A US government agency has asked for a criminal probe of New York State Attorney General Letitia James, one of President Donald Trump’s main adversaries, on grounds of alleged mortgage fraud, US media said Wednesday.James drew the wrath of Trump after leading a civil fraud case against him that saw the Republican ordered to pay a multi-million dollar penalty last year.Trump and allies on the right regularly attacked James during the trial in New York, and he has put revenge against his foes high on the agenda since returning to the White House in January.US media reported the Federal Housing Finance Agency has asked the Justice Department to investigate James, alleging that she “appeared to have falsified records” related to properties she owns in Virginia and New York to obtain better loan terms.”Attorney General James is focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this Administration weaponizes the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution,” her office said in a statement.”She will not be intimidated by bullies — no matter who they are,” it added.US Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Fox News channel that she and her staff were “reviewing” the allegations.The housing agency did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.”Based on media reports, Ms Letitia James has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms,” the housing agency wrote in its referral letter, parts of which were carried in US media.In James’s civil case, Trump was found liable for fraud by conspiring to alter his net worth to get better loan and insurance terms. Trump and his older sons were ordered to pay $454 million.The US president has vowed repeatedly to exact vengeance on those he feels wronged him during and following his first 2017-2021 term.His second term in office has seen FBI and Justice Department staff involved in criminal cases against Trump fired, among other acts of retribution.

Inflamed by endless claims of liberal “deep state” operatives targeting their president for prosecution, Donald Trump’s supporters dreamed of the day when he would return to office and take his revenge.But three months into his second term, the promised arrests and show trials of high-profile Democrats have not materialized — and Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement is losing patience.Frustrated MAGA figures have been complaining for weeks over the pace of efforts by the FBI and Justice Department to deliver on Trump’s threats to target the lawmakers, journalists and prosecutors he considered “enemies from within.”This is especially true among “J6ers” — hundreds of MAGA rioters convicted over the 2021 US Capitol insurrection, and then repeatedly promised vengeance by Trump on the presidential campaign trail.The Republican leader may have hoped for plaudits over his order to criminally investigate two officials from his first term who defied him, and for his strong-arming of law firms that represented his adversaries.But MAGA has indicated that it will only be fully appeased by significant indictments on the Democratic side.And what MAGA wants, it often gets — several members of the White House National Security Council seen as insufficiently loyal learned this recently when they were fired at the behest of far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who has Trump’s ear.- ‘You’ve been let down’ -The targets of the angry backlash are Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Patel’s second-in-command, former talk show host Dan Bongino.Bongino and other right-wing influencers have been telling their audiences for years that a criminal cabal of Democrats, guilty of calumnies against the Trump family, were about to get their comeuppance.Rattled by accusations that he is letting the side down now he is on the other side of the fence, he has taken to X multiple times in recent weeks to protest that he was working hard in his new job.In an appeal for patience this week, Bongino said cryptically that he was developing “a number of significant initiatives to ensure that the mistakes of the past are never repeated.””I know you’ve been let down in the past,” he said on X. “You’re owed better. And we’re going to produce it.”The deputy director didn’t address anyone in particular in his posts, but the replies were dominated by MAGA figures angry over the lack of political prosecutions.”We aren’t trying to be the enemy. We want justice!” Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who was photographed with his feet on then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the Capitol riot, posted separately.”We want the promises made kept! We stood! We showed up when Donald asked! We have seen nothing.”- ‘Scared in the corner’ -Despite receiving more than 1,500 pardons and commutations from Trump, the J6ers have been among the most disgruntled MAGA figures. Suzzanne Monk, founder of the “J6 Pardon Project,” has been tracking the arrests of insurrectionists during Democratic president Joe Biden’s first year and comparing them unfavorably with the threadbare action against Democrats under Trump.”Today is April 16th,” she posted Wednesday. “By 4/16/21, the Biden regime had already arrested 406 January 6th Defendants and would go on to convict 99.7% of their arrests. How many arrests has Pam made?”To be clear, the only Democrats credibly accused of crimes in the Trump era were investigated — by Biden’s justice department.But MAGA is demanding heads on spikes.Tom Fitton, head of the right-wing group Judicial Watch, echoed many MAGA figures in giving Trump a pass on the lack of prosecutions — arguing that the president has a lot on his plate.But he told Trump ally Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast that Bondi and Patel need to be “much more aggressive.” “There may be good people working at the FBI, but they’re scared in the corner and unable to do anything,” said Fitton.

Erik and Lyle Menendez will appear in a Los Angeles court on Thursday in a bid to persuade a judge to reduce their life sentences for the shotgun murders of their own parents.The brothers — who are among America’s most infamous murderers — are hoping the current life-without-parole term will be cut to one that could allow them to walk free, more than 35 years after the brutal double killings.During blockbuster trials in the 1990s, prosecutors said the men killed Jose and Kitty Menendez in their luxury Beverly Hills home to get their hands on a $14 million fortune.They initially blamed the deaths on a Mafia hit, the first of five disparate explanations they offered.But at trial they claimed they had acted in self-defense, striking first before their abusive and controlling father could kill them, after years of emotional and sexual abuse.A lengthy campaign, backed by their family and with growing support from the public, whose appetite for the case was whetted by a hit Netflix series, has sought to have them freed.Supporters say Erik Menendez, 54, and Lyle Menendez, 57, have been model prisoners, who are reformed, and deserving of a second chance.Their hand was strengthened by the former chief prosecutor for Los Angeles, who asked the court to resentence the men.But when the more hardline Nathan Hochman became district attorney last year, he reversed course.He says the men have not atoned for their crimes and continue to lie about the murders, in which they repeatedly shot their parents, including in the knees.He also points to the premeditated nature of the slayings — the men had tried to set up alibis in advance — and their efforts to get people to cover for them after the fact.And he claims that their unwillingness to come clean about the true circumstances of the crime makes them ineligible for parole.However, last week Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic rejected his office’s effort to withdraw its resentencing motion.The hearing, which begins on Thursday morning in Los Angeles, is expected to last up to two days.The brothers’ original trials were huge events, and the case saw a surge of renewed interest last year with the release of the Netflix hit “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”

Rights groups are increasingly worried that El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison is becoming a “black hole” for the United States to rid itself of expelled migrants or other unwanted people with no legal consequences.A US senator who traveled to the Central American country Wednesday to try and retrieve a man wrongly deported and locked up there was sent away without even being able to speak to him.The man, Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is one of nearly 300 migrants — mostly Venezuelans — the Donald Trump administration has sent to El Salvador since January without any kind of court hearing.Once there, they were locked up in the infamously harsh Terrorism Confinement Center built to house gangsters rounded up in President Nayib Bukele’s iron-fisted anti-crime drive.Observers say most of the migrants had committed no crime, and many had enjoyed asylum status in the United States.None have been heard from since they were sent to El Salvador, where they are now in legal limbo.Human Rights Watch, in a report last week, said El Salvador and the United States have subjected dozens of people to “enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention.”At the CECOT, they are held incommunicado, not allowed even contact with lawyers.”What they are trying to create here is a Guantanamo on steroids… a black hole where there is no legal protection for the people there,” Juan Pappier, HRW’s America’s deputy director, told AFP, referring to the US prison for terror suspects at a military base in Cuba. It is synonymous with torture and other abuses.- ‘Illegally abducted’ -The deportation of Abrego Garcia in particular has sparked an outcry and set off a legal crisis.Trump officials have claimed he is an illegal migrant, a gang member and involved in human trafficking. He has never been convicted of any crime and had been granted a protected status that should have barred his deportation to El Salvador.A federal judge, backed by the Supreme Court, has ordered Abrego Garcia’s return, but the Trump administration contends he is now solely in Salvadoran custody.Bukele, who has proudly adopted the moniker of “world’s coolest dictator,” has said he does not have the power to send the man back.Hoping to heap political pressure on the Trump administration, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen visited El Salvador on Wednesday to plead the case of Abrego Garcia, who he said was illegally abducted from the United States.Van Hollen met Vice President Felix Ulloa, who denied him all access to the man.”His answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador, to keep him at CECOT,” the senator said of the response he got from Ulloa.Washington and San Salvador have shrugged off criticism of their collaboration, and Trump on Monday warmly thanked Bukele for “helping us out” with his administration’s mass deportation drive.El Salvador is receiving $6 million to house the migrants, and Bukele left Monday’s meeting with an agreement for his country to join the US Global Entry program, which allows expedited visa entry.”Bukele’s cooperation with President Trump’s agenda, including disappearing people overseas… and into prisons notorious for abuse, is unprecedented, rights-violating and extreme,” Noah Bullock of Central American rights group Cristosal said on X.- 350 deaths -AFP interviewed several relatives of Venezuelans detained in El Salvador, all of whom insisted their loved ones were not criminals.Alexis de Hernandez, mother of 31-year-old Andry Hernandez Romero, said her son was rounded up “just for having tattoos” — a common complaint in this drama.US officials have claimed the markings indicate loyalty to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, but experts note that the group — unlike Salvadoran gangs — does not use tattoos for clan identification. According to Cristosal, nearly half of the CECOT detainees it has been able to trace had asylum status in the United States or were applying for asylum, “which should protect them from deportation.”Trump has encouraged Bukele to build more jails and said Tuesday he would “love” to start also sending American citizens who commit violent crimes to the CECOT.The Washington-based WOLA advocacy group warned in a commentary published Monday “that thousands of citizens are languishing in Et Salvador’s abusive prison system” and “at least 350 people have died in custody as a result of these conditions.””Corruption and lack of transparency (in El Salvador) should be of bipartisan concern” for the United States, it argued. “The US must not only monitor how its financial assistance is being used, but also examine whether it is inadvertently supporting a government that systematically withholds information and evades accountability.”

The Trump administration aims to remove degradation of habitat from its definition of “harm” to endangered species, proposing Wednesday a rule change that would open the door to human activity in ecologically sensitive environments.The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said  the definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act should exclude “actions that impair the habitat of protected species.”Environmental groups said the rule change would allow timber, oil and mining activity, as well as other activities by individuals and the government, to destroy the habitats of endangered animals.”For 50 years, the ESA has saved numerous species — including iconic American species like bald eagles, gray wolves, Florida manatees, and humpback whales — from extinction,” environmental law organization Earthjustice said.”One key to this success has been its definition of harm, which recognizes the common-sense concept that destroying a forest, beach, river, or wetland that a species relies on for survival constitutes harm to that species,” it said, adding that the group was prepared to challenge the proposal in court.”There’s just no way to protect animals and plants from extinction without protecting the places they live, yet the Trump administration is opening the flood gates to immeasurable habitat destruction,” said Noah Greenwald, codirector of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Without a prohibition on habitat destruction, spotted owls, sea turtles, salmon and so many more imperiled animals won’t stand a chance,” said Greenwald. “Trump is trying to drive a knife through the heart of the Endangered Species Act.”The proposal will now be open to public comment for 30 days.Since its 1973 enactment, the Endangered Species Act has been credited with saving iconic species such as the gray wolf, bald eagle and grizzly bear from extinction.President Donald Trump ran on a platform that promised to roll back environmental regulations that crimp economic development.In February, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a call for proposals to unleash US energy, potentially opening up fragile landscapes from the Arctic to the Grand Canyon and even national monuments for exploitation.Days later, Trump said his administration aimed to cut about 65 percent of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency.