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Migrants from Afghanistan look through a window July 23 after boarding a train to Serbia with their parents at the railway station in the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija. (Photo: Boris Grdanoski / AP)
The 2013 death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, confirmed this week, should have marked the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But the fates of the two main leaders identified as responsible for the 9/11 attacks--Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar--are only milestones. Thanks to the destructive nature of the U.S. war, many newer and more formidable enemies have emerged.
The 2013 death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, confirmed this week, should have marked the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But the fates of the two main leaders identified as responsible for the 9/11 attacks--Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar--are only milestones. Thanks to the destructive nature of the U.S. war, many newer and more formidable enemies have emerged.
America's first post-9/11 war, launched in Afghanistan in October 2001, is a grand symbol of our foreign policy failure. Fourteen years ago, Afghans were caught between two brutal and fundamentalist factions: the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Today they are caught between four: the Taliban, government warlords who morphed from the Northern Alliance, U.S. forces and Islamic State.
But just a few months ago, Afghanistan's first transition of power within an ostensibly democratic system took place, offering the promise of a better future under the U.S.-educated President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. was to withdraw its forces and NATO nations had already begun doing so. Government-sponsored peace talks with the Taliban were meant to herald a stable future for the war-weary nation. But that future never came and what appeared as progress was only a facade.
A motorcycle carrying a suicide bomber tore through a crowded marketplace in the northwestern province of Faryab on July 22, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens. The attack bore the hallmarks of a Taliban operation and is part of a violent trend. It comes just weeks after a brazen Taliban attack in the capital, Kabul, aimed at the government's intelligence agency, in which one person was killed and several injured. Overall, Taliban violence has risen sharply this year.
But the group is supposedly engaging the government in peace talks that began in July (which Mullah Omar was reported to have lauded earlier this month, despite having died two years ago). A second round of negotiations, sponsored by neighboring Pakistan, is about to launch. Details of the discussions have been kept secret, although there are reports that Taliban leaders want travel restrictions on them lifted and the establishment of an official headquarters in a Gulf state. Throwing a bone to feminists, there is apparently a single female delegate who is expected to take her place at a table dominated by misogynist fundamentalists.
The Afghan government, whose forces are under enormous pressure, plans to ask the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire during the negotiations. President Ghani boasted in an interview in March that "Not a single province has fallen; not a single battalion has deserted; not a single army corps has refused to fight. They secured the election; they have borne the casualties, and they've moved from defensive to offensive." But soldiers of the Afghan National Army and local police forces have suffered tremendous casualties. So far this year, more than 4,000 Afghan troops have been killed, mostly by the Taliban. Some are so desperate to save their lives that they are reportedly maiming themselves to obtain a discharge. At an Afghan army base in Badakhshan province, 100 police officers surrendered to Taliban forces. But it's not just the Taliban--soldiers and police officers are also being killed by U.S. forces. A July 20 strike by U.S. helicopters in the eastern province of Logar killed eight Afghan soldiers.
Citing the losing battle that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is fighting, Ghani is turning to old warlords for help. The New York Times rightly called the plan a "strategy fraught with risk." The very same warlords--who were armed and trained by the U.S., who plunged the country into a bloody civil war in the early 1990s, and who were never held accountable for their crimes--were able to whitewash themselves with government positions. Now, they are expected to unleash their informal power again. They are perhaps best represented by Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is leading the recapture of Faryab province from Taliban forces with the backing of local militias. Dostum has been implicated in numerous atrocities and mass killings. It appears that a repeat of the same internal war the U.S. stepped into in 2001 is starting to play out, as criminal elements fight one another.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has dramatically upped the pace of its airstrikes, with no prospect of drawing down the war. Airstrikes were reportedly twice as numerous in June as in previous months. It was one such airstrike that killed the eight Afghan soldiers previously mentioned. Another strike killed a top Al Qaeda leader, Abu Khalil al-Sudani, in Paktika province. In response, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter boasted that the U.S. "continue[s] to counter violent extremism in the region and around the world."
The U.S. also took credit in early July for killing Hafiz Saeed in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Saeed was considered a senior Taliban leader before defecting to the Islamic State. Three other Islamic State leaders were also apparently killed by U.S. drone strikes. With little formal acknowledgement, the U.S. has seemingly acquired a new enemy in Afghanistan--just as it was meant to be withdrawing.
The emergence of Islamic State has opened a terrifying new chapter in Afghanistan. The group burst onto the scene last September when its members fought alongside the Taliban in Ghazni, killing 100 people and engaging in its signature beheadings. But despite sharing a Sunni Muslim identity with the Taliban, Islamic State is now unwelcome in Afghanistan. In an open letter in June, the Taliban warned Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that his "meddling" would "cause ... bloodshed."
Clearly, the Obama administration miscalculated the effect of its policies in Afghanistan. Somehow, U.S. strategists imagined that after spending more than a decade provoking violence and backing undemocratic figures in Afghanistan (for which the Bush administration is equally responsible), the U.S. could simply walk away, leaving some sort of tolerable peace and stability. In March, President Obama announced a delay in the U.S. troop withdrawal, saying that 9,800 soldiers would remain in the country through the end of this year. Today the situation has devolved into such chaos that the U.S, departure will foment just as much violence as its continued presence.
In the 14 years it has occupied Afghanistan, America's longest war has achieved mostly bloodshed. Despite spending billions of dollars--the U.S. offered its largest share of foreign aid to Afghans last year--there is little to show for it. Nearly $10 billion was spent on arming and training Afghan forces. But as the dismal state of the Afghan National Army shows, that money may as well have been poured down the drain. Investigative journalists with ProPublica found that the U.S. has spent tens of millions of dollars building sophisticated warehouses that no one has used: "[A] familiar pattern emerged with the military's construction projects: They were routinely over budget, past deadline and often never used." In fact, "[It's unclear whether the Afghans want or have the money to make use of" a newly built $14.7 million warehouse complex in Kandahar.
Ordinary Afghans, whose well-being has always been left out of the calculus of war, continue to suffer as they have for decades. Announcing the troop withdrawal delay, Obama said, "America's combat mission in Afghanistan may be over but our commitment to the Afghan people, that will endure." But all that has endured has been Afghan misery. The site of the renowned, ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan that captured the world's attention (and disgust) in 2001 when the Taliban destroyed them, now host an impoverished population of homeless Hazara Afghans. Those who have the means are fleeing poverty and violence, forming a large portion of the migrants who wind up on boats in the Mediterranean seeking refuge in Europe. Afghan women, who were promised relief from the Taliban's strict edicts, now live in fear of falling victim to mob violence of the kind that killed a Kabul woman named Farkhunda or being imprisoned for so-called moral crimes.
Time and again we have failed in Afghanistan. By continuing to repeat the policies that created the failures in the first place, the U.S. has little chance of leaving Afghanistan in better condition than when the war began.
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The 2013 death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, confirmed this week, should have marked the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But the fates of the two main leaders identified as responsible for the 9/11 attacks--Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar--are only milestones. Thanks to the destructive nature of the U.S. war, many newer and more formidable enemies have emerged.
America's first post-9/11 war, launched in Afghanistan in October 2001, is a grand symbol of our foreign policy failure. Fourteen years ago, Afghans were caught between two brutal and fundamentalist factions: the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Today they are caught between four: the Taliban, government warlords who morphed from the Northern Alliance, U.S. forces and Islamic State.
But just a few months ago, Afghanistan's first transition of power within an ostensibly democratic system took place, offering the promise of a better future under the U.S.-educated President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. was to withdraw its forces and NATO nations had already begun doing so. Government-sponsored peace talks with the Taliban were meant to herald a stable future for the war-weary nation. But that future never came and what appeared as progress was only a facade.
A motorcycle carrying a suicide bomber tore through a crowded marketplace in the northwestern province of Faryab on July 22, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens. The attack bore the hallmarks of a Taliban operation and is part of a violent trend. It comes just weeks after a brazen Taliban attack in the capital, Kabul, aimed at the government's intelligence agency, in which one person was killed and several injured. Overall, Taliban violence has risen sharply this year.
But the group is supposedly engaging the government in peace talks that began in July (which Mullah Omar was reported to have lauded earlier this month, despite having died two years ago). A second round of negotiations, sponsored by neighboring Pakistan, is about to launch. Details of the discussions have been kept secret, although there are reports that Taliban leaders want travel restrictions on them lifted and the establishment of an official headquarters in a Gulf state. Throwing a bone to feminists, there is apparently a single female delegate who is expected to take her place at a table dominated by misogynist fundamentalists.
The Afghan government, whose forces are under enormous pressure, plans to ask the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire during the negotiations. President Ghani boasted in an interview in March that "Not a single province has fallen; not a single battalion has deserted; not a single army corps has refused to fight. They secured the election; they have borne the casualties, and they've moved from defensive to offensive." But soldiers of the Afghan National Army and local police forces have suffered tremendous casualties. So far this year, more than 4,000 Afghan troops have been killed, mostly by the Taliban. Some are so desperate to save their lives that they are reportedly maiming themselves to obtain a discharge. At an Afghan army base in Badakhshan province, 100 police officers surrendered to Taliban forces. But it's not just the Taliban--soldiers and police officers are also being killed by U.S. forces. A July 20 strike by U.S. helicopters in the eastern province of Logar killed eight Afghan soldiers.
Citing the losing battle that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is fighting, Ghani is turning to old warlords for help. The New York Times rightly called the plan a "strategy fraught with risk." The very same warlords--who were armed and trained by the U.S., who plunged the country into a bloody civil war in the early 1990s, and who were never held accountable for their crimes--were able to whitewash themselves with government positions. Now, they are expected to unleash their informal power again. They are perhaps best represented by Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is leading the recapture of Faryab province from Taliban forces with the backing of local militias. Dostum has been implicated in numerous atrocities and mass killings. It appears that a repeat of the same internal war the U.S. stepped into in 2001 is starting to play out, as criminal elements fight one another.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has dramatically upped the pace of its airstrikes, with no prospect of drawing down the war. Airstrikes were reportedly twice as numerous in June as in previous months. It was one such airstrike that killed the eight Afghan soldiers previously mentioned. Another strike killed a top Al Qaeda leader, Abu Khalil al-Sudani, in Paktika province. In response, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter boasted that the U.S. "continue[s] to counter violent extremism in the region and around the world."
The U.S. also took credit in early July for killing Hafiz Saeed in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Saeed was considered a senior Taliban leader before defecting to the Islamic State. Three other Islamic State leaders were also apparently killed by U.S. drone strikes. With little formal acknowledgement, the U.S. has seemingly acquired a new enemy in Afghanistan--just as it was meant to be withdrawing.
The emergence of Islamic State has opened a terrifying new chapter in Afghanistan. The group burst onto the scene last September when its members fought alongside the Taliban in Ghazni, killing 100 people and engaging in its signature beheadings. But despite sharing a Sunni Muslim identity with the Taliban, Islamic State is now unwelcome in Afghanistan. In an open letter in June, the Taliban warned Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that his "meddling" would "cause ... bloodshed."
Clearly, the Obama administration miscalculated the effect of its policies in Afghanistan. Somehow, U.S. strategists imagined that after spending more than a decade provoking violence and backing undemocratic figures in Afghanistan (for which the Bush administration is equally responsible), the U.S. could simply walk away, leaving some sort of tolerable peace and stability. In March, President Obama announced a delay in the U.S. troop withdrawal, saying that 9,800 soldiers would remain in the country through the end of this year. Today the situation has devolved into such chaos that the U.S, departure will foment just as much violence as its continued presence.
In the 14 years it has occupied Afghanistan, America's longest war has achieved mostly bloodshed. Despite spending billions of dollars--the U.S. offered its largest share of foreign aid to Afghans last year--there is little to show for it. Nearly $10 billion was spent on arming and training Afghan forces. But as the dismal state of the Afghan National Army shows, that money may as well have been poured down the drain. Investigative journalists with ProPublica found that the U.S. has spent tens of millions of dollars building sophisticated warehouses that no one has used: "[A] familiar pattern emerged with the military's construction projects: They were routinely over budget, past deadline and often never used." In fact, "[It's unclear whether the Afghans want or have the money to make use of" a newly built $14.7 million warehouse complex in Kandahar.
Ordinary Afghans, whose well-being has always been left out of the calculus of war, continue to suffer as they have for decades. Announcing the troop withdrawal delay, Obama said, "America's combat mission in Afghanistan may be over but our commitment to the Afghan people, that will endure." But all that has endured has been Afghan misery. The site of the renowned, ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan that captured the world's attention (and disgust) in 2001 when the Taliban destroyed them, now host an impoverished population of homeless Hazara Afghans. Those who have the means are fleeing poverty and violence, forming a large portion of the migrants who wind up on boats in the Mediterranean seeking refuge in Europe. Afghan women, who were promised relief from the Taliban's strict edicts, now live in fear of falling victim to mob violence of the kind that killed a Kabul woman named Farkhunda or being imprisoned for so-called moral crimes.
Time and again we have failed in Afghanistan. By continuing to repeat the policies that created the failures in the first place, the U.S. has little chance of leaving Afghanistan in better condition than when the war began.
The 2013 death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, confirmed this week, should have marked the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But the fates of the two main leaders identified as responsible for the 9/11 attacks--Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar--are only milestones. Thanks to the destructive nature of the U.S. war, many newer and more formidable enemies have emerged.
America's first post-9/11 war, launched in Afghanistan in October 2001, is a grand symbol of our foreign policy failure. Fourteen years ago, Afghans were caught between two brutal and fundamentalist factions: the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Today they are caught between four: the Taliban, government warlords who morphed from the Northern Alliance, U.S. forces and Islamic State.
But just a few months ago, Afghanistan's first transition of power within an ostensibly democratic system took place, offering the promise of a better future under the U.S.-educated President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. was to withdraw its forces and NATO nations had already begun doing so. Government-sponsored peace talks with the Taliban were meant to herald a stable future for the war-weary nation. But that future never came and what appeared as progress was only a facade.
A motorcycle carrying a suicide bomber tore through a crowded marketplace in the northwestern province of Faryab on July 22, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens. The attack bore the hallmarks of a Taliban operation and is part of a violent trend. It comes just weeks after a brazen Taliban attack in the capital, Kabul, aimed at the government's intelligence agency, in which one person was killed and several injured. Overall, Taliban violence has risen sharply this year.
But the group is supposedly engaging the government in peace talks that began in July (which Mullah Omar was reported to have lauded earlier this month, despite having died two years ago). A second round of negotiations, sponsored by neighboring Pakistan, is about to launch. Details of the discussions have been kept secret, although there are reports that Taliban leaders want travel restrictions on them lifted and the establishment of an official headquarters in a Gulf state. Throwing a bone to feminists, there is apparently a single female delegate who is expected to take her place at a table dominated by misogynist fundamentalists.
The Afghan government, whose forces are under enormous pressure, plans to ask the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire during the negotiations. President Ghani boasted in an interview in March that "Not a single province has fallen; not a single battalion has deserted; not a single army corps has refused to fight. They secured the election; they have borne the casualties, and they've moved from defensive to offensive." But soldiers of the Afghan National Army and local police forces have suffered tremendous casualties. So far this year, more than 4,000 Afghan troops have been killed, mostly by the Taliban. Some are so desperate to save their lives that they are reportedly maiming themselves to obtain a discharge. At an Afghan army base in Badakhshan province, 100 police officers surrendered to Taliban forces. But it's not just the Taliban--soldiers and police officers are also being killed by U.S. forces. A July 20 strike by U.S. helicopters in the eastern province of Logar killed eight Afghan soldiers.
Citing the losing battle that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is fighting, Ghani is turning to old warlords for help. The New York Times rightly called the plan a "strategy fraught with risk." The very same warlords--who were armed and trained by the U.S., who plunged the country into a bloody civil war in the early 1990s, and who were never held accountable for their crimes--were able to whitewash themselves with government positions. Now, they are expected to unleash their informal power again. They are perhaps best represented by Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is leading the recapture of Faryab province from Taliban forces with the backing of local militias. Dostum has been implicated in numerous atrocities and mass killings. It appears that a repeat of the same internal war the U.S. stepped into in 2001 is starting to play out, as criminal elements fight one another.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has dramatically upped the pace of its airstrikes, with no prospect of drawing down the war. Airstrikes were reportedly twice as numerous in June as in previous months. It was one such airstrike that killed the eight Afghan soldiers previously mentioned. Another strike killed a top Al Qaeda leader, Abu Khalil al-Sudani, in Paktika province. In response, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter boasted that the U.S. "continue[s] to counter violent extremism in the region and around the world."
The U.S. also took credit in early July for killing Hafiz Saeed in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Saeed was considered a senior Taliban leader before defecting to the Islamic State. Three other Islamic State leaders were also apparently killed by U.S. drone strikes. With little formal acknowledgement, the U.S. has seemingly acquired a new enemy in Afghanistan--just as it was meant to be withdrawing.
The emergence of Islamic State has opened a terrifying new chapter in Afghanistan. The group burst onto the scene last September when its members fought alongside the Taliban in Ghazni, killing 100 people and engaging in its signature beheadings. But despite sharing a Sunni Muslim identity with the Taliban, Islamic State is now unwelcome in Afghanistan. In an open letter in June, the Taliban warned Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that his "meddling" would "cause ... bloodshed."
Clearly, the Obama administration miscalculated the effect of its policies in Afghanistan. Somehow, U.S. strategists imagined that after spending more than a decade provoking violence and backing undemocratic figures in Afghanistan (for which the Bush administration is equally responsible), the U.S. could simply walk away, leaving some sort of tolerable peace and stability. In March, President Obama announced a delay in the U.S. troop withdrawal, saying that 9,800 soldiers would remain in the country through the end of this year. Today the situation has devolved into such chaos that the U.S, departure will foment just as much violence as its continued presence.
In the 14 years it has occupied Afghanistan, America's longest war has achieved mostly bloodshed. Despite spending billions of dollars--the U.S. offered its largest share of foreign aid to Afghans last year--there is little to show for it. Nearly $10 billion was spent on arming and training Afghan forces. But as the dismal state of the Afghan National Army shows, that money may as well have been poured down the drain. Investigative journalists with ProPublica found that the U.S. has spent tens of millions of dollars building sophisticated warehouses that no one has used: "[A] familiar pattern emerged with the military's construction projects: They were routinely over budget, past deadline and often never used." In fact, "[It's unclear whether the Afghans want or have the money to make use of" a newly built $14.7 million warehouse complex in Kandahar.
Ordinary Afghans, whose well-being has always been left out of the calculus of war, continue to suffer as they have for decades. Announcing the troop withdrawal delay, Obama said, "America's combat mission in Afghanistan may be over but our commitment to the Afghan people, that will endure." But all that has endured has been Afghan misery. The site of the renowned, ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan that captured the world's attention (and disgust) in 2001 when the Taliban destroyed them, now host an impoverished population of homeless Hazara Afghans. Those who have the means are fleeing poverty and violence, forming a large portion of the migrants who wind up on boats in the Mediterranean seeking refuge in Europe. Afghan women, who were promised relief from the Taliban's strict edicts, now live in fear of falling victim to mob violence of the kind that killed a Kabul woman named Farkhunda or being imprisoned for so-called moral crimes.
Time and again we have failed in Afghanistan. By continuing to repeat the policies that created the failures in the first place, the U.S. has little chance of leaving Afghanistan in better condition than when the war began.
"If the Constitution doesn't apply to somebody who's lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder... the Constitution doesn't apply to anybody who's been in this country for less time than him," said an attorney representing the scientist.
A permanent U.S. resident has been held in detention for the last week without apparent explanation and without access to legal representation, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
According to the Post, 40-year-old Tae Heung "Will" Kim was detained by immigration officials at the San Francisco International Airport on July 21 after returning from attending his brother's wedding in Korea. In the week since his detention, he has still not been released despite being a green-card holder who has lived in the United States since the age of five.
Eric Lee, an attorney representing Kim, said he has been unable to contact his client and that Kim's only past brush with the law came back in 2011 when he was ordered to perform community service over a minor marijuana possession charge in Texas.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seemed to suggest in a statement to the Post that this past instance of marijuana possession was enough justification to detain and deport Kim.
"If a green-card holder is convicted of a drug offense, violating their status, that person is issued a Notice to Appear and CBP coordinates detention space with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations]," they said. "This alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings."
Lee told the Post that he reached out to CBP to ask whether his client had protections under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution that guarantee rights such as the right to an attorney. In response, the CBP official simply told Lee, "No."
"If the Constitution doesn't apply to somebody who's lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder—and only left the country for a two-week vacation—that means [the government] is basically arguing that the Constitution doesn't apply to anybody who's been in this country for less time than him," Lee said.
Lee added that it would be particularly uncommon for immigration officials to deport his client based solely on a 2011 marijuana possession charge given that Kim had successfully petitioned to seal the offense from his public record after fulfilling his community service requirements. Because of this, Lee said that Kim's case should easily clear the waiver process that allows officials to overlook past minor offenses that could otherwise be used to justify stripping people of their permanent legal resident status.
Prior to his detention, Kim was pursuing a PhD at Texas A&M University, where he was doing research to help develop a vaccine against Lyme disease.
Immigration enforcement officials under the second Trump administration have been particularly aggressive in trying to deport students who are legally in the United States.
Turkish-born Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained for months earlier this year after she was apparently targeted for writing an editorial in her student newspaper critical of the school's refusal to divest from Israel. Russian-born Harvard University scientist Kseniia Petrova, meanwhile, is currently facing deportation after she was charged with allegedly smuggling frog embryos into the United States.
Judge James Boasberg reportedly raised concerns that the Trump administration "would disregard rulings of federal courts," something the White House has done repeatedly.
The Trump Justice Department on Monday filed a misconduct complaint against a federal judge for warning in early March that the president could spark a "constitutional crisis" by defying court orders—a concern that was swiftly validated.
The complaint against James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who alleged on social media that Boasberg made "improper public comments" about President Donald Trump and his administration.
During a March gathering of the Judicial Conference—the federal judiciary's policymaking body—Boasberg reportedly raised colleagues' fears that "the administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis."
John Roberts, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, "expressed hope that would not happen and in turn no constitutional crisis would materialize," according to a memo obtained by The Federalist, a right-wing publication.
Days after the Judicial Conference gathering, the Trump administration ignored Boasberg's order to turn around deportation flights, prompting an ACLU attorney to warn, "I think we're getting very close" to a constitutional crisis.
Boasberg, an Obama appointee, later said there was probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court, concluding that the evidence demonstrated "a willful disregard" for the judge's order.
Boasberg's rulings against the Trump administration in the high-profile deportation case stemming from the president's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act have made the judge a target of the White House and its allies. Trump and some congressional Republicans have demanded that Boasberg be impeached.
Politico reported Monday that the Justice Department's complaint against Boasberg was signed by Chad Mizelle, Bondi's chief of staff.
"Mizelle argued that Boasberg's views expressed at the conference violated the 'presumption of regularity' that courts typically afford to the executive branch," Politico noted. "And the Bondi aide said that the administration has followed all court orders, though several lower courts have found that the administration defied their commands."
A Washington Post analysis published last week estimated that Trump officials have been accused of violating court orders in "a third of the more than 160 lawsuits against the administration."
"The antitrust division has long worked to enforce the law to fight monopoly power, but these attorneys may have been fired for doing just that," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The Trump Justice Department has removed two of its top antitrust officials amid infighting over the handling of merger enforcement, conflict that came to a head with the DOJ's strange and allegedly corrupt settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.
CBS News reported that Roger Alford, principal deputy assistant attorney general, and Bill Rinner, deputy assistant attorney general and head of merger enforcement, were fired for "insubordination" on Monday after being placed on administrative leave last week.
"There has been tension over the handling of investigations into T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and others," the outlet reported, citing unnamed sources.
The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported that the two officials—both deputies of Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, the head of the DOJ's antitrust division—were terminated "after internal disagreements over how much discretion their division should have to police mergers and other business conduct that threatens competition."
News of Alford and Rinner's firings came amid growing scrutiny of the Justice Department's merger settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, an agreement that reportedly divided the DOJ internally.
The Capitol Forum reported last week that Justice Department leaders including Chad Mizelle, Attorney General Pam Bondi's chief of staff, "overruled" top antitrust officials who raised concerns about the settlement, Slater among them. HPE hired lobbyists with ties to the Trump White House to push for the deal, which allowed the merger to move forward pending a judge's review of the settlement.
MLex reported over the weekend that Mizelle placed Alford and Ginner on leave last week following "disagreements with higher-ups over a recent merger settlement in HPE-Juniper."
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who serves on the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, called the firings "deeply concerning" and demanded answers from the Trump administration.
"The antitrust division has long worked to enforce the law to fight monopoly power, but these attorneys may have been fired for doing just that," Klobuchar wrote on social media.
Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote in response to the firings that "more and more people [are] taking notice that Trump is using his power to coddle the oligarchs."
"Major cases being settled, rather than fought out in trials," he wrote. "Nothing new being filed to fight major monopolies. Things like non-compete bans and click-to-cancel rules being overturned."
The American Prospect's David Dayen described the internal turmoil at the Trump DOJ as an apparent "effort to hijack antitrust powers on behalf of large corporations."
"This mess is about more than just a wireless back-office infrastructure merger," Dayen wrote, referring to the HPE-Juniper deal. "The antitrust division is actively overseeing cases against Google, Apple, Visa, Live Nation, RealPage, and more."
"If Slater is functionally not in control of the division, then cash and favor-trading will determine the outcomes for some of the biggest companies in the economy," Dayen added. "We're already seeing lenient enforcement at DOJ, with a deal between T-Mobile and UScellular approved. The precedent appears to be set: The right consultants paid the right amount of money can get you a sweetheart deal."