White Home claims picture of Epstein birthday notice ‘proves’ Trump didn’t draw or signal it
The White Home press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, insists {that a} {photograph} of a sexually suggestive 2003 birthday notice to Jeffrey Epstein, bearing Donald Trump’s identify and signature, launched by Home Democrats and revealed by the Wall Road Journal on Monday, is proof that the president has been framed.
“The most recent piece revealed by the Wall Road Journal PROVES this whole ‘Birthday Card’ story is fake”, Leavitt wrote on X. “As I’ve stated all alongside, it’s very clear President Trump didn’t draw this image, and he didn’t signal it.”
The president’s spokesperson added that his authorized group “will proceed to aggressively pursue litigation”, towards the Journal, which first reported the existence of the notice and drawing.
Leavitt additionally referred to the reporting that Trump contributed the signed drawing and notice to a birthday album for the late intercourse offender as an effort “to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!”
Leavitt’s deputy, Taylor Budowich, chimed in on X with what he offered as definitive visible proof that “it’s not his signature”, within the type of 4 photos of Trump’s signature on playing cards inserted in copies of a e-book concerning the try on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania final yr.
Nevertheless, it seems that all 4 of these signatures have been from 2024, greater than 20 years after the 2003 birthday notice, and it’s a documented reality that individuals’s handwriting and signatures generally change as they age.
Andrew Feinberg, a White Home correspondent for the Unbiased, posted two photos of Trump’s signature from the years earlier than 2003 on X, which seem nearer to the one on the notice to Epstein.
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Up to date at 17.21 EDT
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‘That is undoubtedly his signature’, Trump’s niece says of birthday letter to Epstein
Mary Trump, the president’s niece who’s a fierce critic of her uncle, has weighed in on the picture of the signed birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, the late intercourse offender, bearing Donald Trump’s identify.
“That’s undoubtedly his signature” the president’s estranged niece wrote on X. “Simply saying.”
One other former member of Trump’s internal circle who has turned critic, George Conway, shared a part of a Wall Road Journal visible evaluation, which in contrast the signature “Donald” on the sexually suggestive needs to Epstein on his fiftieth birthday in 2003 to that on two letters signed by Trump in the identical interval.
A type of letter was to thank Conway, in 2006. The opposite was Trump’s remarkably heat letter of congratulations, in 2000, to Hillary Clinton on her victory within the race to characterize New York within the senate that yr.
“The signature and font used within the 2003 Epstein letter resemble …
“… a thank-you letter Trump despatched in April 2006 to legal professional George Conway …
“… and a letter despatched in November 2000 to Hillary Clinton congratulating her on her election to the U.S. Senate.”… pic.twitter.com/zLYok5KLOy
— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway3d) September 8, 2025
The effusive letter to Clinton congratulated her on a “well-deserved victory” and had the phrases “nice going!” written by hand and underlined twice in black marker subsequent to the signature.
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Up to date at 18.46 EDT
Lauren Gambino
A number of audio system on the immigrants-rights information convention in Westlake quoted from Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent.
“I dissent. All of us dissent,” the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, stated.
Bass known as the ruling “enraging” and stated she had already directed town to strengthen protocols prohibiting sources from helping with federal immigration enforcement.
“We won’t and we won’t take part in these merciless, inhumane ways,” Bass stated.
She warned that undermining the private liberties of Angelenos would affect all Individuals.
“The rule of regulation used to imply one thing not simply to us, however to the Supreme Court docket, however now, with the stroke of a pen, the Supreme Court docket has undermined the rights of thousands and thousands,” she stated.
She added: “And the way ironic is it that this similar Supreme Court docket that dominated faculties can’t use race within the admissions course of has now dominated that regulation enforcement can use race to conduct raids and detain folks.”
One other speaker, representing the ACLU, additionally quoted an element Sotomayor’s dissent that acknowledged the state of affairs in stark phrases: “We must always not need to dwell in a rustic the place the Authorities can seize anybody who appears Latino, speaks Spanish, and seems to work a low wage job”.
ACLU press convention on Supreme Court docket resolution to remain TRO in LA, permitting immigration brokers to renew raids based mostly on race.
“We must always not need to dwell in a rustic the place the Authorities can seize anybody who appears Latino, speaks Spanish, and seems to work a low wage job” pic.twitter.com/bFTnAmCCSu
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) September 8, 2025
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Up to date at 17.52 EDT
Lauren Gambino
Outdoors a Dwelling Depot in a closely Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles, immigrant-rights advocates, joined by town’s mayor, Karen Bass, warned that the supreme court docket had “successfully legalized racial profiling”.
Automobiles honked in assist as they handed indicators that stated “Maintain Ice out of LA” and one which learn merely: “fuck Trump.”
“We’re infuriated as a result of the impacts will proceed to indicate in our neighborhood”, Flor Melendez, the chief director of CLEAN Automobile Wash Employee Heart and a plaintiff within the case. “We’ll proceed to really feel the strain, as a result of we couldn’t rely on our authorized system”.
She stated 81 automobile washes throughout the area have been raided since Trump’s crackdown started earlier this summer season, some a number of occasions. No less than 247 automobile wash employees have been detained, she added.
“The Supreme Court docket of the US determined to not see this evil that has been visited on our folks, to not hear the cries of all who’ve been victims and witnesses of those actions, and to not use the voice of the court docket to guard particular person rights beneath the Structure,” stated Angelica Salas, govt director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (Chirla), which was one of many organizational plaintiffs on this case.
“Do the conservative justices not have eyes to see the video proof, or are they not in a position to learn our a number of collected declarations that now we have offered”, Salas added. “Our proof demonstrated that these should not calm and consensual engagements with people who voluntarily supply details about their immigration standing”.
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Up to date at 17.41 EDT
White Home claims picture of Epstein birthday notice ‘proves’ Trump didn’t draw or signal it
The White Home press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, insists {that a} {photograph} of a sexually suggestive 2003 birthday notice to Jeffrey Epstein, bearing Donald Trump’s identify and signature, launched by Home Democrats and revealed by the Wall Road Journal on Monday, is proof that the president has been framed.
“The most recent piece revealed by the Wall Road Journal PROVES this whole ‘Birthday Card’ story is fake”, Leavitt wrote on X. “As I’ve stated all alongside, it’s very clear President Trump didn’t draw this image, and he didn’t signal it.”
The president’s spokesperson added that his authorized group “will proceed to aggressively pursue litigation”, towards the Journal, which first reported the existence of the notice and drawing.
Leavitt additionally referred to the reporting that Trump contributed the signed drawing and notice to a birthday album for the late intercourse offender as an effort “to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!”
Leavitt’s deputy, Taylor Budowich, chimed in on X with what he offered as definitive visible proof that “it’s not his signature”, within the type of 4 photos of Trump’s signature on playing cards inserted in copies of a e-book concerning the try on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania final yr.
Nevertheless, it seems that all 4 of these signatures have been from 2024, greater than 20 years after the 2003 birthday notice, and it’s a documented reality that individuals’s handwriting and signatures generally change as they age.
Andrew Feinberg, a White Home correspondent for the Unbiased, posted two photos of Trump’s signature from the years earlier than 2003 on X, which seem nearer to the one on the notice to Epstein.
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Up to date at 17.21 EDT
Newsom accuses supreme court docket of unleashing ‘racial terror in Los Angeles’
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has denounced the US supreme court docket ruling that allows federal immigration brokers to demand proof of citizenship from anybody who seems to be of Latin American origin or is talking a international language in Los Angeles, a metropolis with a inhabitants that’s 35% foreign-born and the place 56% converse a language aside from English at residence, in a county that’s practically 50% Latino.
Newsom stated, of the 6-3 ruling by the Republican-nominated majority:
Trump’s hand-picked supreme court docket majority simply turned the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles. This isn’t about implementing immigration legal guidelines – it’s about focusing on Latinos and anybody who doesn’t look or sound like Stephen Miller’s concept of an American, together with US residents and youngsters, to intentionally hurt California’s households and small companies. Trump’s non-public police pressure now has a inexperienced mild to return after your loved ones – and each individual is now a goal – however we are going to proceed preventing these abhorrent assaults on Californians.
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Up to date at 17.12 EDT
Republican senators open investigation of ‘botched’ response to Palisades hearth
Two Republican senators introduced on Monday that they’re opening a congressional investigation of “the preparation for and response to” the lethal Palisades hearth in Los Angeles by state and native officers in California, who’re Democrats.
The senators, Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, stated in a press launch that the fireplace, which burned for twenty-four days in January and killed not less than 12 folks, “was greater than only a horrific tragedy, it was an unacceptable failure of presidency to guard the lives and property of its residents”.
In a separate information launch final week, Scott accused California Democrats of getting “botched” the response to the California wildfires.
Nevertheless, the senate investigation seems to focus solely on the fireplace within the prosperous Palisades, the place Scott was taken on a tour final month by a former actuality TV star turned rightwing podcaster, Spencer Pratt, and never on the Eaton hearth, which burned by Altadena, a much less well-off suburb to the east.
As quickly because the investigation was introduced, Pratt, a conservative Palisades resident, folded it right into a partisan assault on California Democrats in a social media video. “Why is it that solely Republicans are taken with discovering out why a California metropolis burned to the bottom?” Pratt requested.
The Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, introduced three weeks in the past that town had been requested by the justice division to attend till federal investigation is full to launch its “after motion report” on the Palisades hearth.
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Up to date at 16.30 EDT
I’ve been talking with Carl Tobias, a regulation professor on the College of Richmond, concerning the ruling from a federal appeals court docket immediately which upheld the defamation lawsuit by author E Jean Carroll, and orders that Donald Trump nonetheless pay an $83m judgment.
Tobias stated that the ruling is critical as a result of it affirms substantial “punitive damages” – which comprise round $65m of the full award to Carrol. These “ship a message” to the president, in keeping with Tobias, to keep away from additional defamation.
Whereas Tobias isn’t shocked by the ruling, characterizing Decide Lewis A Kaplan – who tried the case within the district court docket – as a “savvy, skilled jurist, who has resolved many excessive profile instances” – he totally expects the Trump administration to problem the choice and try and attraction to the supreme court docket.
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Up to date at 16.11 EDT
Per my final publish, Robert Garcia, a consultant who serves because the rating member on the Home oversight committee, stated that Donald Trump is mendacity concerning the existence of his birthday notice to Jeffrey Epstein.
In a video, posted to X, Garcia stated that the president is “main a White Home cover-up”. The lawmaker from California added that committee members plan to assessment the paperwork that they obtained from the Epstein property immediately.
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Up to date at 15.42 EDT
Home Democrats share Trump ‘birthday notice’ to Jeffrey Epstein
Democrats on the Home oversight committee have launched a scanned copy of a “birthday notice” that Donald Trump allegedly despatched to Jeffrey Epstein, that was finally compiled into an album of messages to rejoice Epstein’s fiftieth birthday in 2003.
The sexually suggestive notice to Epstein features a dialog between Trump and the late intercourse offender, with a unadorned feminine silhouette drawn round it. The president’s signature is on the backside of the notice.
“Glad birthday – and should day-after-day be one other great secret,” the notice reads.
🚨🚨HERE IT IS: We obtained Trump’s birthday notice to Jeffrey Epstein that the President stated doesn’t exist.
Trump talks a few “great secret” the 2 of them shared. What’s he hiding? Launch the recordsdata! pic.twitter.com/k2Mq8Hu3LY
— Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) September 8, 2025
The committee not too long ago subpoenaed the Epstein property for extra paperwork as a part of their investigation into the dealing with of the Epstein case. Trump has denied writing a letter for the birthday e-book, and even sued the Wall Road Journal for defamation once they first reported his contribution.
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Up to date at 15.51 EDT
Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin, of Illinois, known as the “Operation Halfway Blitz” in Chicago “a waste of cash” and “one other failed try at a distraction” in an announcement immediately.
Durbin, who additionally serves because the rating Member of the Senate judiciary committee, stated that the surge in immigration enforcement within the metropolis is a part of Donald Trump’s “marketing campaign to arrest hardworking immigrants with no legal convictions”.
He added:
To the hardworking immigrant households who at the moment are scared to ship your kids to highschool, go to the hospital, or report crimes to the police: we stand with you … Whereas the President displays disdain for immigrants, Chicago embraces them as household who assist make our economic system thrive and our metropolis sturdy.”
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This is a recap of the day up to now
There have been a flurry of rulings immediately, with two notably essential selections from the supreme court docket, in response to emergency requests from the Trump administration.
First, the court docket allowed federal brokers to proceed with raids in southern California focusing on folks for deportation based mostly on their race or language – a victory for the administration’s hardline immigration agenda. Legal professional common Pam Bondi praised the choice on social media, and stated that immigration enforcement officers can “proceed finishing up roving patrols in California with out judicial micromanagement”.
The supreme court docket additionally allowed Donald Trump to fireside a commissioner on the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) immediately. It’s the newest resolution in a spate of high-profile firings of Senate-confirmed officers in current months. Chief justice John Roberts issued the ruling, which blocks a decrease court docket’s ruling for the president to reinstate Rebecca Slaughter whereas the case performs out. A federal district court docket choose stated final week that the administration had violated a federal regulation which prevents FTC members from removing with out trigger. Slaughter was one in every of solely two Democratic appointees on the five-member board.
In the meantime, a federal appeals court docket in New York did uphold the defamation lawsuit filed by author E Jean Carroll, and the $83.3m award, after Trump denied her declare that he raped her. The panel of judges additionally rejected the administration’s argument that the president is protected by the supreme court docket’s immunity ruling final yr.
The administration additionally filed an emergency request to the supreme court docket on Monday to dam a decrease court docket’s ruling, which stopped the administration from withholding billions of {dollars} in congressionally appropriated international assist. An appeals court docket ordered the administration to spend the cash, upholding the federal choose’s ruling final week, which finally prompted the request to the supreme court docket.
Past DC, Trump has pledged extra federal pressure in Chicago. It comes after weeks of deriding town’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, and Illinois governor, JB Pritzker. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) posted on social media that an operation was beneath option to take away “harmful public security threats from American communities”.
Trump goaded Pritzker on Fact Social earlier, and stated that he needed to “straighten” Chicago out whereas delivering remarks on the Museum of the Bible in DC. He additionally used the looks to tout that DC was now a “protected zone”, for the reason that federal takeover of the DC police and elevated federal exercise, citing Muriel Bowser’s compliance with the administration.
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Up to date at 14.32 EDT
Legal professional common Pam Bondi known as the supreme court docket’s resolution to permit federal brokers to proceed with raids in southern California focusing on folks for deportation based mostly on their race or language a “large victory”.
She wrote on social media that immigration enforcement officers now can “proceed finishing up roving patrols in California with out judicial micromanagement”.
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US protection secretary Pete Hegseth and air pressure common Dan Caine, chair of the joint chiefs of workers, arrived in Puerto Rico immediately because the Trump administration steps up its navy operations towards drug cartels within the Caribbean.
The arrival comes greater than per week after ships carrying a whole lot of US marines deployed to Puerto Rico for a coaching train.
Puerto Rico’s governor, Jenniffer González, stated Hegseth and Caine visited the US territory to assist these taking part within the coaching.
“We thank President Trump and his administration for recognizing the strategic significance of Puerto Rico to U.S. nationwide safety and for his or her combat towards drug cartels and the narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro,” González stated in feedback reported by the Related Press.
Hegseth and Caine met with officers on the 156th Wing Muñiz Air nationwide guard base in Carolina, a metropolis simply east of the capital, San Juan.
González stated Hegseth spoke to almost 300 troopers on the base and thanked these he described as “American warriors” for his or her work.
The go to comes because the US prepares to deploy 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico for operations focusing on drug cartels, an individual conversant in the planning instructed AP on Saturday.
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Up to date at 13.57 EDT
Seemingly confirming earlier reviews of incoming federal exercise in Chicago, Ice has posted the next on X:
CHICAGO: a sanctuary metropolis that draws and protects legal unlawful aliens to the detriment of regulation abiding residents. In an ICE-led operation, we’re right here to take away these harmful public security threats from American communities.
It comes as Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened an immigration enforcement crackdown and nationwide guard deployment within the nation’s third largest metropolis.
CHICAGO: a sanctuary metropolis that draws and protects legal unlawful aliens to the detriment of regulation abiding residents.
In an ICE-led operation, we’re right here to take away these harmful public security threats from American communities. pic.twitter.com/Pgfq23XgdO
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) September 8, 2025Share
Up to date at 13.23 EDT
Evaluation: Will Republicans in Congress lastly stand as much as Trump?
David Smith
Democrat Chuck Schumer returned to the Senate flooring final week with some pressing questions. “Will Senate Republicans proceed to kowtow to a frontrunner they know is dragging the nation down?” he demanded. “That they know is a pathological liar? Or will they, because the Founding Fathers meant, stand as much as him? Will they assist us combat America’s slide into authoritarianism?”
It was a recognition of how Donald Trump has spent eight months in search of to broaden presidential energy on the expense of Congress and others. He has signed 200 govt orders – greater than Joe Biden in 4 years – unleashed squadrons of nationwide guard troops in Washington, turned investigators on his political foes and sought to carry tutorial, cultural, monetary and authorized establishments to heel.
The capitulation has moved sooner and additional than even lots of Trump’s critics anticipated and has left them on the lookout for democratic guardrails which may but constrain him. However as members of Congress returned to Washington this week, there have been solely glints of hope that they may heed Schumer and reassert their usurped authority.
Trump’s Republican occasion holds slender majorities in each the Home of Representatives and Senate and stays overwhelmingly loyal to him. In Could, throughout a debate on their signature tax and spending invoice, the Home speaker, Mike Johnson, known as him “arguably probably the most highly effective, probably the most profitable, and probably the most revered president within the fashionable period of the US”. Congress has in impact grow to be his rubber stamp.
But in current days small fractures appeared within the edifice. Congressman Thomas Massie gained the assist of fellow Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace on a discharge petition to pressure a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata. Hours after Trump described the difficulty as a “Democratic hoax”, Greene shot again: “It’s not a hoax as a result of Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile.”
Some Republicans’ persistence can be sporting skinny with Trump’s well being secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr, over his strikes to undermine vaccines and purge management on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC). Senator John Barrasso, a health care provider, instructed Kennedy that he was “deeply involved” about his management on vaccines.
As well as, a number of Republicans have confronted blowback from voters throughout city halls of their district over the summer season. Opinion polls present that Trump’s tax and spending megabill is probably the most unpopular main piece of laws in a era. And Friday’s dismal jobs reviews mirrored uncertainty round his financial agenda.
If the pattern continues, swing-state Republicans may be tempted to distance themselves from him in subsequent yr’s midterm elections after which deal with him as a lame duck because the race for 2028 heats up.
Thom Hartmann, a political analyst and writer of the upcoming e-book The Final American President: A Damaged Man, a Corrupt Occasion, and a World on the Brink, means that Trump’s sway over Congress may be extra fragile than it seems.
The straightforward actuality is that 5 – 6 Republicans within the Home and two or three or 4 Republicans within the Senate might cease Trump in his tracks. They will put an finish to this madness.
More and more, as public opinion is popping towards him – he’s polling very negatively in nearly each facet of his presidency, from the economic system to the troops within the streets to destroying federal businesses – sooner or later a few of these Republicans are going to go searching and say, , possibly the best way to make sure my very own political survival is to problem this man. That day can’t come quickly sufficient for me.
ShareMarina Dunbar
Donald Trump launched a vitriolic assault towards Tom Hanks for supposedly being “harmful” and “woke” after one in every of America’s most beloved actors was snubbed with out a lot clarification by West Level final week.
Tom Hanks on 3 February 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. {Photograph}: Amy Sussman/Getty Photographs
On his social media website on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni affiliation of the US Army Academy (or West Level) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has performed quite a few navy characters and likewise has an extended historical past of advocating for veterans.
Trump wrote: “Our nice West Level (getting better on a regular basis!) has well cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Vital transfer! We don’t want harmful, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and different Faux Award Exhibits, will assessment their Requirements and Practices within the identify of Equity and Justice. Watch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE!”
Hanks had been scheduled to obtain the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award later this month for his “service and accomplishments within the nationwide curiosity”.
ShareSam Levine
Legislation enforcement officers on Sunday dismantled a peace vigil that had stood in entrance of the White Home for greater than 4 many years, an motion taken on orders issued by Donald Trump two days earlier.
The vigil focused by the president was began in 1981 by William Thomas to advertise nuclear disarmament and an finish to world conflicts, and it’s believed to be the longest steady anti-war protest in the US. For many years, volunteers would man the location, simply in entrance of the White Home gates in Lafayette Sq., to stop it from being taken down.
A correspondent for the conservative community Actual America’s Voice, Brian Glenn, requested Trump concerning the vigil on Friday. “Simply out entrance of the White Home is a blue tent that initially was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms – it’s form of morphed into an anti-America generally, anti-Trump at many occasions,” he stated. Trump replied that he didn’t know concerning the tent after which turned to workers to say: “Take it down, proper now.”
Will Roosien, a 24-year-old who had been volunteering on the vigil on Sunday, instructed the Washington Publish that officers arrived at 6.30am on Sunday and instructed him he had half-hour to take away a tarp beneath which he had been sheltering from the rain. He refused and instructed the Publish he was detained whereas the officers dismantled the tent.
“It is a shame, and it is best to all really feel ashamed,” Roosien instructed the officers, in keeping with video obtained by the Publish. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days per week, for 44 years, somebody has sat right here, advocating for folks all over the world who we don’t know. Advocating for human rights. Advocating for peace.”
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Concurring with the choice, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh stated that “obvious ethnicity alone can’t furnish affordable suspicion” however it may be a “‘related issue’ when thought of together with different salient elements”.
He added: “If the officers be taught that the person they stopped is a US citizen or in any other case lawfully in the US, they promptly let the person go.”
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Up to date at 12.57 EDT
Per my final publish, the supreme court docket’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the choice, directing pointed criticism at its conservative majority.
The administration “has all however declared that all Latinos, US residents or not, who work low-wage jobs are truthful recreation to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held till they supply proof of their authorized standing to the brokers’ satisfaction”, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote within the dissenting opinion.
“Somewhat than stand idly by whereas our constitutional freedoms are misplaced, I dissent,” Sotomayor added.
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Up to date at 12.29 EDT
