President Donald Trump says Immigration and Customs Enforcementshould continue traffic stops after two deadly shootings within a week, seeming to contradict a new policy to halt them. To remove criminals from the country, “we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” the president wrote on social media.
In Florida on Tuesday, a third man in roughly a week died during an encounter with immigration
officers. The 28-year-old was killed after he was hit by a tractor-trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.
Here's the latest:
Jay Clayton, President Trump’s pick to head the nation’s intelligence agencies, will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, weeks after Trump abruptly delayed his nomination.
Republicans and even some Democrats have been eager to quickly confirm Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as they’ve expressed concerns about Trump’s interim appointee for the intelligence post, Bill Pulte. Pulte, who has been in the job since June 19, is a former housing official with no known intelligence experience and who used his previous administration perch to target perceived adversaries of the president.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, a Republican, expressed frustration when Trump delayed Clayton’s nomination in a social media post last month, allowing Pulte to take office. Cotton said then that Clayton had been instructed not to appear at a scheduled confirmation hearing, but he rescheduled the hearing three weeks later, with apparent approval from the White House.
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will confront questions Wednesday about his brief but turbulent tenure atop the Justice Department during a Senate confirmation hearing that will test President Donald Trump’s grip on Republican lawmakers whose support the nominee will need for the job.
Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, has run the department on an interim basis since April, during which time he’s accelerated investigations into Trump foes, functioned as the public face of a maligned fund meant to compensate the Republican president’s allies and alarmed press freedom advocates with an aggressive pursuit of news media leaks.
Those actions will receive fresh scrutiny at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as Blanche testifies for the opportunity to serve out the duration of Trump’s term.
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