Powell Cuts Subpoena Rate to Zero

This Week in Democracy

• A federal judge in Washington, D.C., threw out subpoenas issued in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The judge wrote that there was a “mountain of evidence” that the subpoenas were being used as a political tool to pressure Powell into resigning or lowering interest rates. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C., said her office would appeal the decision.

  ➡️ READ: How Politicized Prosecutions Undermine the Rule of Law

• A U.S. Senate committee approved Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to be the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The department has been shut down for over a month, as Congress continues to debate changes to its funding following surges of federal immigration agents into states that resulted in the killings of two Americans.

  ➡️ READ: What’s Breaking Through About Federal Law Enforcement Tactics

• On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case about whether state election officials are allowed to count mail ballots that are mailed by Election Day but received afterwards. This could impact state policies across the country.

State of the States

In Colorado, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from cutting funding for the state’s food stamp program, writing that the cuts were both unconstitutional and an attempt to punish the state for Gov. Jared Polis’s refusal to free Tina Peters from prison.

Trump and his allies have been pressuring Polis to grant clemency to Peters, a former county clerk who was convicted of participating in a 2021 security breach of her county’s election equipment. She was sentenced to nine years for helping Trump allies access the equipment in an effort to prove in the unfounded claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), an association of more than 100 colleges and universities, sued the administration this week, arguing that the plan to dismantle a laboratory in Boulder was also retribution for Polis’s refusal to free Peters.

➡️ READ: Sharing the Facts About Unlawful Attempts to Freeze Federal Funds