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The Egyptian military should immediately end trials of civilians before military courts and release all those arbitrarily detained or convicted after unfair proceedings, Human Rights Watch said today. In the latest case, 28 civilians arrested in Cairo's Tahrir Square on April 12, 2011, went on trial as a group before a military court on April 28.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has tried more than 5,000 civilians before military tribunals since February, including many arrested following peaceful protests in Tahrir Square. Trials of civilians before the military courts constitute wholesale violations of basic fair trial rights, Human Rights Watch said. At the same time, senior officials in the government of former president Hosni Mubarak are being tried before civilian courts on charges of corruption and using lethal force against protesters.
"Egypt's military leadership has not explained why young protesters are being tried before unfair military courts while former Mubarak officials are being tried for corruption and killing protesters before regular criminal courts," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The generals' reliance on military trials threatens the rule of law by creating a parallel system that undermines Egypt's judiciary."
Since Egypt's military took over policing the streets from the Ministry of Interior at the end of January, it has arbitrarily arrested peaceful protesters. On February 26, March 6, March 9, April 9, and April 12, military police accompanied by other military personnel violently dispersed protesters and arrested at least 321 persons from Tahrir and Lazoughli squares. At least 76 of them remain in detention after unfair trials before military courts.
Human rights lawyer Adel Ramadan from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who has been representing defendants before military courts, told Human Rights Watch that, based on court rolls and case numbers, military courts handed down over 5,000 sentences across the country between February 11 and the middle of April. The military courts typically handle groups of between five and thirty defendants at a single trial, with a trial lasting 20 to 40 minutes.
Egypt's Emergency Law, in place since 1981, and the Code of Military Justice authorize the president to refer civilians for military trials. Under the Mubarak government, such trials were reserved for high-profile political cases, such as the 2008 conviction of the former deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat al-Shatir, and 24 others; cases in which the defendants had been arrested in a military zone such as the Sinai; or bloggers who criticized the military.
Since February, however, the military has tried thousands of civilians before military courts under the Code of Military Justice. The code, in articles 5- 6, allows for such trials only under specified conditions, such as when the crime takes place in an area controlled by the military or if one of the parties involved is a military officer. In a live television interview on a local station, ON TV, on April 11, Gen. Ismail Etman, the military's head of Morale Affairs, said that "in cases where it affects the security of the armed forces or the security of the country such as thuggery, looting or destruction of property, theft, and especially if one of the parties is a military officer, we transfer it to military trials to be looked into immediately."
The Code of Military Justice should be amended to restrict the jurisdiction of the military courts to trials only of military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature, Human Rights Watch said.
The Egyptian military amended the country's penal code on March 1, under the legislative powers accorded to it by the Constitutional Declaration of February 13, to add the crime of "thuggery" in articles 375bis and 375bis (a) entitled "causing fear, intimidation and affecting sense of security." It defines "thuggery" as "displaying force or threatening to use force against a victim" with the "intention to intimidate or cause harm to him or his property."
The wholesale use of military courts to try civilians comes at a time when the military is trying to reassure Egyptians that it is taking a strong stance to suppress criminal activity. Since February 26, the military has sent faxes to Egyptian media listing the names and sentences of 647 civilians tried before military courts, lists that newspapers reproduced without providing any further information.
Based on these lists, over the past two months, military courts in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailiyya, and other cities have sentenced civilians to prison terms ranging from six months to seven years - in at least three cases even 25 years' or life imprisonment. The charges typically were breaking curfew, possession of illegal weapons, destruction of public property, theft, assault, or threat of violence.
"Those who commit genuine crimes should be tried in regular criminal courts, as they have been in the past." Stork said. "Egyptian prisons are now filled with thousands of civilians who were convicted by fundamentally unfair military courts, often on dubious charges."
Defendants in military trials have no access to counsel of their own choosing, except in high-profile cases such as the blogger Maikel Nabil. Dozens of protesters arrested on March 9 were not allowed to speak to their court-appointed lawyers before or during the trial or to communicate with their families to request a lawyer. Military prosecution officials denied human rights lawyers access on at least three occasions when groups of protesters were being interrogated and tried.
Most Egyptian news media have been unwilling to report on arbitrary arrests and allegations of torture of protesters by the military police. The media also largely ignored two March news conferences by human rights lawyers in which a number of torture victims testified. Only a few opinion writers and TV hosts have been willing to raise the issue of torture and arbitrary arrests by the military.
On March 22, General Etman sent a letter to editors of Egyptian newspapers telling them "not to publish any articles/news/press releases/complaints/advertising/pictures concerning the armed forces or the leadership of the armed forces, except after consulting the Morale Affairs directorate and the Military Intelligence since these are the competent parties to examine such issues to protect the safety of the nation."
On April 14, the military said, in its Statement Number 36, that it would review the detentions of "all the youth ... tried in the recent period," an apparent reference to the protesters, but Human Rights Watch is unaware of any movement in their cases. The military had earlier announced that it was reviewing the sentencing of two protesters, Amr Eissa and Mohamed Adel, and also ordered the retrial of Walid Sami Saad.
Two lawyers, Khaled Ali and Taher Abul Nasr, brought a case before Egypt's Court of Administrative Justice on behalf of a former military detainee, Rasha Azab, challenging the military's administrative decision to try civilians before military courts. The court held the first session in the case on April 19 and adjourned the case until May 10.
If the court decides it is competent to rule on this issue, this would be the first step toward the judiciary reasserting control over the administration of criminal justice, Human Rights Watch said. Thus far, civilian judicial bodies have had little say over military abuses, and the Public Prosecutor has referred torture complaints against the military to military prosecutors.
International Law
Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, where the proceedings do not protect due process rights and do not satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality of courts of law. International human rights bodies over the last 15 years have determined that trials of civilians before military tribunals violate the due process guarantees found in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which affirms that everyone has the right to be tried by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal.
These bodies have consistently rejected the use of military prosecutors and courts in cases involving abuses against civilians, by stating that the jurisdiction of military courts should be limited to offenses that are strictly military in nature. The Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity, presented before the former United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2005, state that "the jurisdiction of military tribunals must be restricted solely to specifically military offenses committed by military personnel, to the exclusion of human rights violations, which shall come under the jurisdiction of the ordinary domestic courts or, where appropriate, in the case of serious crimes under international law, of an international or internationalized criminal court."
The Human Rights Committee, the international expert body authorized to monitor compliance with the ICCPR, has stated that civilians should be tried by military courts only under exceptional circumstances and only under conditions that genuinely afford full due process. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, in interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, has said that military courts "should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians."
Arbitrary Arrest and Military Convictions of Peaceful Protesters
February 26 Protest
One of those detained for participating in peaceful protest is Amr al-Beheiry, whose case alerted human rights lawyers to the fact that protesters were being brought before military courts.
Military officers arrested al-Beheiry, along with at least eight others, in the early hours of February 26 after forcibly evicting protesters from Tahrir Square. Mona Saif, an activist, told Human Rights Watch that she and her mother, Laila Soueif, intervened when they saw military officers first arrest al-Beheiry, and they were able to secure his release. Al-Beheiry had bruises on his face and told Saif that officers had beaten him. After they parted ways, military officers re-arrested him.
Al-Beheiry's family learned of his arrest from the newspaper and contacted Ramadan, the defense lawyer, who unsuccessfully tried to gain access to him at the military base on March 1 and only then learned that al-Beheiry had been tried and sentenced on February 28. Al-Beheiry is serving a five-year sentence in Wadi Gedid prison, 400 miles from his home, rather than in Tora prison outside Cairo.
March 9 Protest
Of the 173 detainees arrested on March 9 from Tahrir Square, at least 76 are believed to remain in prison after military courts sentenced them to prison terms ranging from one to three years on charges of breaking curfew, possession of explosives and knives, and destruction of property.
Human Rights Watch has interviewed 16 men and women who testified to being tortured by beating, electroshocks, and whipping by military officers on March 9 in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum, adjacent to Tahrir Square. Ahmed al-Sharkawy, one of 22 men released on March 12, told Human Rights Watch:
I was one of the protesters in Tahrir. Military officers beat me at the museum on March 9, used electroshocks on my legs and my neck and whipped me on my back with an electric cable. Later they moved us to the military camp S28 where a camera crew filmed us at a table with sticks, knives and Molotov cocktails placed before us, saying we were thugs. My father saw this on state television that evening and that's how he knew I'd been arrested.
The next day they took us to the military prison and brought each of us before the prosecutor. He asked me what I was doing in Tahrir and I said I was just walking past. He told me was charging me with being a thug and I denied all the charges. I was with him for around 15 minutes.
A while later they took me along with 29 others before a military judge. There were three court-appointed lawyers - I tried to ask their names but they told us they couldn't speak to us. He asked us one question "Why were you in Tahrir?" The whole process took around 20 minutes and then they took us to our cells. On Saturday [March 12], an officer came and called me out of the cell. He released me along with 21 other men and the 17 women.
Some of the protesters were able to alert lawyers shortly after they were arrested. Ramadan and Omran went to the military prosecutor's office on March 9 and requested access to the detainees, but officials there denied the detainees were being interrogated and said they would not be brought to trial until March 12. When Ramadan returned on March 12, military officials at the military prosecutor's office told him the group had been tried and sentenced on March 9.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 members of the group tried by military courts on March 9. They all said military police and other military officers had arrested them where they were protesting in Tahrir Square, and that military officers beat them in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum. They also said they had no access to lawyers prior to their trials or the chance to speak to court-appointed lawyers at the proceedings. They did not learn about their sentences until, at the earliest, six days later, when their families visited them in prison and saw their sentences on the visiting list.
Human Rights Watch has interviewed six people, received letters from prisoners, reviewed video footage of the events of March 9, and spoken with four prisoners' families to confirm the following cases of protesters who remain inside Tora's high security prison:
Rai'f Kashef, 22, a second-year business student, was arrested at the same time as his brother Ragui in Tahrir Square. Ragui told Human Rights Watch that military officers arrested them and took them to the museum, where the officers beat and subjected the brothers to shocks with electric stun devices. The officers then brought them to a military base, where military prosecutors questioned them separately and brought them before military judges for trial in groups of 25 to 30. Military officers released Ragui Kashef on March 12 along with 21 other men but sentenced his brother to a year in prison.
Amr Eissa, 26, an artist, was arrested along with Ragui Kashef and Khaled Sadek in front of the KFC restaurant in Tahrir Square and sentenced to three years in prison, his brother, Mostafa, told Human Rights Watch.
Eissa's was one of the two cases the military said it would review. In its Statement 30 on March 28, in which it ordered a review of the legal proceedings against him, the military stated that,
"The Egyptian armed forces announced its position at the beginning of the January 25 revolution toward the youth of the revolution that it will not stand against the free youth and that all of the legal measures that have been taken in the past period have been solely directed against acts of thuggery which have terrorized the people."
As of April 18, however, Eissa remained in Tora's high security prison. Mostafa Eissa has been campaigning on his brother's behalf, but said there had been no developments since the military announced it was reviewing the conviction.
Mustafa Abdelmoneim, 25, works in an advertising production company and took part in the Tahrir Square demonstrations from the beginning. On March 9, he was standing next to the tents protesters had set up when army officers, together with men in civilian clothes, started breaking down the tents and arresting demonstrators. In a letter written from his Tora prison cell, he wrote that he had been arrested by two military police officers, who took him to the museum and beat him on his back and his legs and used electric stun guns on him, then took him to the military camp and then before the military prosecutor and court. He told them he was tried in a group of about 30 before a military judge in a hearing that lasted 20 minutes. He said he first learned of his three-year prison sentence from his family when they came to visit him.
Hani Maher Mikhail, 26, from Imbaba, was also one of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square from the beginning. On March 9 men in civilian clothes came into the tent area to take down the tents. Mikhail went to nearby Talaat Harb Street and on his way back to the square, two officers in uniform and two men in civilian clothes arrested him and took him to the museum, where military officers beat him and used electric stun guns on him. A military judge sentenced him to three years in prison, along with a group of about 30 others.
Tamer al-Shishtawy, from Tanta, took part in the Tahrir demonstrations beginning on January 28. Military officers took him to the museum on March 9 and beat him. He said that he was tried together with 30 others by the military judge and was not permitted to speak to a lawyer.
"It is outrageous that those who peacefully protested against Mubarak should now be imprisoned after unfair military trials for peacefully protesting against the new authorities," Stork said. "The military should release all those held arbitrarily and retry any persons suspected of a criminal offence in fair proceedings before civilian courts."
The names of 76 of the protesters now imprisoned in Tora and Wadi Gedid prisons after sentences by military courts are:
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power," said Khalil. "And I won't stop here."
Pro-Palestinian student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil on Thursday began the process of suing U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for $20 million in damages for the harm he suffered as a result of the government's "politically motivated plan to unlawfully arrest, detain, and deport" him.
"This is the first step towards accountability," Khalil said in a statement. "Nothing can restore the 104 days stolen from me. The trauma, the separation from my wife, the birth of my first child that I was forced to miss. But let's be clear, the same government that targeted me for speaking out is using taxpayer dollars to fund Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power," he asserted. "And I won't stop here. I will continue to pursue justice against everyone who contributed to my unlawful detention or spread lies in an attempt to destroy my reputation, including those affiliated with Columbia University. I'm holding the U.S. government accountable not just for myself, but for everyone they try to silence through fear, exile, or detention."
In March, federal agents who were in plain clothes and lacked a warrant accosted Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who recently finished a graduate program at Columbia, and his wife—Noor Abdalla, a U.S. citizen who was then pregnant with their son—outside their New York City home. Following Khalil's arrest, several other student activists critical of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza were also targeted for deportation.
The claim that 30-year-old Khalil filed Thursday against the U.S. Homeland Security and State departments, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is a precursor to a lawsuit that will cite the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), part of his legal team.
The filing accuses the Trump administration of carrying out a plan to deport Khalil "in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family," and says the mistreatment caused "severe emotional distress, economic hardship, damage to his reputation, and significant impairment of his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights."
Mahmoud Khalil has filed a claim against the Trump administration, seeking either $20 million or an official apology and change in the administration’s policy after he was held in detention for over 100 days. NBC News’ Maya Eaglin spoke to Khalil in New York City.
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— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) July 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who was finally freed from an ICE facility in Louisiana last month, is seeking $20 million to help others similarly targeted by the government and Columbia, but "he would accept, in lieu of payment, an official apology and abandonment of the administration's unconstitutional policy," CCR explained.
The Associated Press reported that "a White House spokesperson deferred comment to the State Department, which said its actions were fully supported by the law. In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Khalil's claim 'absurd,' accusing him of 'hateful behavior and rhetoric' that threatened Jewish students."
While the departments' comments signal that the Trump administration won't be making any apologies, Khalil's team is determined to move forward with his case.
"The Trump administration's unconstitutional targeting of Mr. Khalil led to severe harms that he continues to navigate, including financial loss, reputational damage, and emotional distress," said Samah Sisay, staff attorney at CCR. "Mr. Khalil will never get back the three months stolen from him while in immigration detention, including his child's birth and first months of life. The government must take accountability for their unlawful actions and compensate Mr. Khalil for his suffering."
Khalil's claim was filed a day after an ICE official testified under oath that a task force formed in March used lists from Canary Mission, an operation linked to Israeli intelligence agencies, and the pro-Israel group Betar Worldwide to compile reports on international students targeted for their protest activities.
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said one commentator. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too?"
In an interview with CNN, former Congressman Dean Phillips was asked whether "there is room" for him and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic Party—but progressive Rep. Summer Lee was among those saying on Thursday that Phillips' rejection of Mamdani wwas really about millions of Americans who have voted for candidates like him.
"These guys aren't just rejecting him, but the millions moved to electoral action by candidates like him," said Lee (D-Pa.) in response to Phillips' interview.
CNN's Omar Jimenez asked Phillips about the "big tent" philosophy often promoted by Democratic leaders who believe the party should welcome lawmakers and candidates who don't agree with every aspect of its platform—politicians like anti-choice Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who made millions of dollars from his coal business.
Jimenez asked whether Mamdani, a democratic socialist who stunned former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the party's leadership in the Democratic mayoral primary last month, should also be welcomed into the party's "big tent."
"The answer ultimately is no," said Phillips, who was one of the wealthiest members of Congress before he left office to run for president in a long-shot bid against former President Joe Biden in the 2024 race—losing his home state of Minnesota and garnering just 1.7% of the vote in South Carolina, falling behind author Marianne Williamson.
Phillips admitted that "most Americans share the same values" as Mamdani, who has advocated for fare-free public transit, universal free childcare, and city-run grocery stores to operate alongside private stores and provide low-cost essentials to working families.
But he claimed that while "differences of opinion, perspective, life story, politics, and experience" are beneficial to the Democratic Party, the presence of so-called "socialists" like Mamdani is not.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want neither far-left or far-right politics," he said without citing any supporting evidence.
Phillips appeared confident that Democratic voters across the country would recoil from candidates like Mamdani—despite recent rallies in red districts where progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who both endorsed Mamdani, have drawn crowds of thousands of people in recent months during Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
In addition to Mamdani's historic success in the Democratic primary—with more New Yorkers voting for him than in any other primary election in the history of the nation's largest city—numerous polls have shown that Americans back policies like those that powered his campaign.
A poll by Child Care for Every Family in 2023 found that 92% of parents with children under age 5 supported guaranteed, government-funded childcare, including 79% of Republican parents and 83% of independent parents.
Raising taxes for corporations and wealthy households is also broadly popular, with about 6 in 10 Americans supporting the proposal in a recent Pew Research poll.
And despite efforts by centrist Democrats and Republicans to portray Mamdani's platform as radical, programs like his fare-free bus proposal have already been implemented in cities like Kansas City, Raleigh, and Boston on three of the city's busiest bus routes.
"Maybe our big tent should have less millionaire nepo heirs and more fighters for the millions of working-class people," suggested Lee on Thursday.
Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project also condemned Phillips for suggesting Mamdani—and ostensibly the 565,639 New Yorkers who voted for him—have no place in the party.
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said Bruenig. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too? Should they also not vote for the party? Phillips is trying to radically shrink the party. Scary stuff."
"Centrists and other moderates are spending a nontrivial amount of national political energy being mad at Zohran," he added, "which could instead be spent on [President Donald] Trump and Republicans."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution is circulating a petition that's garnered more than 30,000 signatures from people urging Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand—all New York Democrats who have yet to endorse their own party's mayoral candidate—not to "sabotage" Mamdani.
Despite Phillips' insistence that Mamdani doesn't belong in the party, the resistance in New York appeared to weaken a bit Thursday as Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) endorsed the candidate.
"New Yorkers have spoken loud and clear," said Espaillat, who had previously backed Cuomo. "And as a lifelong Democrat, I'm endorsing the Democratic Party nominee."
Republicans plan to utilize a rare process called "rescission" to skirt Congress' power of the purse and illegally allow Trump to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to critical programs.
The U.S. Senate will soon vote on whether President Donald Trump can claw back billions of dollars that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Last month, the House narrowly voted to allow Trump to rescind $9.4 billion in funds that were meant to fund global health initiatives—including AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis prevention—and public broadcasters like PBS and NPR.
It's far from the first time that this Republican-controlled Congress has voted on massive budget cuts, but progressive groups and some Democratic lawmakers say this vote has another frightening dimension to it.
These funds were among the more than $420 billion appropriated by Congress that Trump illegally impounded, or refused to spend, at the start of his term.
In a letter sent Wednesday to members of Congress, a coalition of more than 100 groups—including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, and Greenpeace—warned that by voting to approve these rescissions of federal funds, they would be giving Trump tacit approval to unconstitutionally take away Congress' authority to spend money.
"This rescissions proposal does not ask Congress, as required by the Impoundment Control Act, to approve the entirety of the federal spending that has been illegally frozen by the Trump administration," the letter notes. "The administration is merely trying to establish a veil of legitimacy while it continues unconstitutional actions that it began more than 100 days ago."
The groups went on to warn that allowing the president to unilaterally cut funding that he doesn't approve of "risks irreparable damage to the regular bipartisan appropriations process."
"Despite the political back-and-forth, Congress eventually reaches a bipartisan agreement on government funding every year, one way or another," they said. "The basis for that bipartisan agreement is that both parties must agree to compromises to achieve any of their goals. If a party with a political trifecta can simply rescind funding for the parts of appropriations bills they compromised on, they undermine congressional checks and balances and the basis for future bipartisan dealmaking on an already politically fraught process."
Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, presidents are forbidden from unilaterally refusing to spend funds. However, Congress is allowed to pass a "rescission" bill within 45 days of canceling them if the president requests it.
Trump would be the first president since Bill Clinton in 1999 to successfully have funds rescinded by Congress, and it would be the largest rescission in four decades.
But as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, there is a key difference: "The administration illegally impounded the funds at issue for months before proposing the [rescission] package" and that it is "unlawfully withholding much larger amounts of funding that it has not proposed for rescission."
According to a tracker created by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who sit on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively, the Trump administration is blocking congressionally appropriated funds for programs including:
Russell Vought, the head of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has openly indicated a desire to use rescission to cut all of this spending "without having to get an affirmative vote" from Congress.
According to The New York Times, Vought is planning to use an even more arcane and illegal maneuver known as "pocket rescission" to avoid spending the funds. As Tony Romm reported in June:
Under the emerging plan, the Trump administration would wait until closer to Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.
Some Senate Democrats have indicated they'd be willing to risk a government shutdown to prevent the rescission bill from passing.
In a letter published Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that the prospect of the rescissions bill passing had "grave implications."
"[I]t is absurd for [Republicans] to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes," Schumer wrote.
Murray called out Vought directly on Wednesday at a markup session on the next round of bills in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"For us to be able to work in a bipartisan way effectively, that requires us to work with each other. To not just write bipartisan funding bills—but to defend them from partisan cuts sought by the president and the OMB director," she said during her opening remarks. "We cannot allow bipartisan funding bills with partisan rescission packages. It will not work."