SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
jerry nadler
Jeffries No Match for 'Historic, Fascistic Moment' After Response to DHS Detaining Nadler Aide
"It's terrifying, to be up against what we're up against with leadership this weak," said one critic.
Jun 02, 2025
Two weeks after declaring that the Trump administration's arrest of members of Democratic members of Congress would be a "red line," the top-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House this week was signaling no concrete plan to take action over the Justice Department charging a congresswoman and federal agents detaining a Capitol Hill aide.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) insisted in a Sunday interview with CNN's Dana Bash that party leaders haven't let their "foot off the gas pedal" when asked about Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers briefly detaining an aide to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) last week—but he was short on details of how Democrats plan to hold President Donald Trump's administration accountable.
"In terms of how we will respond to what Trump and the administration has endeavored to do, we will make that decision in a time, place, and manner of our choosing. But the response will be continuous and it will meet the moment that is required," said Jeffries. "In terms of additional things that may take place with respect to our congressional oversight, authority, and capacity, we will respond in a time, place, and manner of our choosing if this continues to happen."
Rights advocate Aaron Regunberg said Jeffries appeared to be "a literal human embodiment of fecklessness" in the interview, which followed outcry in recent months about Democratic leaders' refusal to unequivocally defend detained Columbia University pro-Palestinian organizer Mahmoud Khalil and their insistence that the Democrats should be selective about which Trump policies they fight against.
"It's terrifying, to be up against what we're up against with leadership this weak," said Regunberg.
Jeffries' interview with CNN came days after officers with the Federal Protective Service, part of DHS, entered Nadler's office in Manhattan and handcuffed one of his aides, claiming the staff was "harboring rioters in the office."
Nadler's office is located in the same building as an immigration courtroom where protesters and rights advocates had gathered to speak out against the administration's policy of detaining immigrants when they appear in court for legal proceedings as they are required to, and to advise people that they have a right to remain silent if they're detained.
Courtrooms have typically been treated as sensitive places where immigration agents can't detain people, but Trump has changed that with his mass deportation operation.
A 20-year-old New York City public school student was detained by federal agents at an immigration court last week.
Robert Gottheim, Nadler's chief of staff, toldThe New York Times that the confrontation between DHS and the aide happened after a member of the congressman's staff invited the immigrant rights advocates into Nadler's office, hoping to deescalate tensions after federal agents accused the advocates of loitering and threatened to arrest them.
Gottheim said the agents were also angry because Nadler's staff had witnessed them arresting migrants who were leaving the courtroom.
DHS released a statement Saturday claiming that agents had been told protesters were in Nadler's office and that they were concerned for the congressional staffers.
"One individual became verbally confrontational and physically blocked access to the office," said the statement.
A video obtained by Gothamist showed an agent handcuffing a crying aide while another official told one of Nadler's staff members that the agents didn't have or need a warrant for the arrest.
"The Trump administration is trying to intimidate members of Congress," Nadler told the Times on Saturday. "They're behaving like fascists... We have to fight them. We don't want to be a fascist country."
Journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteosaid Jeffries' response to the incident in Nadler's office made clear he is not "the right person to be leading the Dems in the House in this historic, fascistic moment."
Bash's questioning on Sunday also pertained to the Trump administration's decision to charge Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) with two counts of assault—charges that carry a potential punishment of 16 years in prison—for a clash with immigration officers outside a detention center in Newark.
A joint statement released on May 19 by Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Vice Caucus Chair Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), and Assistant Democratic Leader Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) vehemently condemned the charges against McIver, but the content was similar to Jeffries' comments on CNN.
"Everyone responsible for this illegitimate abuse of power is going to be held accountable for their actions," said the statement in part. "House Democrats will respond vigorously in the days to come at a time, place, and manner of our choosing."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Deeply Disturbing': No Nonprofit Is Safe as Trump Targets Harvard's Tax-Exempt Status
"Today the organization being threatened by the government is Harvard, tomorrow it could be a community organization feeding the hungry or helping children with disabilities."
Apr 17, 2025
President Donald Trump's administration is reportedly considering plans to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status, a major escalation against the Ivy League institution that critics said marks just the start of a broader assault on nonprofits that refuse to bow to the White House's demands.
CNN was first to report Wednesday that the Internal Revenue Service—where Trump has installed an ally as interim commissioner—is weighing whether to yank Harvard's tax exemption, news that came a day after the president suggested on his social media platform that "perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?'"
Earlier this week, the Trump administration froze over $2 billion in federal funding for Harvard after the university's president said the institution would not comply with the president's policy demands. Specifically, as The Harvard Crimsonreported, Trump called on Harvard to "derecognize pro-Palestine student groups, audit its academic programs for viewpoint diversity, and expel students involved in an altercation at a 2023 pro-Palestine protest on the Harvard Business School campus."
Alan Garber, Harvard's president, said in response that "no government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, warned in a statement Thursday that "if Trump gets away with weaponizing the tax system to target a political enemy, every American is at risk."
"The First Amendment and federal tax law make clear no president can raise a university's taxes because he doesn't like what they teach," said Wyden. "If this corrupt shakedown scheme stands, nonprofits from churches to temples to hospitals could be forced to echo Trump's MAGA line or see their taxes hiked. Any Republican who claims to believe in the Constitution and doesn't speak up is responsible for what happens next."
"We know this assault won't end with Harvard, so I will be fighting back—and I encourage every single American to stand up against it and make their voices heard."
Trump's attack on Harvard is part of a broader campaign of retribution against universities and other institutions and organizations that are unwilling to capitulate to his administration.
The Guardianreported last week that administration officials "have launched investigations into progressive and climate organizations, colleges, and recipients of government grants."
The Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit that fights mass incarceration, said Wednesday that the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency informed the group of "its plan to assign a DOGE team" to Vera "as part of its larger plan to assign DOGE teams to 'every institute or agency that has congressional monies appropriated to it.'"
"We are sharing this information broadly with other nonprofits that receive federal funding—so they can be aware of DOGE's plan to assign teams to investigate their operations," said Vera president Nick Turner. "We also are exposing this latest intimidation tactic targeting private, independent mission-driven organizations and undermining civil society."
Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship—a coalition formed late last year amid a Republican-led assault on nonprofits—said that the administration's decision to target Harvard's tax-exempt status makes clear that "they want to start shutting down organizations that present any sort of opposition to their goals or ideology."
"Today the organization being threatened by the government is Harvard, tomorrow it could be a community organization feeding the hungry or helping children with disabilities," said Leiter. "If the Trump administration decides it wants to target schools, groups, churches, or welfare organizations because they don't fall in line with their political agenda, it will open the door for any future administration to use this same unchecked power against more American citizens."
"This is a dangerous practice," Leiter added, "and it is one that should end before it ever begins."
An IRS decision on Harvard's tax status is expected imminently, according to CNN and The New York Times, which both cited unnamed people familiar with the matter.
The Times noted that "federal law bars the president from either directly or indirectly requesting the IRS to investigate or audit specific targets."
"The IRS does at times revoke tax exemptions from organizations for conducting too many political or commercial activities, but those groups can appeal the agency's decision in court," the newspaper continued. "Any attempt to take away Harvard's tax exemption would be likely to face a legal challenge, which tax experts expect would be successful."
Harvard said in a statement that the "unprecedented action" of revoking the university's tax-exempt status "would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission."
"It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation," the university said. "The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America."
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who led the charge last year against Republican legislation that would have granted the Trump administration sweeping power to strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status, said Wednesday that the threat to nonprofits "is re-emerging as Trump targets Harvard for standing for academic freedom against his war on higher education and intellectual inquiry."
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) called the Trump administration's latest attack on Harvard "bullshit" and echoed others' warnings about the broader threat to nonprofits.
"This deeply disturbing and blatantly unlawful action is Trump's latest foray in his war to politicize higher education and degrade any institution that refuses to bend the knee," Nadler wrote on social media. "We know this assault won't end with Harvard, so I will be fighting back—and I encourage every single American to stand up against it and make their voices heard."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Big Loss for the Public': Trump to End Free IRS Tax Filing Program
"Donald Trump and Elon Musk are going after Direct File because it stops giant tax prep companies from ripping taxpayers off for services that should be free."
Apr 16, 2025
On the heels of Tax Day in the United States, The Associated Pressreported Wednesday that the Trump administration plans to end Direct File, a free electronic program for filing tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the decision.
The news drew swift outrage, including from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who took aim at President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk on the billionaire's social media platform X.
"Donald Trump and Elon Musk are going after Direct File because it stops giant tax prep companies from ripping taxpayers off for services that should be free," said Warren. "Americans want a free and easy way to file their taxes—Trump and Musk want to take that away."
According to the AP:
The program had been in limbo since the start of the Trump administration as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have slashed their way through the federal government. Musk posted in February on his social media site, X, that he had "deleted" 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as Direct File.
There was some hope that Musk, with his DOGE team of computer programmers, could take over Direct File and improve it. But the two people familiar with the decision to end Direct File said its future became clear when the IRS staff assigned to the program were told in mid-March to stop working on its development for the 2026 tax filing season.
Concerns about the future of the program—rolled out under the Biden administration—predated Musk's post. Dozens of congressional Republicans urged Trump to scrap the program in December, and the following month, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen revealed that throughout those 29 lawmakers' careers, they had taken more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from "Big Tax Prep and their proxies."
Public Citizen was among the organizations that responded to the reporting on Wednesday by blasting the Trump administration for "taking money out of the pockets of working people and giving it away to their Big Business and tech bro buddies."
Yale Law School professor Natasha Sarin—who was previously an official at the U.S. Treasury Department—wrote on social media that "this is terrible, terrible, terrible news for the American people and the tax system. The only winners are high-cost tax preparers."
"President Trump has said tax filing should be so simple that you could file on a postcard!" she noted. "The IRS had built something even better... It's devastating to watch so much good work undone."
While many Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed to kill Direct File, multiple Democrats from the chamber joined the chorus of condemnation in response to Wednesday's reporting.
"IRS Direct File gave people a simple and FREE way to file their taxes. Trump wants to get rid of it and allow tax preparation corporations to continue to rip taxpayers off with predatory fees," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). "So much for cutting costs for the American people."
Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) similarly said that "Trump's plan to kill Direct File is a gift to billion-dollar tax prep companies at the expense of American families. Once again, he's siding with profits over people."
Direct File, a prime example of making government more efficient, gave Americans an easy and free option to file their taxes. But Donald Trump cares more about his wealthy friends than working Americans so he wants to kill the program and make filing taxes harder. apnews.com/article/irs-...
[image or embed]
— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) April 16, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Rohit Chopra, whose previous roles in government include directing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under former President Joe Biden, called out one company in particular, declaring the development "a big win for Intuit's profits on TurboTax, but a big loss for the public."
While Trump and Musk have framed their government-gutting work as an effort to make the federal bureaucracy more "efficient," their plans to destroy the program seem to accomplish the opposite. Before the news broke, Groundwork Collaborative senior fellow Kitty Richards said in a Tuesday statement that "Direct File is a crystal clear example of government efficiency at work."
"Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay exorbitant fees to predatory for-profit companies just to file their taxes," Richard asserteds. "As cost-of-living remains top of mind for so many Americans, the government should invest in and expand tools like Direct File that put money back into the pockets of working families."
"Unfortunately, the president is waging a war against the IRS—and hamstringing vital taxpayer services like Direct File in the process—so his wealthy donors can cheat on their taxes," she added. "The only people who benefit from a weakened IRS are billionaires like Donald Trump and Elon Musk."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular