The Morning: Justice under Trump
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2025-09-24 12:56
Good morning. Today, we’re covering the independence of the Justice Department, as well as President Trump’s remarks to the U.N. General Assembly and a powerful typhoon hitting Asia this morning. But first, we look at Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night. On air again
Jimmy Kimmel returned last night. He was back less than a week after ABC suspended his late night show in response to pressure from the Trump administration. In his opening monologue, Kimmel addressed his comments about the suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk, which incited the uproar that led to his suspension. The late night star’s voice caught as he told viewers: “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.” But he also said that President Trump’s threat against ABC was “anti-American.” “This show is not important,” Kimmel said in his opening monologue. “What’s important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.” People online were searching for his monologue. Read — and watch — more of Kimmel’s comments here. For more:
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President Trump wants the Justice Department to punish his foes and protect his friends. In the past few days, he has taken steps to make that happen. He ousted a federal prosecutor who failed to file charges against his political enemies, then filled the role with an inexperienced loyalist. And he publicly demanded that the attorney general go after his adversaries, even as the Justice Department quietly swept away a case against an ally. Those moves “bulldozed the already faltering tradition of Justice Department independence from the White House,” my colleague Alan Feuer writes. Today’s newsletter unpacks each of these episodes. Not good enoughThe prosecutor tasked with investigating Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, and James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, had recently given his superiors bad news. He couldn’t find enough evidence to bring charges against James, and he had concerns about a potential case against Comey.
That report, in Trump’s view, was unacceptable. The president says James and Comey deserve punishment — James for scoring fraud rulings against Trump and his company, Comey for investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. So the prosecutor, Erik Siebert, was pushed out on Friday. My colleagues who covered the ouster explained its significance: The episode was consistent with Mr. Trump’s threats to pursue the law enforcement officials who investigated him, an apparent challenge to the fundamental principle enshrined in the Justice Department’s rulebook of investigating crimes rather than targeting out-of-favor individuals to uncover potential wrongdoing. Try harderThe day after Siebert’s resignation, Trump demanded that the Justice Department move quickly to prosecute his enemies. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote in a social media post addressed to his attorney general, Pam Bondi. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Trump’s post named Comey and James, as well as Senator Adam Schiff, the Democrat who led Trump’s first impeachment hearings, and suggested that they were “all guilty as hell.” (He has been aggressively pursuing mortgage-fraud allegations against James.) It was another blow to the Justice Department’s independence, my colleagues wrote: Even for a president who has shattered the traditional norms of maintaining distance from the Justice Department, Mr. Trump’s unabashedly public and explicit orders to Ms. Bondi were an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal. Trump has replaced Siebert with Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer of Trump’s who has no experience as a prosecutor. Before her appointment, she was a legal aide in his White House and led the effort to scrutinize exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution for “improper ideology.” The agency also recently fired James Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, a longtime federal prosecutor who handled criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. She says she was never given a reason for her dismissal. But only sometimesThe Justice Department is hammering Trump’s enemies, but not his friends. After the president took office, the agency dropped a possible bribery investigation into his border czar, Tom Homan. Undercover F.B.I. agents secretly recorded Homan accepting a bag containing $50,000 in cash last year. Homan agreed to help the agents (who were posing as businessmen) secure government contracts related to border security. But Trump’s Justice Department shut down the investigation into Homan. One person familiar with the case told my colleagues that there had not been enough evidence to support federal charges. Another person, though, contended that the case was dumped before such evidence could be gathered. The White House has also denied that Homan accepted the cash. House and Senate Democrats have opened separate investigations into the handling of the case, and they’ve called for Justice Department leaders and the F.B.I. to turn over the recordings of Homan. But the Democrats don’t control Congress, so they can’t force the Trump administration to respond.
The U.N. General Assembly
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People with autism need understanding and accommodation. But the Trump administration is sending a signal that they shouldn’t exist, Maia Szalavitz writes. It’s naïve and impractical to practice civil debate in the face of bigotry, Roxane Gay argues. Here’s a column by David French on Erika Kirk and Trump. New: The Times family subscription is here. One rate. Four individual logins. Savings for all. Now you and three others can enjoy unlimited access to The Times, while personalizing your own experience. Learn more.
Tahiti on the cheap: One family made it to French Polynesia with inexpensive airfare and a house swap. See how. Chicken nuggets and comradeship: Gas stations near the front give Ukrainian soldiers a reminder of the normalcy they’re fighting to defend. Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about soothing your stomach with ginger. Two lives in rock: Joe Stevens, who died at 87, wearied of a career as a road manager for bands and remade himself as a photographer. His images chronicle a golden era of amplified rebellion, from Woodstock to the Sex Pistols and beyond.
College football: Mike Gundy is out as coach at Oklahoma State. He was fired after 21 years and a 1-2 start to this season, which included two of his worst losses. M.L.B.: The Yankees are heading to the playoffs after a walk-off win over the White Sox.
The Booker Prize, the famous British literary award, announced its nominees. Here are a few of the buzziest: Katie Kitamura’s “Audition,” which a Times review said was the author’s “most thrilling examination yet of the deceit inherent in human connection.” Kiran Desai’s “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.” Desai won the Booker Prize in 2006 but struggled to write a follow-up — until now. Susan Choi’s “Flashlight,” which touches on historical events including North Korean re-education camps. More on culture
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Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were backbite and tieback. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. Today is our annual Climate Forward conference, in which world leaders, executives and activists will discuss key questions — including how President Trump has upended global climate policy. The livestream starts at 9 a.m. Eastern. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Amelia Nierenberg contributed to this newsletter.
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