In an email to #USAID staff, Jeremy Lewin, a #DOGE ofcl who took over running the day-to-day ops at USAID from Pete Marocco on March 20, said the RIFs would go into effect either on July 1 or Sept 2.

This comes as the #Trump admin wraps up the dismantling of the 64-year-old USAID, having terminated some 5,200 contracts, & moves forward with its plan to shift the remaining portion of its work to the #State Dept.

In a dangerous & complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be #smart. As Secy of #State during the Obama admin, I argued for smart #power, integrating the hard power of our military w/the #SoftPower of our #diplomacy, development assistance, economic might & cultural #influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a #superpower. The #Trump approach is #dumb power.

A senior #State Dept ofcl called the demonstrators it's targeting "Hamasniks" — people the government claims have shown support for the terror group.

More than 300 foreign students have had their #StudentVisas revoked in the 3 weeks "Catch & Revoke" has been in operation, the ofcl said. There are 1.5 million #student #visa-holders nationwide.

"Everyone is fair game," the ofcl said.

The effort—which could include grand jury subpoenas—marks another escalation of #Trump's aggressive crackdown on #immigration & (what he has labeled as) antisemitism that civil libertarians say stifles #FreeSpeech on campus & has led to several lawsuits.

The idea of prohibiting colleges from enrolling any #StudentVisa-holders grew out of Secy of #State #MarcoRubio's "Catch & Revoke" program, which now is focusing on #students who protested against the war in #Gaza.

Secy of #State #MarcoRubio said in remarks today in Jamaica that someone made a “big mistake” adding #TheAtlantic's editor-in-chief to the #Signal chat that contained info about a #military attack on the #Houthis in #Yemen.

Unlike everyone else in the #Trump admin, he didn’t defame #JeffreyGoldberg.

"Obviously, someone made a mistake. Someone made a big mistake & added a journalist. Nothing against journalists, but you ain’t supposed to be on that thing," Rubio said.

…At least as far back as 2023 a #DoD memo, also seen by NPR, prohibited use of mobile apps for even "controlled unclassified information," which is many degrees less important than information about on-going #military operations.

There's…no precedent for the heads of #Defense, #State, #Intelligence & #NationalSecurity to be sharing such sensitive military intelligence in a forum that was known to be unsecured.

Earlier, #Trump also said that it was up to #MarcoRubio & that his secy of #state “has a lot of big decisions to make” in the wake of the judge’s ruling.

“He’s got the authority to get bad people out of our country, & you can’t stop that w/a judge sitting behind a bench that has no idea what goes on, who happens to be a radical left lunatic.” [acc/to trump any judge who rules against him is a radical left lunatic — seems like there are a lot of those, eh? /s]

Asked on Fri if he would authorize flights that night despite the court order to halt them, #Trump deflected & suggested that it would be up to #MarcoRubio.

“…I’d have the Secy of #State handle it, because I’m not really involved in that,” [bullshit] he said. “But the concept of getting bad people — murderers, rapists, drug dealers, all of the — these are really some bad people — out of our country — I ran on that. I won on that.”

The agents identified themselves as being w/ #DHS & told #BadarSuri the govt had revoked his #visa…
Suri…was put in #deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of #immigration #law that the govt invoked to deport #MahmoudKhalil, the #ColumbiaUniversity grad student & #GreenCard holder who led pro-#Palestinian protests on campus. That provision gives the secy of #State power to deport noncitizens if he determines their continued presence in the #US would threaten #ForeignPolicy.

The letter cont, “We have reason to believe that the data from the repository has been permanently deleted. If true, this would have devastating consequences. Can you please update us as to the status of the data from the evidence repository?”

The Yale lab was one of several recipients of $26M in funding through the #State Dept to track #WarCrimes committed by #Russia in #Ukraine. Pages on the Conflict Observatory have been removed from State’s website under #MarcoRubio.

The bipartisan letter, signed by 17 lawmakers & organized by Representative Greg Landsman, #Democrat of Ohio, said that “the #ForeignAid freeze has jeopardized, & may ultimately eliminate, our informational support of #Ukraine on this front.”

The #State Dept & the Yale center “had been preserving evidence of #abducted #children from Ukraine it had identified, to be shared w/ #Europol & the govt of Ukraine to secure their return,” the letter says.

Those officials are Jeremy Lewin, who has been working for the cost-cutting task force led by the billionaire #ElonMusk, & Kenneth Jackson, a #State Dept official who was named the acting president of the U.S. Institute of #Peace #USIP this week [another independent agency under assault by #Trump, #Musk & #DOGE & subsequently embroiled in federal lawsuits].

#PeteMarocco, the #State Dept ofcl who oversaw the #Trump admin’s efforts to dismantle the main govt agency distributing foreign #aid, announced in an email on Tues night that he would be replaced at the agency by 2 officials who had been involved in making the cuts.

Marocco said in the email that he would remain at State as director of #ForeignAid, but that 2 other officials would handle what remains of the #USAID.

A draft of the #ExecutiveOrder designating #fentanyl as #WMD was distributed likely sometime last week to US Departments of #Commerce, #Defense, #Justice & #State.

Those agencies met on Friday, per a read out of the meeting Kabas reviewed, to discuss concerns.

Judge Chuang found that #ElonMusk is unlawfully exercising power under the #AppointmentsClause. However, because some of the #USAID dismantling was done by #PeterMarocco — #Trump’s #State Dept Director of #ForeignAssistance — not #Musk, & the dismissed employees didn't sue #USAID, he limited his preliminary injunction.

#Bukele posted a video on Sun of what he says is 238 members of Tren de Aragua arriving in #ElSalvador. He said they would be transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center in the country, for 1 year.

#MarcoRubio, #Trump’s secy of #State, last month said Bukele had agreed to accept deportees from the US of ANY NATIONALITY [including US #citizens]. Bukele's social media posts on Sun refer to "a very low fee" that the #US paid to El Salvador for the #deportations.