Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of Lithuania’s populist Dawn of Nemunas ruling coalition party, has been found guilty of incitement to hatred against Jews and downplaying the Holocaust in a decision by the Vilnius Regional Court. In a Thursday ruling the court said his public statements had “mocked Jewish people, denigrated them, and encouraged hatred toward the Jewish community.” Žemaitaitis was fined €5,000 — a fraction of what the prosecutor had requested — and is at risk of being stripped of his seat in parliament. “This is a politicized decision,” Žemaitaitis said, while indicating he will appeal. The court considered several social media posts in which Žemaitaitis blamed Jews for the “destruction of our nation” and for “contributing to the torture, deportation, and killing of Lithuanians.” After Israeli authorities demolished a Palestinian school on May 7, 2023, Žemaitaitis wrote: “After such events, it is no wonder that statements like this emerge: ‘A Jew climbed the ladder and accidentally fell. Take, children, a stick and kill that little Jew.'” His lawyer, Egidija Belevičienė, told local media that while her client’s remarks “may have been inappropriate and may have shocked some people, they did not reach the level of danger for which a person is punished with a criminal penalty that necessarily results in a criminal record.” Lithuania’s ruling Social Democrats, who share a coalition with Žemaitaitis, have yet to respond to the ruling, noting that it “is not yet final.” In a Thursday social media post the party said any form of antisemitism, hate speech or Holocaust denial “is unacceptable to us and incompatible with our values.” Still, Žemaitaitis’ record of antisemitic comments was known to the Social Democrats when they formed a coalition with his party last November. He had resigned his seat in parliament the previous April after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled he had violated the constitution by making antisemitic statements on social media. “The Social Democrats were not bothered last year … nor are they bothered now,” said Simonas Kairys, deputy leader of the Liberal Movement opposition party. Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chair of the opposition Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, accused the Social Democrats of suffering from Stockholm syndrome. “They have been taken hostage by Žemaitaitis, and they’re beginning to like it,” he said. The country’s political opposition is calling on the Social Democrats to sever ties with Žemaitaitis — and is threatening to kick him out of the country’s parliament if they won’t. “The Social Democrats could simply tell Žemaitaitis ‘goodbye,’” Kasčiūnas said. If they fail to cut ties after the court’s ruling becomes final, he added, “an impeachment initiative will emerge in the Seimas.” Žemaitaitis has made a name for himself recently for more than antisemitism. In November he tabled a draft law to simplify the process of firing the head of the country’s LRT public broadcaster, sparking public outrage that the government was preparing to install a political flunky in the post. A street protest is scheduled for Dec. 9; as of Thursday over 124,000 people had signed an online petition against the draft law in a country of 2.8 million.

BRUSSELS — Intelligence agencies across Europe are burying decades of distrust and starting to build a shared intelligence operation to counter Russian aggression — a move accelerated by the new American capriciousness in supporting its traditional allies. In the past year, many national capitals have embedded intelligence officials in their Brussels representation offices. The European Union’s in-house intelligence unit has started briefing top-level officials. And the bloc is toying with the idea to build up stronger, CIA-style powers — long considered unthinkable. The push for deeper intelligence cooperation accelerated sharply after the Trump administration abruptly halted the sharing of battlefield intelligence with Kyiv last March. Donald Trump “deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing the services of Europe together,” said one Western intelligence official, who was granted anonymity to disclose details of how they cooperated with American counterparts. POLITICO spoke with seven intelligence and security officials who described how the rupture in transatlantic trust is driving Europe’s spy agencies to move faster — and closer — than ever before. It’s all part of a bigger reconsideration of practices. European intelligence services have also started reviewing more closely how they share information with U.S. counterparts. The Dutch military and civil intelligence services told local paper De Volkskrant on Saturday they’d stopped sharing certain information with their U.S. counterparts, citing political interference and human rights concerns. Officials fear that transatlantic forums, including the defense alliance NATO, will become less reliable platforms to share intelligence. “There is a sense that there could be less commitment on the part of the United States in the months to come in sharing the intelligence they have — both inside NATO and at large,” said Antonio Missiroli, the former Assistant-Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO. Security services are still overcoming decades-old trust issues. New revelations that Hungarian intelligence officials disguised as diplomats tried to infiltrate the EU institutions show how governments within the EU still keep close watch over each other. To cope with the distrust, some leading spy agencies are pushing to set up groups of trusted countries instead of running things through Brussels. CLUB DE BERNE Unlike tight-knit spy alliances like the Five Eyes, European Union member countries have long struggled to forge strong partnerships on intelligence sharing. National security remains firmly in the hands of national capitals, with Brussels playing only a coordinating role. One way European services have communicated traditionally is through a secretive network known as the Club de Berne, created nearly 50 years ago in the Swiss city it is named after. The club has no headquarters, no secretariat and meets only twice a year. In recent years, the group has coordinated its meetings to roughly align with the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. But the Club is hardly a mirror image of the EU. Malta has never joined, Bulgaria only recently signed on, and Austria was suspended for a time over concerns it was too soft on Moscow before being readmitted in 2022. Non-EU countries such as Switzerland, Norway and the U.K. are also members. Donald Trump “deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing the services of Europe together,” said one Western intelligence official, who was granted anonymity to disclose details of how they cooperated with American counterparts. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images “Club de Berne is an information sharing architecture a bit like Europol. It’s designed to share a certain kind of information for a particular function,” said Philip Davies, director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies in London. “But it’s fairly bounded and the information that’s being shared is potentially quite anodyne because you’re not plugging into secure systems and [there are] national caveats.” Major European Union intelligence players — France, the Netherlands, Germany, and until 2019, the U.K. — saw little value in sharing sensitive information with all EU countries, fearing it could fall into the wrong hands. Eastern European services, like Bulgaria’s, were believed to be filled with Russian moles, said Missiroli. One Bulgarian security official argued that was no longer the case, with the old guard largely retired. But while it offered some mode of collaboration, the Club de Berne also left Brussels’ EU-level officials largely in the dark. “The problem with talking about European intelligence sharing is that European intelligence sharing is not the same thing as EU intelligence sharing,” said Davies. CALLING ON THE EU Recent geopolitical shifts have forced the European Union to rethink its approach. Former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö called last year for the EU to create a CIA-style agency, coordinated from Brussels, in a landmark preparedness report at the request of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Niinistö laid out the idea of a “fully fledged intelligence cooperation service at the EU level that can serve both the strategic and operational needs,” while adding that “an anti-sabotage network” is needed to protect infrastructure. If there is such a thing as a collective EU intelligence agency, the European Union’s in-house Intelligence and Situation Centre (INTCEN) at the European External Action Service (EEAS) is the closest to it. The center conducts analysis based on the voluntary contributions by EU countries. Spies from national agencies do secondments at the center, which helps building up ties with national intelligence. Croatian intelligence chief Daniel Markić took over the helm of INTCEN in September 2024 on a mission to beef up information-sharing with the agency and get direct intelligence to EU leaders like von der Leyen and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. Together with its military counterpart — the EU Military Staff Intelligence Directorate — the two services form the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC), which produces shared intelligence assessments for EU decision-makers. In April, SIAC held its annual meeting in Brussels, this time drawing top officials of the European agencies to attend, along with Kallas.  Spy chiefs at that meeting underlined a growing push for Europe to build its own independent intelligence capabilities. But some also worried that overemphasizing the need for autonomy could further weaken ties with the U.S., creating the very gaps Europe is trying to avoid. TRUST ISSUES Slowly but surely, Brussels is building up its own intelligence community. For instance, intelligence liaison officers now exist in most permanent representations of EU member countries in Brussels. The Belgian Security Services (VSSE), which are officially tasked with overseeing spying activities around the EU institutions in Brussels, have also briefed members of the European Parliament on tactics used to coerce lawmakers into foreign espionage. Still, one European intelligence source told POLITICO that while cooperation between EU countries was now “at its best in modern history,” agencies still work first and foremost for their own national governments. That is a key stumbling block. According to Robert Gorelick, the retired head of mission of the U.S. CIA in Italy, “The reason that an EU-wide intelligence service couldn’t exist is that there is too much variety in how national agencies work.” What’s worse, he added: “There are too many countries — 27 — for there to be such trust in sharing.” Some countries have leaned toward setting up smaller ad hoc groups. After the U.S. paused its intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March, a Coalition of the Willing led by France and the United Kingdom met in Paris and agreed to expand Kyiv’s access to European-operated intelligence, surveillance technology and satellite data. The Netherlands is looking at beefing up cooperation with other European services, like the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Germany and the Nordics — including sharing raw data. “That has been scaled up enormously,” Erik Akerboom, the head of the Dutch civil intelligence service, told De Volkskrant. Yet there is still a long way to go to build enough trust between 27 EU members with differing national priorities. In October, it was revealed that Hungarian intelligence officials disguised as diplomats tried to infiltrate EU institutions while Olivér Várhelyi (now a European commissioner) was Hungary’s ambassador to the bloc, and place Orbán cronies in key positions. Niinistö, who wrote the EU’s preparedness report last year, told POLITICO in an interview this month that a full-fledged EU intelligence agency was still “a question of the future.” He added: “It comes to the word trust when we talk about preparedness, because without trusting we can’t cooperate very much.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted Sunday that U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were not intended to bring about regime change in Tehran, but laid out no plans for avoiding a deeper escalation should the country retaliate and said officials didn’t yet know the full extent of the damage. The Pentagon chief and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, in a Sunday morning press conference, said the three nuclear sites sustained “severe damage,” but that it was too soon to assess whether Iran still possessed nuclear capabilities. “This mission was not, has not been about regime change,” Hegseth said. The effort, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, involved a series of strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities. It was launched to “neutralize” Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, Hegseth said, after what he described as months of “stonewalling” by the regime on negotiations. The mission began late Friday with seven B-2 Spirit bombers departing the continental U.S. for an 18-hour flight, backed by more than 125 aircraft and a guided missile submarine. It marked the first use of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb, which hit the heavily fortified Fordo nuclear facility buried deep beneath a cluster of mountains. The strikes lasted 25 minutes, the officials said. The mission, which involved U.S. bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to the Middle East, was the longest B-2 bomber mission since 2001. President Donald Trump, in his message to the nation on Saturday evening, proclaimed the attacks a “spectacular military success.” Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated,” he said. Caine on Sunday warned a final damage assessment would take time. He noted the three nuclear sites sustained “extremely severe damage and destruction” from the strike, but stopped short of saying they had been completely destroyed. Hegseth added the operation was targeted and precise, and downplayed the possibility of a protracted regional war. “Anything can happen in conflict; we acknowledge that,” he said. “But the scope of this was intentionally limited. That’s the message that we’re sending.” U.S. officials and lawmakers are concerned that Tehran or its proxies could retaliate by targeting U.S. forces in the Middle East. More than 40,000 U.S. troops and Defense Department civilians are stationed in the region. Caine did not specify what added steps the administration is taking to protect military personnel, but said U.S. Central Command had “elevated force protection measures,” particularly in Iraq, Syria and the Persian Gulf. “Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice,” he said. “We will defend ourselves.” Hegseth and Caine underscored the highly secretive nature of the operation. B2 bombers headed west into the Pacific in the early hours of Saturday morning as a decoy, Caine said, while the planes that carried out the strike traveled to the Middle East. Caine said he was “particularly proud” of the security and secrecy around the plans, noting that it was of “great concern” to the president. Hesgeth has faced questions about his handling of sensitive materialsince he shared plans about a pending U.S. strike against Yemen’s Houthi fighters in a Signal chat, which inadvertently included a journalist. The Pentagon chief told reporters on Sunday that lawmakers were notified of the airstrike “after the planes were safely out,” which he said complies with the administration’s obligations under the War Powers Act. While recent U.S. intelligence assessments concluded Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, Hegseth defended Trump’s “bold action.” “The president made it very clear he’s looked at all of this, all of the intelligence, all the information, and came to the conclusion that the Iranian nuclear program is a threat,” Hegseth said. GOP hawks, such as Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in the lead up to the strikes, urged Trump to seize the moment. Influential MAGA figures such as Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, meanwhile, strongly criticized any U.S. involvement in Iran — warning that it contradicted Trump’s “America First” approach. While many of the skeptics in Trump’s orbit fell in line behind the attacks after Trump’s announcement Saturday, some GOP opponents of military intervention questioned their legality. “This is not Constitutional,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said Saturday in a post on the social media platform X. Massie and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), along with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), had been leading parallel war powers resolutions that would bar the president from launching military action against Iran without explicit congressional approval. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called Trump’s move “absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.” “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” she said on X. “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations.” Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

The Trump administration acknowledged late Monday that it had inadvertently deported a man to El Salvador last month despite a court’s determination that he had a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country. “This removal was an error,” a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote in a statement to a federal judge. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran, was on one of three deportation flights to his home country on March 15 amid a frantic legal fight over President Donald Trump’s decision to invoke war powers to hasten the deportation of more than 100 Venezuela nationals to El Salvador. In addition to the Venezuelans subject to Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act were other deportees with purported gang ties. Trump’s use of centuries-old war powers to speed deportations — invoked just three times in American history — has provoked a fierce legal and political battle over the president’s authority. A federal judge has barred further removals under the Alien Enemies Act while proceedings play out in court. That decision triggered Trump to call for the impeachment of judges who have ruled against his administration. The judge, James Boasberg, is also weighing whether the Trump administration defied his order by deporting some Venezuelans to El Salvador after he demanded the March 15 flights be halted or turned around. Abrego Garcia was deemed by an immigration judge in 2019 to be a likely member of the MS-13 gang — a decision Abrego Garcia sharply contested and that the government credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant. But the court also agreed at the time that he should not be deported to El Salvador, finding that his fear of being persecuted or tortured was credible. As a result of that determination, Abrego Garcia was released from custody and has been living in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and child. He was arrested by ICE on March 12 and sent to El Salvador on March 15, where his wife recognized him in a video showing the shackled and shaven prisoners being arrayed by Salvadoran authorities. The Trump administration now says there’s nothing it can do to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to U.S. custody. The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to reject a petition by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to seek his return to United States custody, saying the Trump administration has no power to force El Salvador to facilitate that demand — and that the courts have no authority to issue such an order. The case is before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama appointee based in Maryland. The administration contends that despite the “good faith” error, Abrego Garcia is unlikely to face torture in El Salvador in part because the U.S. government made a broader assessment of El Salvador’s intentions when it deported the larger groups of migrants. “This court should defer to the government’s determination that Abrego Garcia will not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador,” Justice Department attorneys wrote. “Although the government erred in removing Abrego Garcia specifically to El Salvador, the government would not have removed any alien to El Salvador … if it believed that doing so would violate the United States’ obligations” under an international anti-torture treaty. After the error began generating news coverage, Vice President JD Vance responded to a demand for explanation from Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau, a former Obama administration official, who described Abrego Garcia as “an innocent father from Maryland.” Vance mocked Favreau, saying he must not have read the court documents because Abrego Garcia was a “convicted MS-13 gang member.” The court documents, however, do not describe Abrego Garcia as a convicted gang member. Rather, a judge in 2019 denied him release from detention over a government informant’s claim that Abrego Garcia was a member of that gang. That decision was upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

A Pentagon lawyer also submitted a written declaration that the Defense Department was seeking to preserve the records as well but did not suggest it had recovered any. The administration suggested that the Atlantic’s publication of the full exchange, save for the deletion of the name of a CIA officer, had ensured that the messages would be preserved. Boasberg’s order came in response to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by pro-transparency group American Oversight, claiming that the messages were in danger of being deleted in violation of the Federal Records Act and that Trump administration officials appeared to be using the ephemeral messaging app to evade federal recordkeeping requirements. Richer did not concede Thursday that the messages were legally required to be preserved, saying government lawyers “have not fully evaluated that issue.” Federal law does not require that every email or app message sent or received by a federal employee be saved, even if it pertains to official business. In an unusual preface to the hearing, Boasberg responded to a social media post early Thursday in which President Donald Trump suggested without evidence that Boasberg had improperly taken control of the politically sensitive case. Trump called it “disgraceful” that the judge, an appointee of President Barack Obama, has been assigned several civil cases of interest to the White House in recent weeks. In addition to the Signal case, Boasberg is presiding over the case involving Trump’s efforts to swiftly deport people using the Alien Enemies Act. “Boasberg … seems to be grabbing the ‘Trump Cases’ all to himself,” Trump wrote. ”Is there still such a thing as the ‘wheel,’ where the Judges are chosen fairly, and at random?” Boasberg said obliquely he’d “come to understand that some questions have been raised” about how the court assigns cases. He said that in almost all instances cases are assigned randomly, in various categories, “to assure a more even distribution of cases” for the 15 active judges who serve on the court. Clerks use an electronic deck of cards in each of the various categories to determine which judge gets a newly filed case. “That’s how it works and that’s how all cases have continued to be assigned in this court,” said Boasberg, who has served as chief judge of the court since 2023. There has been a flood of litigation related to actions taken by the administration and Trump himself since he took office in January. More than 70 of the notable cases have been filed in D.C. federal court, and nearly all of that court’s judges now have one or more of the Trump-related cases. Trump and his allies have been in the midst of a public campaign of attacks against Boasberg, calling for his impeachment over his recent decision — which the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals left in place Wednesday — barring the administration from carrying out deportations under Trump’s assertion of war powers. In that case, Justice Department lawyers have argued the government was not bound by an oral order that he issued, only a follow-up docket entry. Boasberg appeared to allude to that Thursday as he assured Richer she didn’t need to jot down every word of what he said about his order regarding the Signal messages. “Don’t worry, it’ll be in writing,” the judge said.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission and South Korea agreed a digital trade deal on Monday that will slot into their existing free-trade agreement, with EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič calling it “nothing short of a major milestone.” The deal amounts to a vote of confidence from Seoul in how the EU regulates tech and e-commerce, and comes as U.S. President Donald Trump appears likely to launch a trade war on Brussels. One target that Trump’s political allies and U.S. Big Tech have in their sights is the bloc’s digital rulebook, which they view as an unfair market barrier. “Politically, it’s an important signal,” a Commission source said ahead of the announcement, referring to the EU’s push to diversify its foreign trade as the $1.7 trillion transatlantic commercial relationship with America deteriorates. “There might be more like-minded countries for the EU to work with than you would have thought,” added the source, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. The EU has racked up accords in recent months, including with the Mercosur bloc of South American countries and with Mexico — and wants to do a free-trade deal with India this year. Šefčovič announced the agreement in Brussels after meeting with Korean Trade Minister Cheong In-kyo. In comments to reporters, he emphasized the importance of the digital deal as efforts to head off a transatlantic trade escalation stall. Although the European Union’s “doors are open,” the United States “does not seem to be engaging to make a deal” to avoid a tariff war ahead of the planned reimposition of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum on Wednesday. “We jointly identified the few areas that would allow us to move forward by fostering a mutual benefit. But in the end, one hand cannot clap,” Šefčovič said. The trade commissioner also placed a call with his Thai counterpart on Monday, ahead of a round of negotiations on a trade deal later this month. And he namechecked ongoing talks with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and partners in the Middle East to deepen commercial ties. DIGITAL DEALINGS Digital trade deals cover data flows, security around personal data, and business-enabling technologies such as digital contracts. In the Commission’s words, the Korean deal will “build consumer trust; ensure predictability and legal certainty for businesses, as well as trusted data flows; while removing and preventing the emergence of unjustified barriers to digital trade.” President Yoon Suk-yeol was impeached in December and arrested in January after controversially declaring martial law last year. | Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images It’s significant in light of the political crisis in South Korea. President Yoon Suk-yeol was impeached in December and arrested in January after controversially declaring martial law last year. Yoon awaits judgment after a court completed hearings last month. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was seen as attempting to obstruct Yoon’s impeachment, was impeached himself, leaving Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok in charge of the presidency and the prime minister’s office. Šefčovič and Cheong met in Brussels on Monday for the annual EU-Korea Trade Committee that oversees implementation of the broader trade agreement, which dates back to 2011. The two sides began discussing the deal in the fall of 2023, right after the EU announced it had reached such an agreement with Japan. Digital issues were not included in the trade negotiations with Japan and Korea because the EU at the time was working on its landmark GDPR privacy legislation. Šefčovič also said the EU wants to close a similar deal with Singapore in the next few months. The EU has already made similar data rules part of agreements with trade partners such as New Zealand and the U.K. This story has been updated.

LONDON — Nigel Farage said Thursday that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “not a dictator,” in a sign of disagreement with his close ally Donald Trump. The U.S. president said Wednesday that Ukrainian leader Zelenskyy was a “dictator without elections” who duped the U.S. into supporting Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale military invasion. Asked about Trump’s comments, right-wing Reform UK leader Farage stressed Zelenskyy was democratically elected — but should go to the polls soon. “Let’s be clear, Zelenskyy is not a dictator but it’s only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections,” Farage told conservative channel GB News. Farage spoke from Washington, D.C., where he’ll be talking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which runs until Saturday. Pressed on Trump’s remarks, Farage said: “You should always take everything Donald Trump says seriously. You shouldn’t always take things that Donald Trump says absolutely literally.” He citied the “bad blood” between Trump and Ukraine over the U.S. president’s first impeachment in late 2019. The House of Representatives impeached Trump for allegedly withholding U.S. military aid from Ukraine to pressure its leaders to investigate his Democratic rivals, including Joe Biden who ultimately won the 2020 U.S. election. The Senate eventually acquitted Trump. Farage did not break entirely with Trump, noting that the U.K. held the 1945 general election during World War II as Britain was still at war with Japan: “No bombs had been dropped. The nuclear bomb had not been dropped. There were British soldiers dying in large numbers every single day in Japanese camps.” He added: “I’m not suggesting Ukraine has an election tomorrow, but once we see the shape of a peace deal, then of course, there should be an election.” The Reform UK leader has taken a skeptical approach to Britain’s Tory and then Labour governments backing Ukraine for as long as it took to beat Russia. He has argued the war needs “concessions on both sides,” dismissed the idea of Ukraine winning the conflict as “for the birds” and questioned Britain’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire its long-range missiles inside Russia.  However, Farage — who won election to the U.K. parliament last July for the first time — said  Ukraine should be allowed to join NATO, putting him at odds with Trump.

Kyiv’s backers reacted with shock and outrage to U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he had spoken with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and would “start negotiations immediately” with him about the Ukraine war. U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, a long-time Trump critic who was the lead prosecutor in the Republican’s first impeachment trial, called the president “a great dealmaker all right — for the Kremlin.” “Today, President Trump called our enemy, Russia, before calling our ally, Ukraine,” Schiff said on social media. “Meanwhile, his Secretary of Defense, ruled out a future for Ukraine in NATO and a restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over its own lands. Let’s not mince words about what this represents: a surrender of Ukraine’s interests and our own, even before negotiations begin.” Trump said he expects to see Putin in Saudi Arabia in the “not too distant future” for their first meeting since his inauguration last month. The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas released a late-night statement on behalf of the Weimar + group of nations, which includes France, Poland, Germany, Spain, Italy and the U.K., reacting to Trump’s pronouncements. “Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity are unconditional” as peace talks begin, the statement posted by Kallas said. “Our priority must now be strengthening Ukraine and providing robust security guarantees.” Marko Mihkelson, chair of the Estonian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, cautioned: “Today might go down in history as a dark day for Europe,” adding that it’s time for European leaders to “take our fate into our own hands.” The pushback came after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Ukraine to give up hopes of recapturing all the territory occupied by Russia, labeling a return to its pre-2014 borders an “illusory goal.” Trump reiterated Hegseth’s remarks Wednesday, telling reporters in the White House that Kyiv getting all its land back was “unlikely.” But he did add: “Some of it will come back. I think some of it will come back, yeah.” Former British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly hit out at Trump’s negotiation strategy. “Starting a negotiation by setting out what one side should give up is not a strong move,” the MP said. “Giving the impression that invasion pays off is not a strong move. Regimes are watching closely.” For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put on a brave face about his conversations with both Trump and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who visited Kyiv to discuss a Ukraine-U.S. economic partnership Wednesday. “Together with the U.S., we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done,” Zelenskyy said, adding that the two leaders agreed to remain in contact and plan future meetings. But later in the day, Trump declined to say whether Kyiv should have an equal role in the peace process. “It’s an interesting question,” he told a reporter. “I think they [Ukraine] have to make peace. That was not a good war to go into.” His remarks triggered criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, with Kyiv’s backers slamming the U.S. president for seemingly blaming Ukraine for Russia’s full-scale invasion of its territory. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called for “a just peace” and for Ukraine and Europe to be at the table with the U.S. for any negotiations. “All we need is peace. A JUST PEACE. Ukraine, Europe and the United States should work on this together. TOGETHER,” he wrote. Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur called Ukraine the “scrimmage line for Liberty on the continent of Europe” and said Zelenskyy “must lead any negotiations on behalf of his nation.” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, whose Viktor Orbán-led government has long been friendly with the Kremlin, was more positive about Trump’s call with Putin. “We have lived in the shadow of war for three years, and for three years we have hoped that the war would end,” he wrote on social media. “Today, with the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, we have come a big step closer to fulfilling that hope.” Canadian Liberal candidate for prime minister and long-time Russia-watcher Chrystia Freeland, said Ottawa “stands steadfast with Ukraine.” “It is in the interest of all democracies to support them,” she said on social media. “Ukraine must become a full NATO member.”

Government employees who report possible malfeasance are almost certain to be targeted by the second Trump administration. Mark Zaid is a lawyer likely to represent some of them; over the past two decades, he has provided legal counsel to a long list of federal employees and intelligence officers, including whistleblowers. His most high-profile whistleblower case, however, was that of the intelligence officer who reported to an inspector general that then-President Donald Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to find political dirt on his presidential rival. While dangling military aid to Ukraine that Congress already had approved, Trump asked Zelenskyy to investigate the family of Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender to face Trump in 2020. This whistleblower’s 2019 report led to Trump’s first impeachment case. The case of that whistleblower—whose identity Zaid has never revealed publicly—was far from the first time a concerned citizen came forward with potentially damaging information about the government: In 2002, FBI special agent Coleen Rowley wrote a letter to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller alleging that the agency failed to properly investigate a terrorist later found to be connected to the September 11 attacks. Another whistleblower was military police officer Joseph Darby, who informed the Army Criminal Investigation Division of pictures showing US military personnel torturing inmates at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. These two early-2000s whistleblowers followed the proper channels by reporting their allegations to the relevant authorities. They were granted some professional and physical safety protections in exchange but still faced personal hardships. Future whistleblowers are likely to face far worse. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What has changed about whistleblowing since the first Trump administration? The Ukraine intelligence community whistleblower case was just like countless other cases that I had handled over the decades prior: A whistleblower came forward with reasonable concerns and handled the matter lawfully and properly within set procedures, and then we helped navigate that individual through the process to ensure that they were fully protected. What made that case so different was that it involved the president of the United States and that the president and his allies made it personal and ignored the norms and standards that were otherwise believed to exist. Is the risk of retribution even higher in Trump’s second term? The real discomfort is that the Supreme Court decision from the January 6 prosecution has effectively given him near or full immunity for any presidential- type action. So if he strips us of our security clearances, he’s protected. If he instructs his agencies not to take seriously anything that we as lawyers might do for our clients and retaliates against our clients, he’s protected. If he orders an IRS audit of those whistleblowers or his critics to see what falls out, he’s protected. It is such a broad mandate that he could hypothetically shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and potentially be legally protected if he does that as part of his presidential duties. Is there any recourse for people who are targeted? Suppose, on his first day of office, the president says: “Here’s a list of 150 individuals who I believe worked against me, and therefore, they are a threat to the national security of the United States. Their clearances are hereby revoked.” That is the end of the road. There’s no ability to legally challenge that in a viable way. The real defense for many federal employees or critics is going to be time and transparency. There may be some legal actions that we can bring if he issues his executive order about eliminating civil service protections. There will be lawsuits, and we may prevail in one or more. But it will probably be in the next administration, because four years is not a lot of time to litigate claims…I have had cases where Congress stepped in against the executive branch in national security cases to protect whistleblowers. But for that to happen, all the stars have to align, and it’s got to be the party in the majority, not the minority. Who do you think Trump will target? Presumably, those who will be prioritized are the ones who he most frequently rails against: General Mark Milley or special prosecutor Jack Smith. Strangely enough, nobody’s ever heard Jack Smith say anything. But every filing has his name on it, so he gets targeted. I’m not very concerned about anyone who engaged in activities as a member of Congress, whether past or present, because I have my doubts that—other than a small number of extremist MAGA devotees— Republican members of Congress would support it. And journalists could be implicated, too, right?  I fully expect it. There is no journalistic privilege when it comes to classified information, or what we call national defense information in the Espionage Act; disclosure of it, dissemination, printing, or publishing that information puts any journalist and their media outlet on the chopping block for prosecution. The only thing that has stopped that from occurring over the course of a century has been public policy, practice, and norms—none of which will presumably exist in the second Trump administration. I can easily see, in an effort to prosecute those who caused a leak, that journalists’ phones are tapped, that journalists are surveilled physically, that their emails are confiscated—all done through judicially issued warrants. What protections is a whistleblower supposed to have? If they go through the inspector general’s office, their identity is to be protected. My colleague took the Ukraine whistleblower to the inspector general’s office and formally filed a protected disclosure that legally guaranteed the inspector general was not allowed to reveal the identity of the individual. During the impeachment trial in the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) submitted questions that had the name of an individual who he believed was the whistleblower, and they were the only questions that the chief justice refused to read aloud and discarded. There was nothing legally requiring him to do that, but it was a recognition by the chief justice of the need to protect the identities of whistleblowers, especially when they pursue their pathway through proper and lawful channels. We learned later that the White House was intentionally leaking the name of who they believed the whistleblower was through numerous media outlets. And the media outlets, to their credit, refused to publish it. But the White House knew who the whistleblower was, and they absolutely were pushing the name. Even then, they were at least doing it behind the scenes quietly, and the system still worked. In a second Trump administration, I have little doubt that Donald Trump, at the podium among others in his administration, would simply say the name. That’s a great segue to my next question, which is, what could happen to someone if they were identified as a whistleblower, rightly or wrongly? Obviously, they could be subject to administrative repercussions. But of greater concern are the physical threats of violence and harassment from nongovernmental personnel who believe they would be vindicating and supporting the president of the United States by taking action against a perceived traitor. I had armed protection for two months, bodyguards who were living with me 24/7, because of death threats as the lawyer for the whistleblower. And I knew whenever the threats would increase what had happened, and it was usually people like Rush Limbaugh, [Sean] Hannity, Laura Ingraham, or [Tucker] Carlson saying my name. Have people started getting on your books as a preventative measure? I wouldn’t say a large number, but certainly, there have been individuals who work within the federal government who have contacted me in anticipation of prospective retaliation. What else can concerned government employees do?   Don’t do anything on your government computers or government phones. You have to be careful about printing anything on government computers. You have to be careful who you talk to. We literally are back in the days of the Red Scare, where you have to be concerned about who overhears you in the hallway, as to whether you’re a team player or not. That at least is the anticipation of what it might become like. As an expert, what are you doing in this space to prepare? There are several groups that I am in conversation with who were created for the purpose of defending against where the second Trump administration crosses the line. I’m doing so informally, in the sense of compiling a list of lawyers, accountants, psychologists, and psychiatrists who are willing to provide pro bono representation to those who are targeted. I’m also still doing work with my nonprofit, Whistleblower Aid. We provide free legal representation to whistleblowers, both in the private and public sectors, and have been doing so for nearly a decade. I really want to emphasize that this is more about addressing violations of established norms and policies and subversion of the rule of law, rather than creating entities to combat the Trump administration. I’m not a partisan—regardless of what the MAGA folks think or the [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] supporters think. What will retribution look like? I expect a lot of the repercussions inside the administration to be employment terminations. It could be more aggressive prosecutions, but I am not going so far as to expect that. You may have, pun intended, trumped-up charges and things like that. Or people in the dead of night taken to be interrogated. Can we get there? It is a slippery slope.  When I was in college 40-plus years ago, I did a paper on Germany, and I never understood how such a civilized cultural environment fell so quickly into what the 1930s and ’40s became. I didn’t understand that until I watched the MAGA movement.

Four years ago, after thousands of people were incited by losing presidential candidate Donald Trump to storm the US Capitol and try to prevent Joe Biden from taking office, the FBI began one of its largest criminal investigations ever. Those efforts remain ongoing but may soon largely be undone by Trump, using the clemency powers of the presidency. National security and law enforcement sources say that could have dangerous consequences. Based on prolific video footage, digital communications, and other evidence from January 6, 2021, almost 1,600 people have been charged with federal crimes. More than 1,250 have either pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial, roughly a third of whom were prosecuted for violence or rioting. According to the Department of Justice, nearly 600 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, which continues to result in convictions and guilty pleas. The DOJ successfully prosecuted 14 people for seditious conspiracy from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, pro-Trump extremist groups whose members planned extensively for violence on January 6. Oath Keepers from multiple states brought an arsenal of guns and ammunition. Trump asserted throughout his 2024 campaign that he would issue sweeping pardons for Jan. 6 convicts. Despite multiple deaths and the widespread injury and property damage at the Capitol, Trump has brazenly tried to rewrite history ever since, declaring that January 6 was an unarmed “love fest” and depicting the perpetrators as “patriots” and “hostages” who have been persecuted. > “They will have a narrative of martyrdom, and that’s a really good way to > rebuild right-wing terrorist organizations.” On NBC’s Meet the Press in early December, Trump confirmed that he will “most likely” carry out the pardons when he retakes office. He mentioned possibly making exceptions for “people from antifa”—referring to the antifascist ideology that the FBI determined played no role in the attack—and talked up other debunked conspiracy theories. In an interview with Time published on Dec. 12, he appeared to narrow the scope to “nonviolent” convicts—yet he maintained that violent offenders could also be cleared on a “case by case” basis and reiterated that a “vast majority” of Jan. 6 convicts should be pardoned, a process he vowed to begin in his first hour as president. Legal absolution for Trump’s criminal supporters who tried to subvert the electoral system could have grim consequences, according to national security and law enforcement sources I spoke with. Violent far-right groups who backed Trump will be emboldened, says Juliette Kayyem, a former senior DHS official in the Obama administration who directs the Homeland Security Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “They will have a narrative of martyrdom, and that’s a really good way to rebuild right-wing terrorist organizations,” she says. “They’ll see it as a win and it will help them recruit people and raise money.” (Notably, as Trump and his allies campaigned nonstop through the fall on phony claims of imminent election fraud, members of the Proud Boys were again preparing for potential violence in support of Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported.) The looming Jan. 6 pardons are part of a broader picture that includes loyalty tests for Trump’s incoming administration and talk of retribution against his political “enemies,” as he seeks to install highly provocative loyalists atop the FBI and Justice Department. These and other moves build on Trump’s perpetual denial that he lost the 2020 election and serve to distract from the large body of evidence that led DOJ special counsel Jack Smith to charge Trump himself with serious crimes relating to the 2020 election and US national security. “He wants to erase his election loss and what really happened on January 6,” Kayyem says, warning that Trump may also be setting the stage for white supremacist violence to grow, as it did during his first term in office. “What I worry about isn’t just the nurturing from the Trump White House that says, ‘Yes, this kind of behavior is OK,’ but also the lack of prosecutions of these kinds of behaviors going forward.” The politics of grievance and a heightened threat environment could also have a cost for federal law enforcement and those they protect on Capitol Hill. US Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger told a Senate committee in mid December that members of Congress continue to face record levels of threats. “We are on pace again this year to receive approximately 8,000 to 9,000 threat assessment cases,” Manger testified, detailing a “crushing” amount of work for the agents involved: “They carry an average annual caseload of nearly 500 cases.” According to a source familiar with Capitol Police operations, an era of politicizing security “on both sides of the aisle” has been demoralizing among the ranks—but foremost in how Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have helped him make truth a casualty of January 6. “You’ve got some members you’re protecting who are minimizing or outright lying about the event itself,” the source told me, a posture that is all the more galling with resources stretched thin: “Then some of those same folks will be outraged if they don’t get the security they want.” Even if American politics is moving on after Trump’s 2024 victory, law enforcement officers who lived through January 6 are still coping with the psychological and physical wounds, the source added. That includes debilitating cases of PTSD, permanent disfigurement from chemical sprays wielded by rioters, and other lasting trauma. At least four officers who responded to the Jan. 6 attack subsequently took their own lives. > A senior US law enforcement official told me Republican lawmakers have made > comments privately that reject Trump’s false narrative of January 6—but won’t > do so publicly. Photos of more than 90 suspected rioters wanted by the FBI remain posted on the bureau’s Capitol Violence page. And dozens of Jan. 6 criminal investigations remain open, including for violence against police, confirmed a senior US law enforcement official who is familiar with the cases. That law enforcement official, long based in Washington, told me that several Republican lawmakers have made comments privately in recent months rejecting Trump’s false narrative of January 6—but won’t do so publicly. One lawmaker, the law enforcement official told me, admitted that this was for fear of political retribution as well as for the safety of his family. Critics of Trump in his own party often have been targeted by Trump and face violent threats as a result. It is unclear to what degree the ongoing Jan. 6 investigations will be diminished or shut down when Trump takes control of the Justice Department and appoints a new FBI director to replace Christopher Wray, who announced this month that he will step down when Biden’s term ends. Trump has seethed at Wray ever since the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 to retrieve highly classified documents that the former president refused to return to the federal government. Smith went on to indict Trump for multiple crimes, including obstruction and violation of the Espionage Act. Trump’s response has always been to declare that the leadership of the FBI and DOJ are corrupt and out to get him—baseless claims he is now using to demolish a 10-year term for FBI directors put in place by Congress after Watergate to safeguard against partisan abuse of vast law enforcement powers. Trump’s replacement pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, has made clear that such partisan abuse would be core to his mission. Trump has also been shoring up his false narrative about the 2020 election and its aftermath by continuing to threaten members of the bipartisan House select committee that investigated January 6. He reiterated on Meet the Press that Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming should be prosecuted. “For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump inveighed. (On Tuesday, House Republicans published an investigative report clearly aimed at supporting Trump’s narrative; thin on evidence and heavy with insinuations, the report targets Cheney and Thompson, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a key witness for the Jan. 6 select committee, Cassidy Hutchinson.) Democratic committee member Zoe Lofgren of California responded that Trump’s attack on the bipartisan committee’s work is “unconstitutional, dangerous, and should be laughed at by any legitimate lawyer.” She said in her statement that the committee “followed the facts and provided the American people with the truth—and while that may be an inconvenient truth for Donald Trump, it is an honest depiction of what happened. He is lying when he says otherwise.”  Lofgren further noted that the American public can view the committee’s full report and investigative evidence as well as the Justice Department’s case files on the multitude of crimes committed by Trump supporters at the Capitol on January 6.  With Trump’s return to power, though, many of those offenders are likely to be absolved, and the public’s memory of how Trump motivated them to do what they did could begin to fade away.