and safety functions” under Bush, Rahm Emanuel made the exception for “critical health, safety, environmental, financial, or national security functions.” Romney’s proposed order eliminated the “environmental” exception — as did the Priebus memo.

Similarly, while some elements of the Card memo are carried over to the Priebus memo, other portions are taken from the Emanuel memo — in exactly the same way as had been proposed for a Romney administration.

Even more clearly taken from the Romney proposed actions is the “hiring freeze” signed by Trump on Jan. 23.

Here’s Trump:

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees to be applied across the board in the executive branch. As part of this freeze, no vacant positions existing at noon on January 22, 2017, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances. This order does not include or apply to military personnel.”

Here’s the proposed Romney document:

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a strict freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees to be applied across the board in the executive branch. As part of this freeze, no vacant positions existing at noon on January 20, 2013 may be backfilled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances.”

Although Trump added the “military personnel” sentence to his memo, it is unnecessary, given that both versions apply only to “Federal civilian employees.” The memos continue in similar fashion, with slight changes being made to the Trump memo, but the Romney proposal forming the basis.

Outside of the orders that have been signed by Trump or Priebus already, other actions under consideration clearly derive from the Romney memos.

The consideration of the detention and interrogation draft order — reported on by BuzzFeed News on Wednesday — was contested by Spicer, but the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that the text of the potential order had been forwarded from White House staff to National Security Council staff earlier in the week, seeking review of the document for Trump to be able to sign it as soon as Wednesday.

Additionally, a proposed order “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” that was first reported about by the New York Times on Wednesday and a version of which has since been obtained by BuzzFeed News, also comes out of the Romney “menu of options.”

While changes are proposed throughout the draft, the underlying copy in both the Romney document and the document circulating this week is almost identical. Both documents establish an International Funding Accountability Committee for the purpose of reviewing “all current and expected U.S. funding designated for support of the United Nations, its related agencies, and any other international organization.”

Neither a Romney spokesperson nor a White House spokesperson responded to requests for comment on the various memos and orders.

And again, the Trump administration is not a Romney administration. While about one-third of Trump’s actions appear to have come out of the Romney playbook, the other two-thirds come from very different political movements.

Another third of Trump’s action represent his “America First” vision: The pipeline memorandum orders the Commerce secretary to develop a plan requiring new pipeline to “use materials and equipment produced in the United States, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law.” Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement was based on the administration’s stated policy “to represent the American people and their financial well-being in all negotiations, particularly the American worker, and to create fair and economically beneficial trade deals that serve their interests.” Two other domestic-focused memoranda — one relating to manufacturing and the other to infrastructure projects — echo this focus as well.

The final third of Trump’s actions in his opening week have been seen as the most controversial. They come out of the anti-immigration movement — and reflected those priorities displayed on a sheet of paper photographed when Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a leader within the effort, visited with Trump in late November. Both of the orders Trump signed on Wednesday — one relating to “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” and the other to “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” — contain specific plans advocated for in Kobach’s “strategic plan” relating to immigration enforcement efforts for the first year of Trump’s administration.

Neither these nor the second type of actions appear to come from the Romney transition documents, and it’s too early to tell whether the Romney proposals will continue to play a key role in Trump’s first 100 days or whether they only have been used in a more limited way.

Jina Moore contributed to this report.

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Democracy Alliance Raises Member Fees And Retools To Fight Trump

Pool / Getty Images

The Democracy Alliance, a leading network of liberal donors, will increase its membership dues for the first time in 10 years and revise its “2020 Vision” strategy — part of a broader effort by the organization to both close its “structural budget gap” and shift attention to Donald Trump.

The changes were announced by chairman John Stocks in a recent letter to members of the Democracy Alliance, outlining a need for the organization to “focus less on administrative tasks, such as the collection of dues and additional contributions,” and more on the “coming crises” posed by Trump’s legislative agenda, according to a copy obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Founded in 2005, the Democracy Alliance, known as the DA, is a network of high-dollar donors and institutions that pools hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to donate to a portfolio of liberal and progressive organizations, think tanks, and public-policy groups.

In an interview, DA president Gara LaMarche confirmed the changes and detailed the underlying objectives behind each one: first, to better “sustain the basic operations of the DA”; and second, to help the DA “evolve to meet this particular moment,” focusing more than it had during Barack Obama’s two terms in office on an opposition-based political agenda.

The DA depends on yearly dues from members (called “partners”) to cover operational costs. These will rise for the first time in 10 years, bumping “Governing Partners” from $30,000 a year to $35,000, and “Institutional Partners” from $60,000 to $70,000, according to Stocks’ letter.

The DA will also start billing dues up front in January, rather than in two cycles over the course of the year, as has been customary. Partners, Stocks told board members, will be encouraged “to pay as early in the year as possible so we can have certainty about the resources available.”

LaMarche, the president, said the changes do not reflect “financial concerns” about the DA. But he acknowledged that they are meant to address what both he and Stocks’ letter described as a “structural gap” between the DA’s yearly support and “what the organization costs to run.”

As the DA has added more progressive causes to its portfolio — growing from about nine groups in 2005 to 34 in 2017 — the donor club has become more expensive to run, relying on additional gifts of up to several hundred thousand dollars from some of its wealthiest members. (Billionaires George Soros and Pat Stryker have been two strong supporters of the DA since its inception.)

These “legacy contributions,” as they’re called in DA parlance, “have always been needed to fill the DA’s structural budget gap,” said Stocks, the chair, in his memo to board members.

As outlined by Stocks, the dues hike and simplified payment structure are meant to “create a more secure DA for 2017 and beyond,” freeing staffers from “administrative tasks” and allowing the donor network to spend as much time as possible on the “enormous battles” ahead.

The DA’s hope for a “year or two” from now, said LaMarche: that if “what we're getting from the board's partners supports the organization — and that money comes in early in the year in a timely fashion, and the staff didn't have to spend too much time toward the end of the year trying to make sure the dues all came in — that we'd be a more effective organization.”

The changes come as Democratic groups across the party retool for a Trump administration they didn’t plan for or expect. One major figure in fundraising circles on the left, David Brock, hosted a closed-door conference for donors in Aventura, Fla., where strategists and elected officials led discussions on “resisting Donald Trump at every turn,” as Brock put it. (LaMarche also attended.) The operative has said he plans to build his new Democracy Matters conference into a network of donors whose contributions fund groups beyond Brock’s own, similar to the DA.

Brock said he hoped to build the network in the mold of the conservative Koch brothers, arguing that the DA has “veered away from politics,” leaving room on the left for something more “openly political.” Leaders in the DA saw Brock moving aggressively into “the DA lane,” as one Democrat close to both organizations put it. In an interview with Politico, LaMarche refuted the idea that the DA isn’t partisan or political: “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

(The DA supports a range of organizations, from public policy institutes like the Brennan Center for Justice to partisan entities such as Brock’s own media monitoring group, Media Matters.)

Some note, however, that as the DA has grown over time — building from its original group of roughly 65 high-dollar donors to a larger pool of about 120 partners, including institutions and nonpartisan foundations that count as “subscribers” — its focus has broadened beyond politics.

Since the election, the DA president has also traveled the country to meet with partners about ideas for opposing the Trump administration and the DA should “evolve to meet this particular moment,” he said. The question, LaMarche admitted, is a new one for the DA, an organization that has spent most of its existence under a Democratic president.

The “listening sessions” are still ongoing. (LaMarche spoke by phone in Boston, where he was set to meet with a group of donors there that evening.) Though he declined to elaborate on the sessions, he said partners are most concerned with building Democratic control in the states and contributing to the fight against Trump in what the party calls the resistance. State races in 2018 and 2020 will be the focus of a summit hosted by the DA in late March.

To help navigate the new political terrain, the DA has hired a new senior adviser, Archana Sahgal, who managed outreach to labor and progressive groups in the Obama White House.

Officials will also redraft the “2020 Vision” strategy they crafted before the election. The document outlines the DA’s central goals and the groups in its investment portfolio. Revisions will “hone in as much as possible on the resistance and the states,” LaMarche said, and could yield larger changes to the donor network and to the groups the organization supports.

“What the implications are for our portfolio, or the way we work, or how we raise money — those we're figuring out now,” he said. “I can't yet say how significant or radical an adjustment it will be in the way the DA operates. I do know that winning back the states and stopping whatever we can what Trump is doing really have to be the paramount priorities.”

LaMarche, now more than three years into his tenure as DA president, said he’s also worked to add transparency to a group whose processes and portfolio have long remained secret, forcing journalists to scavenge for basic information. (“I used to joke that because [conservative news site] the Washington Free Beacon took one of my strategy memos out of the garbage and published a PDF, you could be a goat herder in Tibet with access to internet and know as much about my strategy as a member of my board.”) But much about the group, including its partners, remain private, and it’s unclear if the DA would ever be a public-facing part of Democrats’ opposition.

LaMarche plans to lay out some of the DA’s plans at the donor summit in March.

Brock said he is also planning another Democracy Matters conference for the fall.

The letter from DA board chair John Stocks reads as follows:

You heard shortly before the holidays from Gara LaMarche about the DA board’s winter retreat and the steps the board and staff are taking to assess the lessons of the 2016 election. In these times, we must deal with the coming crises that the Trump Administration poses for vulnerable communities, progressive achievements, and core American institutions and values. We will also work to rebuild political power in the states, beginning all of this with our donor summit and DA conference March 22-25 in DC.

While the Board works with staff over the next few months to address the needs of this time, one thing we all agree on is that staff must focus more on the significant tasks outlined above and less on administrative tasks, such as the collection of dues and additional contributions (known as “legacy contributions”) that have always been needed to fill the DA’s structural budget gap. Even as we explore other, more permanent solutions to the DA’s sustainability, we need to act now to create a more secure DA for 2017 and beyond. So, as the Board works with staff on the longer-term picture, we have authorized three steps for 2017 and ask you to join us in taking them.

First, we will bill all Partners for their dues in January (instead of in two cycles, as has been our practice), and we strongly encourage you to pay as early in the year as possible so we can have certainty about the resources available. Payment in the first quarter is particularly important since the organization has a tax structure that allows no untaxable carry-forwards on our books, so we effectively begin each year needing to recreate our working capital for that year.

Second, we have authorized an increase in dues for all partners — an additional $5,000 for Governing Partners (from $30,000 in 2016 to $35,000 in 2017) and $10,000 for Institutional Partners (from $60,000 in 2016 to $70,000 in 2017). This is the first time that the DA has increased its dues in ten years (at which time the DA also eliminated a one-time $30,000 initiation fee for new Partners) — and is an important step we must take to ensure the stability of the DA as we move to take on new and different roles to help our Partnership and the progressive movement navigate the new environment. Inflation alone required us to make this change even as we consider other options to increase organizational stability for the future.

Third, we have also asked the staff to revise the organization’s 2020 Vision strategy considering changed political circumstances (the Board will be discussing their recommendations at our February retreat) and plan to step up the DA’s information “clearinghouse” role in the interim, relaying critical information about federal resistance and state rebuilding efforts while providing Partners with real-time information about strategic opportunities for investment.

We understand that these steps with respect to the timing and amount of dues may pose challenges for a few Partners, and we are determined not to lose Partners at this critical time, so if you have any concerns, please contact Chair John Stocks, President Gara LaMarche, Treasurer Paul Egerman or Membership Chair Keith Mestrich.

Thanks for all you are doing, and will do, to assure that we can meet the test that is before us in the coming years. We look forward to seeing you, dues paid, at the March convening to begin our effective response to the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Sincerely,

John Stocks, Board Chair

DA Board Members: Patricia Bauman, Vice-Chair

Paul Egerman, Treasurer

Weston Milliken, Secretary

Keith Mestrich, Membership Chair

David desJardins

Farhad Ebrahimi

Mary Kay Henry

Gara LaMarche

Sunita Leeds

Fran Rodgers

Susan Sandler

Rob Stein

Joe Zimlich

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Texas Almost Bought Execution Drugs From 5 Guys Overseas Who Were Accused Of Selling Illegal Party Pills

Michelle Rial / BuzzFeed News

In late January 2015, agents with India’s drug enforcement agency raided a small drug supplier operating out of a mall between a jewelry store and an ice cream shop in India’s western state of Gujarat.

They arrested five men in their twenties, who Indian authorities say were selling psychotropic drugs and opioids illegally to people in the US and Europe.

Agents seized a massive amount of drugs that included generic versions of drugs including Xanax, Viagra, Ritalin, Ambien, and opioids similar to morphine. The company, Provizer Pharma, was selling drugs online.

India’s Narcotics Control Bureau called the raid a “significant seizure.” Prosecutors alleged that the men “were caught on the spot” at a FedEx office in the city of Surat “while taking back their returned parcels” of drugs.

The men — who were equal partners in a company called Provizer Pharma — were detained by authorities for more than nine months for alleged violations of India’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The men were released on bail in November 2015, according to Indian court documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

But teens and twenty-somethings weren’t the only Americans who were allegedly trying to score drugs from this company in India.

The state of Texas was also looking to buy execution drugs from them.

The building housing Provizer Pharma

Google Maps

In early January 2015, weeks before the raid, Texas was on the market for a new execution drug supplier.

Although the state already had a supply of pentobarbital in stock, the current thinking for many death penalty states — including Texas, the most prolific executioner in the United States — is that you can never have too many execution drugs. For years, sources of lethal injection drugs had been getting harder and harder to find.

In January 2015, facing a market where reputable options have dried up after manufacturers forced sellers to agree to never sell to executioners, Texas looked overseas and found willing sellers in India.

It was the first step in a series of events that have snowballed into a high-stakes standoff between death penalty states and the federal government over how executions are carried out.

In July 2015, a different supplier in India sent Texas 1,000 vials of sodium thiopental.

Texas and other death penalty states are looking to re-litigate a years-old battle over importing the drug sodium thiopental. After years of using the anesthetic in executions, the sole supplier approved by the Food and Drug Administration stopped making the drug to keep it out of the hands of death penalty states. After that, states tried to buy the drug overseas. But in 2012, a federal judge ruled the FDA had “a mandatory obligation … to refuse to admit the misbranded and unapproved drug, thiopental, into the United States.”

Under that ruling, which was upheld by a federal appeals court, the FDA detained the thiopental shipment from India for a year and a half. Under President Obama, the FDA held onto the drugs and rebuffed repeated calls for the drugs to be released — but withheld a final call on whether they’d ever be admissible.

A decision on the drugs will now have to come under President Trump, and Texas is looking to force the FDA’s hand sooner rather than later. Just this month, Texas sued the FDA, calling the lengthy detention “gross incompetence or willful obstruction” and asking that the FDA be forced to make a final decision.

In their lawsuit, Texas glossed over the facts of where the drugs came from, referring to it only as a “foreign distributor.” The state has also fought the FDA on attempts to release information on the drugs, threatening to sue the department if it releases information that identifies the supplier.

The failed execution drug deal came less than a year after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton advised the state to change course and begin keeping the identity of the supplier a secret.

An investigative report by the DEA, obtained by BuzzFeed News

But using internal documents obtained through a handful of Freedom of Information Act requests, BuzzFeed News pieced together the backstory of how the illegal drug deal went down.

The story is a rare insight into how difficult it is for states to get ahold of execution drugs — even for Texas, the state other death penalty states try to emulate.

On Jan. 8, 2015, Texas’ Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Bryan Collier and a few of his employees gave the Drug Enforcement Administration a heads up: They would be purchasing a massive supply of a drug called sodium thiopental from a company in India.

“TDCJ will be importing Thiopental Sodium in 1 gram vials for a total of 500 to 1,000 grams per purchase/importation,” a DEA agent wrote in an investigative report obtained by BuzzFeed News.

“TDCJ will be importing from the following supplier: Provizer Pharma.”

But Texas never got the drugs — at least not from that company. Before the sale could happen, Provizer Pharma was raided by the Indian government, its facility shut down, its drugs seized, and five of its employees arrested.

India’s Narcotics Control Bureau called the raid a “significant seizure.” According to a government report, they seized:

• 272 kg of generic Xanax tablets
  
• 417 g of generic Ritalin powder
  
• 14,310 tablets of generic Ambien
  
• 22 kg of tramadol powder, an opioid
  
• 340 g of tramadol tablets
  
• 1.6 kg tablets of generic Viagra
  
• 2.3 kg tablets of tapentadol, an opioid
  

Authorities said the drugs were on their way to America and Europe.

Five men in their 20s were arrested.

The men “saw more money in selling banned medicines in the US, where these substances are in high demand,” Hari Om Gandhi, a regional director with the Narcotics Control Bureau, told an Indian outlet after the raid.

“These medicines are used for relieving stress. They are also used as party drugs, as it stimulates senses.”

"[The men] saw more money in selling banned medicines in the US, where these substances are in high demand. These medicines are used for relieving stress. They are also used as party drugs, as it stimulates senses.”

The five men remained in police custody for more than nine months, according to an Indian court document obtained by BuzzFeed News. In November 2015, the men — Tarun Butani, Ashok Chovatia, Dipak Mangukiya, Ankit Patel and Jenis Viradiya — were released on bail, according to the document.

In asking for bail, an attorney for the men claimed that some of the drugs seized were not theirs, and said that they had cooperated with the investigation. An Indian prosecutor argued that the alleged crime is serious in nature, “is established from the record,” and could carry a sentence of 20 years.

The men, the Narcotics Control Bureau, and the prosecutors did not respond to repeated questions from BuzzFeed News on where the case currently stands. An attorney who only represented the men during their bail proceedings said he could not get in contact with his former clients.

It’s unclear how far along the deal between Texas and Provizer Pharma was before it fell through. In a statement, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said they never “engaged in any transaction” with Provizer Pharma.

“Your story is highly speculative and inaccurate,” spokesperson Jason Clark said. “The agency has not engaged in any transaction with this company.”

“TDCJ has a statutory responsibility to carry out court ordered executions in Texas. All drugs used in the lethal injection process are legally purchased and are tested by an independent lab for both potency and purity to ensure they meet national standards.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office declined to comment, saying they took no part in the decision on where to buy drugs.

BuzzFeed News spoke with an American man who bought a Modafinil from Provizer Pharma, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The drug is a stimulant used to treat some sleep disorders, but some use it for improving productivity.

The man said his experience with the company was generally positive — the company shipped promptly and was cheap. Plus, they never asked for a prescription. He said the drug's label indicated it was manufactured by another Indian company.

“I would like to participate in a group buy, however, I am uncomfortable being the one to import 1kg for fear of legal issues."

Some message boards for Americans looking to buy drugs without a prescription mention Provizer Pharma.

In one forum, ironically for users interested in immortality and devoted to conquering “the blight of involuntary death,” commenters discussed going in on a group buy of Modafinil from Provizer — even if some had concerns that it’s a scam or would get them arrested. The posts are punctuated by casual language, frequent misspellings, and grammatical errors.

“I would like to participate in a group buy, however, I am uncomfortable being the one to import 1kg for fear of legal issues,” ByAnyMeansNecessary wrote in June 2014.

“If this were within the US, I would be less wary, but customs can be a real pain in the ass. Given that we'd be shooting for 1kg, wouldnt this increase the risk associated with the buy (eg. being seized by customs, facing legal reprecussions, etc)?”

Another user expressed some caution.

“I dont think doing a group buy for controlled substance would be good idea for this forum,” username Maraver responded. “legal issues.”

On another site, a customer review of Provizer Pharma called them a scammers and claimed that the drugs are fake. “They will send you some that look exactly like the real deal, but once you take them you will soon find out that it is extremely weak.”

On Reddit, a user looking to buy Tramadol in October 2014 asked if Provizer Pharma was legitimate or not. Someone identifying himself as an employee of the company jumped in.

“dear sir,” username TarunProvizer wrote. (Tarun Butani was one of the employees arrested in the raid.)

“Provizer pharma is legit and they are not scammer..if you get quotation quickly than they will ship you also quickly ..if you ask them unusual question than No one will reply and lost them interest to sale you.”

It’s unclear how the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found this small company in India that made the rounds on Internet message boards for teens and 20-somethings looking to buy drugs without a prescription. The company also marketed its drugs on sites like Alibaba and IndiaMart.

While used widely in India as an anesthetic, the drug is currently unapproved in the United States, and under a federal appeals court injunction, cannot be allowed into the country.

But even if the drug were approved (which it is not), Provizer Pharma has never registered a facility with the FDA — a requirement for selling drugs into the US — meaning the sale would still be illegal.

But when the first option was shut down and its employees arrested for selling illegal drugs, Texas didn’t stop trying to find a thiopental source.

Weeks later, the state found another willing seller in India — named Chris Harris — and sent him $25,000.

This wasn’t the first time Harris has sold drugs to death penalty states. Over the years, he’s made more than $100,000 selling states illegal execution drugs. Each time, his drugs have gone unused after questions were raised about where they came from.

In 2015, BuzzFeed News investigated several of Harris’ claims of being a drug manufacturer. A facility he lists with the DEA turned out to be a former apartment he left owing rent on. The facility he registered with the FDA is a small office space he rents; a secretary at the building said manufacturing couldn’t be done there.

“We don’t know what he does with the product.”

Instead, according to documents and interviews, Harris purchased the drugs from another company in India and then sold them to Texas, Arizona and Nebraska for a profit. Harris bought his drugs from a company called Health Biotech Limited. An employee with the company confirmed that Health Biotech made the thiopental, and that they sold it to Harris, who then sold it under his own name.

“We don’t know what he does with the product,” an employee who only identified himself as Vinod said.

The FDA warned Texas and its supplier in July 2015 — along with Arizona and Nebraska, who also purchased drugs from Harris — that attempting to import the drugs would be illegal and that the product would be detained.

Weeks later, Harris shipped the drugs to Arizona and Texas anyway. The federal government, true to its word, detained the shipments at the airport in late July 2015. The drugs have remained in a government warehouse ever since.

Harris also attempted to FedEx the drugs to Nebraska but the shipment was stopped before it could even leave the country. The state eventually abandoned the sale and attempted to get a refund.

Harris declined.

“Hope this issue does not spoil the relationship between our organisations and we are able to do business in the future,” Harris responded.

See The Documents:

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