Fearing Justice: Rubio Gets Bolshie About the International Criminal Court (ICC)
15 July 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/fearing-justice-rubio-gets-bolshie-about-the-icc/
Why are they so afraid? The Trump administration, pathologically obsessed about the exaggerated reach of the International Criminal Court, have decided to take to the barricades. In a July 13 media note released by a spokesperson for the US State Department, something akin to a declaration of war was made against the Hague-based tribunal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was getting bolshie about it, announcing “a sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by [the court] to US sovereignty.” The effort promises to “feature a whole-of-government response to systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”
The late Henry Kissinger, who argued most stridently against the establishment of such a criminal court, would no doubt have approved. He, more than most, would have feared some eventual accounting for his own egregious crimes against international humanitarian law while serving the White House.
The alarmist tone of the announcement is palpable. The ICC was seeking “to become an unaccountable global arbiter – positioning itself above and beyond the nation state as a supranational enforcement arm of a globalist bureaucracy empowered to prosecute American servicemen and officials at will.” (This has a whiff of familiarity to it, given that the Department of Justice under Trump’s steering hand has been prosecuting, at will, individuals perceived to have wronged him in the past.)
The media release is filled with careless distortions and ugly inaccuracies, not least in the sovereignty it purports to understand and defend. The ICC, for instance, “claims authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest.” The body claims no explicit power to do so, given that jurisdiction is only exercisable over State Parties. The United States, in company with such states as Russia, China, India and Israel, have not appended their signatures to the Rome Statute.
It follows that no such threat is credible except in instances when the service personnel of such countries conduct war on the territory of a State Party. For that reason, arrest warrants have been issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyanu, his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Even then, enforcing such warrants, as the record shows, remains patchy and vulnerable to the political and legal interpretations offered by member states.
US military personnel have, similarly, caught the eye of the ICC in 2020 for its activities in Afghanistan, though the subsequent investigation also focused on alleged crimes committed by the Taliban and Afghan government it replaced. It took only a year for the ICC to essentially abandon the American aspect of the investigation and focus, instead, on the alleged transgressions of the Taliban and the former Afghan government.
Rubio’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal is also cratered with an embarrassing inability to understand the role of a tribunal that has the support, however imperfect, of 125 member states. He regards the judges as hailing from “random countries”; the court and its allies as determined to seek “near-unlimited reach, empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the US and other sovereign states – and to prosecute and arrest our citizens.”
Failing to mention the shift in focus of the 2020 investigation into alleged infractions against international law in Afghanistan, he took grave exception to the remarks of the chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, that American authorities had been tardy in conducting their own prosecutions. “In effect,” snorts Rubio, “Ms Bensouda was anointing herself the final judge of US military policy and the entire US justice system.” Hardly.
A somewhat hysterical note is struck in Rubio’s assessment of the court’s supporters. Like a sinister fifth column of operatives, the tribunal “is backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity towards the US.” For the most part, the Secretary tries to make good the image of the American republic as a bullying, thuggish nation state indifferent to the strictures of law.
He cannot understand the fuss made about the extrajudicial murders of alleged “narcoterrorists” in Latin America and the Caribbean, the shoddy practices of the administration in deporting “violent criminals to El Salvador,” or that organisations might wish that “apparent war crimes” committed against Iran by the US might be investigated. “Independence is our birthright,” he pompously asserts. “We don’t intend to trade it for rule by a self-appointed priesthood of ‘international law.’” It was therefore incumbent that Washington work along with allies to “dismantle the ICC – brick by brick, if necessary.”
This dismantling effort seems hyperbolic. The Trump administration has already sought to blunt the court’s functions and hound its officials. Even before Rubio’s announcement, the administration has been aggressively seeking to stem the reach of the court and the effectiveness of its officials. On February 6, 2025, for instance, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14203, allowing the sanctioning of any person or organisation engaged in any efforts of the ICC “to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality.”
Protected persons include, among others, current and former members of the US Armed Forces; current or former elected or appointed officials of US government; and any other person currently or formerly employed or working on behalf of the US government. The personnel of US allies also fall within the definition.
The sanctions listed in the order included the blocking of property and assets within the United States “as well as the suspension of entry into the United States of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members, as their entry into our Nation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan was the first to be designated as a sanctioned individual, though the list would swell to include members of the judiciary, including Second Vice-President Reine Alapini-Gansou from Benin, Uganda’s Solomy Balungi Bossa, Peru’s Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza and Slovenia’s Beti Hohler.
The Open Society Justice Initiative accurately notes the effect of such sanctions, being “tantamount to a financial death penalty.” These entail the freezing of US assets in bank accounts, a denial of access to credit cards, relevant online platforms, banking services and health insurance, and the inability to attend speaking engagements in the US. Three of the sitting judges – Bossa, Alapini-Gansou and Canada’s Kimberly Prost are seeking declaratory and injunctive relieve against Executive Order 14203 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The State Department media note suggests more of the same, flavoured with a villainous menace. The entire US government diplomatic corps is to become a public relations arm “highlighting the abuses of the ICC and the risks posed to Americans” and urging member states to withdraw from the Rome Statute. Nations with partnering arrangements with American law enforcement and the military, and those enjoying “the benefits of the US security umbrella” will also be pressed “to reject the ICC’s purported authority to prosecute American officials and servicemen.”
States refusing to reject the authority of the ICC while still relying on American assistance would be subjected to greater scrutiny, while countries not a party to the Rome Statute would be encouraged to “leverage their diplomatic networks to take similar actions alongside us.” ICC personnel would be subjected to continued visa revocations and travel bans, while the tribunal and “affiliated organizations” will be subjected to further sanctions. It will be a time for war criminals and offenders of international law to rejoice.
All institutions, supposedly underpinned by protocols and principles, are at the mercy of Trump’s broad reading of executive power, one fickle and petulant. His office has also become a source of obscene self-enrichment, inuring this administration to giddying levels of corruption. “I’ve made money, I’ve made a tremendous amount of money, more than I would have ever thought I would have made,” he boasts. For a person who relishes breaching laws and flouting regulations, it is little wonder he, along with his insufferable cronies, have such an animus against a world court that, for all its faults and blemishes, remains a worthy project in international law and human rights.
Plaintiffs Demand Release of Critical Documents and Extension of Public Comment Period on Expanded Plutonium Bomb Core Production
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, South Carolina Environmental Law Project, July 6, 2026
Georgetown, SC — Today the South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) notified the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), that it must publicly release three critical documents. At issue is the fact that NNSA is withholding important information from American taxpayers during a public comment period for a Pit Production Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).[1] The public comment period ends this July 16 (ironically the 81st anniversary of the Trinity Test of the first plutonium pit).
Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive fissile cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. None of NNSA’s future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt the U.S. to return to testing and accelerate the new arms race.
SCELP, representing the nonprofit organizations Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, sued NNSA to force it to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. This resulted in a federal judge finding NNSA violated NEPA and the agency ultimately agreeing to complete a Pit Production PEIS. Now it appears that NNSA is cherry-picking information to support its aggressive agenda of expanded plutonium pit production and suppressing negative information that could work against it.
The three documents that SCELP is demanding are:
- A new plutonium pit life study by independent scientists known as the JASONs. NNSA claims that potential aging effects drive the need for the immediate production of new pits, thereby ruling out the alternative of reusing some 15,000 existing pits. In contrast, a 2006 JASON pit life study concluded that most pit types have reliable lives of more than 100 years and those that don’t have relatively easy fixes[2] (the average pit age is now ~43). We believe that NNSA has been withholding an unclassified summary of the new JASON pit life study since the end of 2025. NNSA has not released it despite requests by Members of Congress and public Freedom of Information Act requests.
- A Department of Energy “Special Study” on NNSA leadership and management of its troubled plutonium pit production program, scheduled for completion in December 2025.[3] That Study is expected to be critical of the new pit production plant at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, which will be the most expensive building in US history ($30 billion-plus). DOE has not released this Special Study despite requests by Members of Congress and public Freedom of Information Act requests.
- A new “Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis” (PSHA) for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that is nearly a decade overdue.[4] A 2007 LANL seismic analysis prompted badly needed seismic upgrades to the Lab’s plutonium pit production facility. NNSA’s April 2026 draft Pit Production PEIS stated that the new PSHA would be completed in early 2026,[5] yet it is still not available for public comment.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://nukewatch.org/press-release-item/plaintiffs-demand-release-of-critical-documents-and-extension-of-public-comment-period-on-expanded-plutonium-bomb-core-production/
White Flag Judgments: Palestine Action, Protest and the UK Courts
1 July 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/white-flag-judgments-palestine-action-protest-and-the-uk-courts/
The justice system of the United Kingdom, represented by stout cathedral structures and solemn rituals, tends to resemble a casino rather than a priestly haven of solemn judgment. It’s the justice of the punt, the throw of the dice, not the fairness of judicial deliberation, that prevails. That, at least, has been the prevailing view of Richard Ingrams, a co-founder of Britain’s rapier satirical publication Private Eye.
Since the decision by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to ban Palestine Action in 2025, some 3,000 people have been arrested for doing such unthreatening things as holding placards with the following words: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Over 700 of these, according to Human Rights Watch, “are pending in the courts of England and Wales, with many more at the recharges stage.” This, in a country where free speech is said to be a verdant forest, and the right to protest a sacred right.
In the middle of last month, the Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the High Court regarding the proscription of Palestine Action which had been made under section 3 and schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Palestine Action, described by their founders as “a direct-action protest group aimed at preventing military targets in the UK from facilitating gross abuses of international law,” had made its stock and trade targeting Israeli arms manufacturers such as Elbit Systems and businesses with links to the Israeli arms trade. The proscription followed the group’s break-in at RAF Brize Norton, where two aircraft were spray painted. In the proscribed list, which includes such violent luminaries as Boko Haram and Islamic State, Palestine Action is hysterically assessed as an entity that “prepares for terrorism” and “promotes and encourages terrorism.” Its attacks had included “targets affecting UK national security, and the impact on innocent members of the public.”
Co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, challenged the lawfulness of the proscription in the High Court in November 2025, claiming, along with the intervening parties Liberty and Amnesty International UK, that it had involved a disproportionate use of counter-terrorism powers. Initially, Ammori scored a resounding success, all the more remarkable given the persistent record of courts in Britain to side with the national security apparatus.
The Divisional Court held in February 2026 in R (Ammori)v Secretary of State for the Home Department that the Home Secretary’s approach on proscription had failed to follow her own long-standing proscription policy. These involved five factors intended to constrain the office holder’s discretion. The resort to “other factors” would have to be read with that constraining purpose in mind.
The Court also found that a fair balance between the rights of individuals to free speech (Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights) and freedom of assembly under Article 11 of the ECHR as against the national security and protection of the rights of others (Articles 10.2 and 11.2 of the ECHR) had not been struck. In applying the test of proportionality to the decision the Court held that “the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities, so far as they [comprised] acts of terrorism, [had] not yet reached the level, scale and persistence that would justify the application of the criminal law measures that are a consequence of proscription, and the very significant interference with Convention rights consequent on those measures.”
The government of Sir Keir “Human Rights” Starmer was never going to let things stand, nor should not be forgotten that the High Court decision was hardly brimming with praise for the actions of Palestine Action. The definition of terrorism in UK counter-terrorism legislation is intentionally outrageous in its broadness, encompassing causing or threatening “serious damage to property” that would suggest an intention to influence government policy and advance a political case. The High Court did, at least, note that the act of proscription was based on 385 actions committed over 5 years, of which only three were deemed “terrorist incidents.”
Back to the casino of justice the case went. On June 15, the Court of Appeal handed down its quashing judgment. The national security state could again rejoice at this grand exhibition of judicial abdication before the alleged, and unfounded wisdom, of executive power. The judges found, for instance, that the Home Secretary had, in fact, conducted a proper evaluation of the rights issue in considering the banning of Palestine Action. This analysis was shallow at best, given the Home Secretary’s continual insistence that neither Article 10 nor 11 off the ECHR applied in the case. Article 17 of the Convention – the prohibition of an abuse of rights – was what counted in her mind.
The Court of Appeal went so far as to admit that the rights of those holding placards opposing genocide and supporting the Palestinian cause “may be affected by proscription, because they may be dissuaded by it from exercising their lawful individual rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.” The Home Secretary had been wrong to assume that Article 10 and 11 rights were not engaged, or that no test of proportionality was required. The court even conceded that the ban was “highly controversial” and possibly even “borderline.” But in their own assessment on proportionality, the judges felt reluctant to challenge the vast, self-evident wisdom of the executive, given that the Home Secretary was “invested with the statutory and constitutional authority to make proscription decisions to protect the public where national security is at stake.” It was not for the court to “take over the function of the primary decision-maker, least of all in a case such as this.” Such proscription decisions were part of national security, an area that no UK judges would have thought inappropriate to scrutinise before the Human Rights Act 1998. (How mothballed can judges be?)
The logic of this abysmal abdication before power was guided by the views of Lord Robert Reed made in the UK Supreme Court decision of ABJ, which was decided in February this year: “Although a strict approach is generally taken to restrictions on political speech, the European Court has recognised that states must enjoy a wider margin of appreciation when countering terrorism.” In a rather conflating, muddled manner, Lord Reed thought judicial supervision, be it by UK courts applying the Human Rights Act or the European court applying the ECHR, had “to respect the institutional expertise and constitutional legitimacy underlying the judgment made by those authorities by according them a correspondingly wide margin of appreciation.” This is what surrender by the wigged classes looks like.
The Court of Appeal also decided to make much of the fact that Palestine Action had committed three deemed “terrorist incidents” over three years, a mere 0.78% of its list of actions. With disapproval, they noted the organisation had not “disowned or condemned” such actions. It was therefore “permissible for the Home Secretary (and, therefore, is permissible for us), in considering Palestine Action’s characteristics and activities, not just its activities classified as terrorist.” The rationale for this bumbling reasoning was that proscription was preventative: the Home Secretary had to “assess the risk of future acts of terrorism. All of an organisation’s activities, such as recruitment, fundraising, radicalisation and all terrorist and non-terrorist activities may be relevant to that assessment.”
Veering off into the feral undergrowth of the bizarre, the appeals court also considered the allegedly more sinister nature of the group, mangling the history of British protest along the way. Its activities had been “planned and undertaken secretly with the objective of avoiding detection.” Its members had not shown “sincerity by accepting” the imposed penalties. But most of all, “on a fair analysis, Palestine Action has little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or the anti-apartheid or Iraq War protest groups.”
With this sort of fair analysis, one rooted in a distorted reading of history, a horrendous refusal to consider a flawed, executive assessment of protest activities, and a general concession to an anti-democratic temper, the only thing left to do is exactly what the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, and previous anti-war activists did: break the law with courage and clog the prisons with effect.
Legal Profession Revolt Against The UK Judge Whose Job Is To Protect Israel’s Genocide
Proscription has led to thousands of people, most of them elderly and including upstanding members of British society – from magistrates and doctors to army veterans – facing convictions for “supporting terrorism” for holding up placards stating: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Judge Johnson so rigged the trial of anti-genocide activists that 1000s of legal professionals have urged him to step down from the sentencing hearing. But Johnson’s dirty work is not yet complete
SCHEERPOST, Jonathan Cook Substack, June 11, 2026
The trial of the Filton Four reaches its climax on Friday. Judge Jeremy Johnson will decide the sentences of four Palestine Action activists found guilty of criminal damage – after two juries refused to convict them of far more serious charges brought by the British government, via the Crown Prosecution Service.
Keir Starmer’s government failed to secure the convictions for aggravated burglary and violent disorder it so desperately needed. They would have helped retroactively justify its decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation – the first time in British history that a direct action group, which targets property, has been proscribed.
Starmer’s hostility towards Palestine Action is personal. It has been a massive thorn in his side during Israel’s near three-year genocide in Gaza.
From the outset, Starmer suggested that Israel had the “right” to withhold food, water and power from the 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza – a crime against humanity for which the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Starmer’s complicity in the genocide has only been underscored by Palestine Action, which has targeted Israeli factories operating in the UK run by Elbit Systems that supply Israel’s genocidal army with killer drones for use in Gaza.
The so-called Filton trial derives its name from an Elbit factory in the Filton neighbourhood of Bristol that Palestine Action targeted in August 2024. Efforts to destroy these Israeli drones came at a time when Starmer was under enormous popular – if little political – pressure to end British arms sales to Israel.
PR crisis
Proscription, however, has not worked out well for Starmer. It has entangled him in a self-inflicted public relations crisis of almighty proportions.
Palestine Action activists have been held in remand without trial for an unprecedented period of time, far in excess of the normal maximums, and in especially harsh conditions that have treated them as if they were terrorism suspects, even though their arrests long precede the group’s proscription last year.
These sustained abuses led to a prolonged hunger strike, and a desperate government and media campaign to justify their mistreatment.
Proscription has led to thousands of people, most of them elderly and including upstanding members of British society – from magistrates and doctors to army veterans – facing convictions for “supporting terrorism” for holding up placards stating: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
This popular backlash cornered the High Court into declaring the proscription unlawful – a decision the government is appealing. That has led to another unprecedented situation: police are still arresting people for holding the placards, despite the courts ruling that the basis for such arrests is unlawful.
The law has never looked more of an ass………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Rigged trials
Judge Johnson has done precisely nothing to counter the overwhelming impression that the Filton activists’ prosecutions were entirely political. He quite openly rigged both trials in manifold ways, as former British ambassador Craig Murray has set out………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Gagging order
But even with the convictions for criminal damage secured under these rigged conditions, Judge Johnson is still in a position to cause more harm to the rule of law. He is due to sentence the Filton Four on Friday……………………………………………………………………………………..
Remember, all this is happening as Starmer’s government makes unprecedented moves to end many jury trials in Britain, leaving us to the mercy of judges like Jeremy Johnson……………………………………………………………………………..
If this is all starting to look like theatre, that is because it is. In dictatorships, these are called show trials. Everyone understands that the outcome is predetermined. Everyone understands that justice is non-existent. The verdict is entirely political. It is a faux-legal rationalisation of what the security state wants.
Judge Johnson is the perfect judge to play that part…………………….https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/11/legal-profession-revolt-against-the-uk-judge-whose-job-is-to-protect-israels-genocide/
Why Trump should be indicted
The details of the 2016 agreement that the Obama Administration and European allies made with Iran show why President Donald Trump should be indicted for the war crime of waging an aggressive war.
That agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the nuclear-armed US, UK, France, China, and Russia, and Germany and Iran, which Iran abided by for two years until Trump tore it up, made it impossible for Iran to make a nuclear bomb.
Last week, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent denied that the Obama-era agreement ever happened.
“This administration, President Trump, has done something that no other administration was able to do,” he said. “We have gotten the Iranians to talk about their nuclear program and perhaps commit to not having one. That has never happened before. It had been off the table.”
This is utterly untrue. Obama not only got Iranians to talk about their nuclear program but to agree to detailed restrictions on uranium and plutonium enrichment with verifiable inspections that would make construction of a bomb impossible.
In January 2016, under the headline, “The Historic Deal that Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon”, the White House stated: “On January 16, 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran has completed the necessary steps under the Iran deal that will ensure Iran’s nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful.”
This is the verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency – the independent international body that has been doing nuclear verification since 1957.
Trump and his Cabinet toadies are in complete denial that it ever happened.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “Only one president was willing to lay it out on the line and ensure after 47 years that Iran is not capable of having a nuclear weapon.”
Again, not true.
There are a couple of reasons for the denial. One, they work on the basis that anything Obama did must be bad or if good, deny it happened. And, secondly, that if in the past the US had the security of a nuclear-bomb-incapable Iran it would not be possible to argue that Trump’s 2026 attack on Iran was justified as self-defence.
There are only two legally valid reasons to go to war: self-defence and UN authorisation. Trump’s attack on Iran met neither of the criteria. It was the criminal waging of an aggressive war, and he is responsible for all the death and destruction that followed. The International Criminal Court should start an investigation into Trump.
This does not excuse the violence, aggression, and human-rights breaches by the Iranian regime. But they in turn do not excuse illegal Trump’s and the US conduct either.
Iranian scepticism of US bona fides is, however, justified, given US engineering of the 1953 coup against a democratic Iranian Government; the US arming and empowerment of the Shah of Iran’s 26-year brutal repression, torture and murder; the US’s unapologetic 1988 shooting down of Iran Flight 655 killing 290 innocent people; and the US’s reneging on the 2016 nuclear agreement after Iran had verifiably abided by it for two years.
Yes, international law is difficult or near impossible to enforce, but if both sides in any international conflict resort to right-is-might the consequence is always unnecessary death and destruction. More importantly, if a great number of nations adhere to international law, it isolates and pressures those countries and their leaders who do not. With economic and physical consequences.
At least, European and other democratic allies realised Trump’s Iran illegality and refused to take part. Once burned by US President George W Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, twice shy. At least Bush tried to get UN sanction for his invasion. Not Trump.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..And the lessons for Australia? Stick to the rule of law and keep appropriate distance from the US. And the lessons for Australian voters, who on current polls seem set to give One Nation more votes than any other party? Pay attention. Look at history.
Look at Hanson cosying up to Trump and their similarities – joining forces with billionaires; accepting gifts of aircraft in questionable circumstances; and more.
British voters surely wouldn’t vote to leave the EU and trash their economy? US voters surely would not vote for Trump – twice – likely handing over world economic and political leadership to China?
Australians surely would not vote to put One Nation’s Pauline Hanson in the Prime Minister’s Lodge with who knows what consequences.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.crispinhull.com.au/2026/06/01/why-trump-should-be-indicted/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=crispin-hull-column
Species at risk score a reprieve
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/05/31/species-at-risk-score-a-reprieve/
Canadian court sends radioactive waste dump plan back to the drawing board in a win for wildlife and the Kebaowek First Nation and others who protect them
News from Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada Kebaowek First Nation, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada Foundation.
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada, Kebaowek First Nation, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada Foundation welcome a significant victory following the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal to dismiss Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) appeal regarding the Species at Risk Act permit issued for the proposed Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River.
The Court upheld the Federal Court’s earlier ruling and ordered Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to reconsider its decision to grant the permit.
The permit would have authorized CNL to destroy endangered species and their habitats in order to construct a massive radioactive waste disposal facility less than 1.1 kilometres from the Ottawa River (Kichi Sibi), a watershed that provides drinking water to millions of Canadians.
In its decision, the Federal Court of Appeal concluded that ECCC failed to adequately explain how it determined that all reasonable alternatives had been considered and that the best solution had been selected, as required under the Species at Risk Act.
The Court emphasized that the Minister’s reasons lacked sufficient transparency, intelligibility, and justification, and directed ECCC to conduct a new determination.
The Court also confirmed that the Federal Court’s interpretation of section 73 of the Species at Risk Act is not binding on ECCC and that the Minister must independently provide a clear and reasonable analysis when reconsidering the permit application.
Furthermore, the Court found that the public notice issued by ECCC failed to provide a meaningful explanation to Canadians about why endangered species would be harmed in support of the project.
The ruling represents another important legal milestone in the ongoing efforts to protect species at risk, uphold environmental laws, and ensure accountability in decision-making surrounding the proposed NSDF.
“The Federal Court of Appeal has confirmed that Environment Canada must go back and do its job properly. This decision reinforces what we have been saying from the beginning: decisions that threaten endangered species, sensitive ecosystems, and our sacred river must be based on a transparent, rigorous, and lawful process,” said Chief Lance Haymond of Kebaowek First Nation. “Kebaowek remains committed to protecting the Kichi Sibi, defending our responsibilities to future generations, the drinking water of millions of citizens of Quebec and Ontario, and ensuring that Indigenous rights and environmental protections are respected every step of the way.”
The area selected by CNL for the NSDF is home to numerous species protected under the Species at Risk Act, including the Blanding’s Turtle, Little Brown Bat, Northern Myotis, Tri-coloured Bat, Canada Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Whip-poor-will, Eastern Wolf, and Black Ash.
The proposed site consists of mature forests, wetlands, streams, and critical habitat that have remained largely undisturbed for decades. The organizations argue that CNL’s site selection process failed to adequately assess alternative locations that may have posed fewer risks to endangered species and their habitats. The Court’s decision now provides an opportunity for ECCC to conduct a more rigorous and transparent review of the evidence before making a new determination.
“This decision is an important victory for science, transparency, and common sense,” said Ole Hendrickson, spokesperson for Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area. “The Court recognized that the public deserves meaningful explanations when decisions are made that could result in the destruction of endangered species and their habitats. The ecological value of this site is extraordinary, and it deserves careful consideration before irreversible damage is permitted.”
“This ruling confirms that environmental protections under the Species at Risk Act cannot simply be treated as a procedural box to check,” said Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
“We will continue working to ensure that all reasonable alternatives are fully examined and that the protection of species at risk remains a central consideration. More generally, we will work to ensure that the principle of “justification” is enshrined in Canadian law, as recommended twice by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Edwards added.
“The Court’s decision reinforces a fundamental principle: Canadians have the right to understand why environmental harm is being authorized and whether less damaging alternatives exist,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, Executive Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation. “This case is about accountability, transparency, and ensuring that environmental laws are applied as Parliament intended. Sierra Club Canada Foundation remains committed to supporting efforts that protect biodiversity and uphold the public interest.”
This decision builds upon two important Federal Court rulings related to the proposed NSDF project. In March 2025, the Federal Court ruled that the Species at Risk Act permit issued for the project must be reconsidered because reasonable alternative locations were not properly assessed.
In a parallel case, the Federal Court also ruled in favour of Kebaowek First Nation regarding the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the duty to consult in the NSDF licensing process. That landmark decision is currently before the Federal Court of Appeal and is expected to help clarify how Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and UNDRIP should be applied in federal regulatory decision-making across Canada.
While the Court has returned the matter to ECCC for redetermination rather than permanently rejecting the permit, the organizations intend to actively participate in the reconsideration process. They will continue to present evidence demonstrating that alternative locations exist and that the proposed Chalk River site is not the best option for protecting species at risk and their habitats.
The organizations also note that CNL may seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, although leave applications are granted only in a small number of cases involving issues of national importance.
Kebaowek First Nation, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada Foundation remain united in their commitment to protecting the Ottawa River watershed, safeguarding endangered species, and ensuring that environmental decision- making respects both ecological integrity and Indigenous rights.
For more information on Kebaowek First Nation’s efforts to halt the NSDF project, visit Stop Nuclear Waste website. For more information on how to support Kebaowek First Nation’s legal efforts, visit Kebaowek First Nation – Raven Trust.
Anti-nuclear group take on Sellafield for the second time in legal row
The group is concerned over the safety of toads thought to frequent local lakes.
Floyd March, Energy Voice 27th May 2026
An anti-nuclear group has successfully raised £20,000 for legal fees to take on Sellafield and the Environment Agency (EA) for a second time.
The Lakes Against Nuclear Dump (LAND) group previously failed a High Court attempt for a judicial review into the EA decision to award Sellafield a licence to extract water from the decommissioning site in Lancashire.
After the failed attempt in 2025, the new funds will look to overturn the development of a new radioactive waste storage facility.
Its leader, Marriane Birkby, fears the construction of a tunnel underground as part of the work will lead to the discharge of contaminated water into the River Ehen and River Calder, respectively.
Sellafield plans to pump water taken from the construction site to on-site storage tanks for testing prior to being discharged directly into the sea.
It has no plans to discharge into either River Ehen or Calder.
Toads, Salmon and water leaks
Birkby had previously taken issue with the length of time taken for a judge to dismiss the group’s previous attempt for a review.
If an appeal is approved, the group will argue the EA failed to conduct due diligence in assessing wildlife concerns, mainly Atlantic salmon and natterjack toads.
Natterjack toads are a protected species and reportedly inhabit a location less than a km south west of the site. Atlantic salmon, also protected, have a migration route along the River Ehen.
The group will use law firm Leigh Day to set out the grounds of appeal to overturn the original quashing of the judicial review.
High Court Judge Karen Ridge previously ruled that an assessment of the River Ehen special area of conservation wasn’t necessary “because it was considered unnecessary” as the extraction of water “was not likely to have a significant effect.”…………………..
Sellafield labelled ‘most hazardous’ UK building
Sellafield has previously been under fire from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The agency had told the public accounts committee (PAC) in the House of Commons that Sellafield’s Magnox swarf storage silo (MSSS) was “the most hazardous building in the UK”.
The committee had noted there were “signs of improvement”. However, PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said Sellafield continued to present “intolerable risks”………………………………. https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/nuclear/598287/anti-nuclear-group-take-on-sellafield-for-the-second-time-in-legal-row/
Federal appeal court upholds First Nations victory to protect wildlife at planned nuclear waste site
The Globe and Mail, May 29, 2026, Marie Woolf, Ottawa, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-appeal-court-upholds-first-nations-protect-wildlife/
A small Quebec First Nation has won a landmark case in the Federal Court of Appeal over a failure to reduce risks to wildlife – including two types of bat and a yellow throated turtle – in planning the location of a nuclear waste storage site near the Ottawa River.
The Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld a decision last year by the Federal Court that ruled in favour of Kebaowek First Nation and local environment advocates.
The ruling may stall plans to build a storage mound at the Chalk River Laboratories site northwest of Ottawa, designed to hold up to one million cubic metres of radioactive low-level nuclear waste. It could also have implications for future legal challenges to building projects, which could threaten local wildlife.
Kebaowek First Nation and local environmentalists in March last year successfully challenged a 2024 decision by then-environment-minister Steven Guilbeault to issue a permit allowing a nuclear waste mound near the Ottawa river to be built, even though it could impact species at risk
The former environment minister issued the species-at-risk permit, allowing Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to press ahead with its plans for the waste site, in spite of potential harm to two types of bats and a turtle with a bright yellow throat.
The permit authorized incidental harm, harassment or killing of the threatened Blanding’s turtle, the endangered little brown bat and endangered Northern long-eared bat.
The Blanding’s turtle, which can live for 80 years in the wild, is known as the turtle “with a sun under its chin” in some Indigenous legends. Its population has been hit by habitat loss, invasive species and development.
The construction of the nuclear waste mound at Chalk River could lead to such turtles being killed on roads, while the habitat where the bats roost and raise their young could also be threatened, Kebaowek First Nation has warned. It fears the development would also harm black bears with dens there, and other wildlife including rare Eastern wolves.
Ole Hendrickson, conservation committee chair with the non-profit Sierra Club Canada Foundation, an environmental group that mounted the challenge alongside the First Nation, said the ruling “will have implications right across Canada, for other threatened habitat.”
“This should send a strong message to the federal government that placing environmental protection in last place after economic interest is not only unacceptable to Canadians, it will cause them trouble in the courts,” he said in a statement.
The Federal Court of Appeal decision comes amid tension over environmental protection, Indigenous rights and major federally backed projects.
On Wednesday, Mr. Guilbeault, a committed environmentalist, announced his resignation from federal politics. Mr. Guilbeault played a key role in many of the previous Liberal government’s climate initiatives which have been diluted, stalled or reversed by the current government. He plans to resign his seat later this summer.
In the judgment issued on Thursday the Federal Court of Appeal questioned Mr. Guilbeault’s decision that Chalk River was the “best solution” for the storage site. To issue a species of risk permit, the minister needed to be of the view that “all reasonable alternatives” had been considered as locations.
Three judges at the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that Mr. Guilbeault’s decision to issue a permit was “unreasonable” and in dismissing the appeal by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories said the issue should go back to the current minister for redetermination.
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin will now have to reconsider the issuing of a species-at-risk permit, and whether there could be other viable locations for the site with fewer impacts on wildlife. CNL, which plans to build and operate the proposed waste dump, had looked at other locations owned by the Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada, but chose Chalk River.
Chief Lance Haymond of Kebaowek First Nation said “the Federal Court of Appeal has confirmed that Environment Canada must go back and do its job properly.”
Nicholas Pope, the Ottawa lawyer who represented Kebaowek First Nation, said there are alternative sites that could have been considered, including federal land near Chalk River that would have not posed as great a threat to species at risk.
He hoped Ms. Dabrusin in looking again at species at risk would also consider the potential impact on endangered monarch butterflies, and Eastern wolves that roam at the Chalk River site.
In 2024, the federal environment department upgraded the Eastern wolf, found only in Ontario and Quebec, to threatened species status, saying there may be as few as 236 adults in Canada.
Cecelia Parsons, spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said it is reviewing the court of appeal decision “and its implications carefully and will determine next steps as appropriate.”
CNL said it had sought “to obtain clarity in a complex regulatory environment” in going to the Federal Court of Appeal.
“CNL respects the decision of the court and is now taking time to evaluate today’s decision and determine next steps,” it said in a statement. “CNL remains committed to protecting the environment and species at-risk – restoration and protection of the environment is at the core of our work.”
Last year, the federal court partly granted Kebaowek’s application for judicial review of the decision to build the Chalk River waste dump on the grounds that it was not properly consulted. This decision is now before the Federal Court of Appeal.
Legal Victory for Kebaowek First Nation and Allies vs. Proposed Radioactive Megadump
Federal Court of Appeal Upholds Victory for Kebaowek First Nation and Allies in ”Species at Risk” Case Against Chalk River Nuclear Waste Project
Kebaowek, May 29, 2026 – Kebaowek First Nation, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, theCanadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada Foundation welcome a significantvictory following the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal to dismiss Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’(CNL) appeal regarding the Species at Risk Act permit issued for the proposed Near Surface DisposalFacility (NSDF) at Chalk River. The Court upheld the Federal Court’s earlier ruling and ordered Environmentand Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to reconsider its decision to grant the permit.
The permit would have authorized CNL to destroy endangered species and their habitats in order to construct a massive radioactive waste disposal facility less than 1.1 kilometres from the Ottawa River (Kichi Sibi), a watershed that provides drinking water to millions of Canadians.
In its decision, the Federal Court of Appeal concluded that ECCC failed to adequately explain how it determined that all reasonable alternatives had been considered and that the best solution had been selected, as required under the Species at Risk Act. The Court emphasized that the Minister’s reasons lacked sufficient transparency, intelligibility, and justification, and directed ECCC to conduct a new determination. The Court also confirmed that the Federal Court’s interpretation of section 73 of the Species at Risk Act is not binding on ECCC and that the Minister must independently provide a clear and reasonable analysis when reconsidering the permit application.
Furthermore, the Court found that the public notice issued by ECCC failed to provide a meaningful explanation to Canadians about why endangered species would be unharmed in support of the project.
Israel Ramps Up Demolitions of Palestinian Homes Ahead of Fall Elections
SCHEERPOST, By Theia Chatelle, May 24, 2026
This article was originally published by Truthout
East Jerusalem is days away from its largest forced displacement since 1967.
Eight Palestinian homes are set to be demolished by the end of May — the highest number in a single month, according to the Israeli nonprofit Ir Amim since it began tracking such demolitions.
“Soon, these will all be gone,” said Fakhri Abu Diab, a longtime East Jerusalem activist whose own home was demolished in 2024, gesturing at the homes lining the valley walls. “They will be taken by settlers or destroyed, and then we will have nowhere to go.”
The eight families had engaged in a protracted legal struggle to fight the orders, but as Ir Amim international outreach coordinator Tess Miller confirmed, “there is no longer any legal process underway that could stop the demolitions. All potential legal remedies have been exhausted.”
The legal framework driving the demolitions relies on two laws. The first is the Legal and Administrative Matters Law, which came into force in 1970. The law holds that Jewish families or property owners who lost property, often due to anti-Jewish pogroms in Jerusalem before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, are entitled to petition the state to reclaim title to such property.
Palestinians forcibly expelled during the 1948 war have no equivalent right under Israeli law to return or reclaim lost property.
Ateret Cohanim and Elad, two settler nonprofits, rely on this law and a defunct land trust to assert their claim. They have waged a decades-long legal campaign to displace families from homes and land that the families, in most cases, legally purchased under Israeli law.
The settler nonprofits “don’t care what the world says. For them, the world is against us; we are strong enough,” said Hagit Ofran. Ofran directs Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project and, according to Haaretz, may know more about the scope of settlement construction than any person alive.
The second legal mechanism is Jerusalem’s planning and zoning commission, which urban planners and legal advocates say has made it almost impossible for Palestinian families to build legally on land they own.
According to Bimkom, an Israeli planning-rights nonprofit, Israeli authorities approved only around 600 housing units for Palestinians in East Jerusalem in 2025, compared to approximately 9,000 units allocated to Jewish residents.
Many families priced out of the Jerusalem housing market by the severe shortage caused by these zoning restrictions and unable to build on their family land are forced to relocate to Kafr Aqab, a neighborhood located on the other side of the separation barrier, which the International Court of Justice ruled illegal in 2004. Palestinians who relocate maintain hopes of retaining their Jerusalem residency permits.
Ofran recounted visiting one Palestinian family in East Jerusalem and noticing a stack of mattresses piled to the ceiling. The hostess explained that at night they are all laid on the floor so that the more than 14 residents of the apartment have space to sleep.
Palestinian residents face a yearslong approval process and documentation requirements that are, in practice, nearly impossible to meet. Applications are routinely denied by the planning and zoning commission without explanation, and appeals can drag on for decades.
“So many choose to build like it’s a gamble,” Ofran said. “There are thousands of structures that Israeli authorities consider illegal in East Jerusalem, so they take the chance, and then they hope that their family’s name stays at the bottom of the pile.”
And without permits, even if their homes are not demolished, Palestinian families face fines from the Jerusalem Municipality for building illegally, sometimes reaching tens of thousands of shekels. When the municipality finally issues an official demolition order, they are also forced to pay for the demolition itself, leaving many families in financial ruin.
The Jerusalem Municipality stated that Al-Bustan is zoned “for a public park” and was “never designated for residential use,” and that “for years the municipality attempted to find a solution for the residents.”
Behind the displacement in Al-Bustan is Elad’s ambition to complete the City of David archaeological park, which the organization and some controversial Israeli researchers claim sits on the historic City of David. Approximately 1,500 Palestinians currently live on the land Elad would need to finish the expansion.
“The City of David, we see it as a model for what’s now happening in the West Bank,” said Talya Ezrahi of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli nonprofit that works to prevent the politicization of archaeology for the purpose of justifying displacement. “We’re seeing a lot of things being replicated there.”…………………………………………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/24/israel-ramps-up-demolitions-of-palestinian-homes-ahead-of-fall-elections/
ICC Targets Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich For War Crimes— He Responds by Promising More War Crimes
The most revealing line is not the threat. It’s “I am not a submissive Jew.” As if international law, human rights, or accountability are somehow acts of submission. No. What’s really being rejected here is the idea that powerful states and powerful men should ever face consequences.
May 20, 2026 , https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/20/icc-targets-smotrich-for-war-crimes-he-responds-by-promising-more-war-crimes/
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich appears to have found the perfect way to answer a reported ICC arrest warrant request for war crimes: announce more war crimes.
According to Common Dreams, Smotrich said the ICC prosecutor had secretly sought a warrant tied to the forced expulsion of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. His response was not denial, restraint, or even the usual public-relations fog. It was escalation. Smotrich vowed to “respond with war” and immediately announced an order to evacuate Khan al-Ahmar, a Palestinian Bedouin village that has long stood in the path of Israel’s settlement expansion project.
That is the whole sickness laid bare. A minister accused of helping drive illegal displacement answers the accusation by promising another displacement. The alleged crime becomes the policy. The warrant becomes a campaign slogan. The occupation no longer even bothers to disguise itself as security — it declares land theft openly, wraps it in state power, and dares the world to do something about it.
Smotrich reportedly bragged about helping create more than 100 new settlements and 160 farming outposts, while the U.N. has reported tens of thousands of Palestinians forcibly displaced in the West Bank over the past year. Khan al-Ahmar is not just one village. It is part of the larger E1 project, designed to sever Palestinian territory and bury any viable future Palestinian state.
He also goes further the Bibi with Smotrich calling “for the permanent conquest of Gaza and re-establishment of Jewish settlements there that Israel abandoned in 2005, notions that Netanyahu has rejected. He has also worked to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank, calling it part of Jews’ “biblical and eternal homeland”.”
So when Smotrich says the ICC’s move is a “declaration of war,” he is telling the truth in reverse. The war has been underway for decades — against Palestinian land, homes, movement, memory and existence. The difference now is that Israeli leaders are saying the quiet part into a microphone.
Saying “As a sovereign and independent state, we will not accept hypocritical dictates from biased bodies that consistently stand against the state of Israel, against our biblical, historical, and legal rights in our homeland, and against our right and duty to self-defence and security.”
Of course, a truly sovereign state would not require endless military, diplomatic, and financial protection from the far larger United States — its current partner in war crimes, occupation, and settler-colonial expansion. Israel speaks the language of “independence” while relying on billions in U.S. weapons, vetoes at the United Nations, and political cover from Washington to continue policies the rest of the world increasingly recognizes as violations of international law.
Smotrich added this on X.com “Issuing arrest warrants against the Prime Minister is a declaration of war. Issuing arrest warrants against the Defense Minister and against the Finance Minister is a declaration of war. And in the face of a declaration of war, we will respond with war. I am not a submissive Jew. No. The Palestinian Authority started a war, and it will receive war. From today, every economic or other target within my authority to strike — whether as Finance Minister or as a minister in the Defense Ministry — will be attacked. Not with words or gimmicks, but with actions. And I announce here and now the first target that will be attacked: immediately after my remarks, we will sign an order for the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar. I promise all of you — this is only the beginning.”
So let’s get this straight
The International Criminal Court reportedly investigates you for the forced expulsion of Palestinians and your response is to publicly threaten more expulsions, more punishment, and more collective retaliation against an occupied population.
That is not “self-defense.” That is an open confession of how power works under occupation.
Smotrich calls arrest warrants a “declaration of war,” but for Palestinians in the West Bank the war has never stopped. Homes demolished. Villages erased. Land seized. Settlers armed and protected while entire communities are pushed off their land in full view of the world.
And now Khan al-Ahmar becomes a political trophy — a village of human beings treated like a revenge target because international law dared to speak your name.
The most revealing line is not the threat. It’s “I am not a submissive Jew.” As if international law, human rights, or accountability are somehow acts of submission. No. What’s really being rejected here is the idea that powerful states and powerful men should ever face consequences.
Imagine any other government official on Earth responding to a possible war crimes warrant by announcing another forced evacuation at a podium. The headlines would never end. The sanctions would already be in place. But when it comes to Israel’s far-right leadership, the world’s political class still treats open extremism as diplomacy.
This isn’t strength. It’s the language of impunity — the language of a government so certain it will never be stopped that it now broadcasts its intentions openly.
The ICC should make the warrants public. Governments should sanction the officials, funders and institutions enabling this machinery. Because when a state official responds to a war-crimes allegation by announcing another forced eviction, the issue is no longer whether international law is being violated. The issue is whether international law still means anything at all.
Did Trump Just Create a Political Slush Fund With Taxpayer Money?
May 21, 2026 , ScheerPost Staff
What began as a lawsuit over leaked tax returns is now morphing into something far bigger — and far more dangerous. In this chilling breakdown, the so-called $1.776 billion “1776 Fund” is exposed not as a normal legal settlement, but as a potentially unprecedented expansion of executive power dressed up in patriotic branding and constitutional smoke screens. Using a lawsuit that many legal experts considered weak from the start, the Trump administration has created a massive compensation fund administered by political appointees and aimed at people claiming they were victims of “government weaponization” — including figures tied to January 6.
But beneath the red-white-and-blue symbolism lies a far deeper question: can a president effectively sue his own government, settle with himself, and then redirect billions in public funds toward a political constituency without Congress? This analysis tears apart the legal architecture behind the arrangement, exposing how the lines between settlement, appropriation, and political patronage may be collapsing in real time. Whether courts intervene or not, one thing is already clear: another constitutional guardrail may have just been smashed in plain sight.
Transcript. The $1.776 Billion Question
Something happened this week that deserves a closer look — because the legal and constitutional structure behind it is unlike anything we’ve really seen before.
On Monday, the Department of Justice announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund. The fund was created through the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns in 2019. Trump originally sought $10 billion in damages. Under the settlement, Trump receives no money directly. Instead, the money goes into a fund administered by a five-member commission appointed by the Attorney General — who, of course, serves under Trump.
The stated purpose of the fund is to compensate people who claim they were victims of what the administration calls “government weaponization.”
Now pause there for a second.
Because once you start looking at the structure of this arrangement the way a constitutional lawyer would, the questions become impossible to ignore.
The President of the United States sued an agency that reports to the President of the United States.
The IRS operates under the Treasury Department. The Treasury Secretary serves at the pleasure of the president. The Department of Justice defended the IRS in court. The Attorney General also serves at the pleasure of the president.
So Trump was effectively suing his own executive branch.
The judge overseeing the case noticed the problem immediately. She openly questioned how a legitimate adversarial settlement could exist when both sides ultimately answered to the same authority. In her words, the president appeared to be “negotiating with himself.”
That matters because settlements in American law are supposed to emerge from opposing interests. That adversarial structure is the entire foundation of how courts evaluate fairness and legitimacy.
But here, that structure barely existed.
And then there’s the lawsuit itself.
The leak of Trump’s tax returns happened between 2018 and 2020. The leaker, IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, was prosecuted, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to prison. Legal experts widely questioned whether the federal government could even be held liable for damages caused by a contractor acting criminally outside his authority.
There were also major statute of limitations issues.
In other words: the case itself appeared weak.
Yet somehow it produced a $1.776 billion settlement…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Part 2 The 1776 Immunity Scheme
What began as a supposedly simple $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” settlement is now revealing itself as something far more dangerous — an unprecedented attempt to shield Donald Trump, his family, and his sprawling business empire from future federal scrutiny. Newly released settlement documents suggest the deal goes far beyond symbolic politics or compensation funds. Buried inside the legal language is what critics are calling a procedural blueprint for “practical immunity” — an effort to use administrative settlement powers to create protections that resemble a pardon without actually invoking the constitutional pardon process.
The implications stretch well beyond Trump himself. According to the analysis, the settlement attempts to extend protections across multiple federal agencies, family members, trusts, subsidiaries, and affiliated companies — creating what amounts to a new legal pathway for politically connected networks to escape accountability through executive power and settlement mechanics. Whether courts ultimately uphold or narrow these protections remains uncertain. But the precedent may already be set: a sitting administration testing how far executive authority can stretch before the constitutional guardrails finally snap.
The $1.776 Billion Question, Part Two: What the Settlement Document Actually Says
Edited Transcript:
I want to come back to the settlement I analyzed earlier when I produced the first piece on the anti-weaponization fund…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/21/did-trump-just-create-a-political-slush-fund-with-taxpayer-money/
Mirrors of Greed: Elon Musk, OpenAI and the Tech Brat Battle
19 May 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark , https://theaimn.net/mirrors-of-greed-elon-musk-openai-and-the-tech-brat-battle/
They are a disagreeable bunch, with disagreeable ideas to match. The querulous brats behind the drive for technological servility and plugged in stupidity were always going to scrap over which dystopian vision they most prefer. Elon Musk thought he was onto something hounding OpenAI and its current CEO Sam Altman for supposedly betraying one of those visions. In his $150 billion legal action, Musk alleged that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman deceived him into investing in the company in its initial stages when salad green altruism was modish and humanity mattered. The litigation was a prong in a broader strategy to unseat Altman from OpenAI, sabotage the company’s $852 billion restructuring into a public benefit corporation and direct $134 billion to OpenAI’s non-profit foundation.
The deception centred on maintaining OpenAI as a non-profit entity and pursuing artificial intelligence (AI) ventures in ways beneficial to humanity. (When the tech brats have a stab at humour, they go in hard.) According to Musk, OpenAI had effectively stolen a charity. (Between 2015 and 2017, he had personally put $44 million into OpenAI, funds, he argues, that were essentially misappropriated when the company sloughed its non-profit skin.) In an introductory overview of the company from December 2015, the company badges itself a “non-profit artificial intelligence research company” with the object of advancing “digital intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”
How things change. On May 18, a mere two hours was needed for a nine-jury member in Oakland, California to unanimously find against Musk, basing their decision on that most technical of grounds: the statute of limitations. This left two civil claims – breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment – untested. Having left OpenAI’s board in 2018, Musk dithered till February 2024 to file suit. Musk claimed to have only discovered the company’s abandonment of its non-profit mission in 2022, when Microsoft showed its interest with an investment of $10 billion. OpenAI’s legal team argued that the pertinent events – the creation of a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 for instance and Microsoft’s initial injection of $1 billion that same year, were already matters of common knowledge. Time on the statute of limitations was running well before 2022. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California saw no reason to question the jury’s conclusion. “There’s substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot.”
The trial was impressively ugly and amounted to an insult to the stout intelligence of the public whose welfare both parties claim to be protecting. The legal representatives from both sides jousted over respective views on AI and the credibility of the disputants. Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, pressed jurors to consider that several witnesses, including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, doubted Altman’s candour, going so far as to find him mendacious. Altman had also conceded under cross-examination that he “told the occasional lie”. “Sam Altman’s credibility is directly at issue,” Molo crowed. “If you don’t believe him, they cannot win.”
OpenAI, Musk accusingly asserted, had wrongfully attempted to enrich investors and insiders at the expense of the non-profit. Along the way, it had failed to make AI safety a matter central to its operations. Microsoft, he further argued, had always known that OpenAI cared more about money than altruism. A personal journal entry penned by Brockman in November 2017 was also instructive, baldly revealing that OpenAI could not assert fidelity to its non-profit status if it intended becoming a benefit corporation months later. So it came to pass that Altman, Brockman and OpenAI were accused of the very same temptations, frailties and indifference to safety that could be found in Musk’s own conduct.
On the issue of safety and welfare, Musk’s own xAI, acquired by space and rocket company SpaceX, also part of the South African’s fiefdom of misrule, has drawn the attention of the European Commission and UK watchdog Ofcom over Grok, a product that has been used to create sexualised images. The combine arising from xAI and SpaceX could lead to an initial public offering that would surpass OpenAI in size, which sinks the scurrilous suggestion of altruism. Provided things go smoothly, the world’s first trillionaire might arise.
OpenAI was hardly going to leave Musk’s feeling of tech purity unchallenged. It was he, not OpenAI, who saw the shimmering dollar signs. Going back to 2017, he had floated the idea of a for-profit subsidiary with one caveat: he would have exclusive control. Failing this, he left the board in a huff. OpenAI’s attorney William Savitt suggested that Musk, having failed to “get his way at OpenAI,” filed his lawsuit only after establishing his own competing AI company in 2023. But most saliently, he waited too long to claim breaches of the founding agreement regarding the building of safe artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. “Mr Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI,” claimed Savitt.
OpenAI’s predatory reflexes will be boosted by the decision. The non-profit status in this field has been found wanting, and the scramble for profits given much encouragement in this most unprincipled of frontiers. “The decision is likely to reassure investors and the broader AI sector,” opines Sarah Kreps of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, “because it avoids a potentially chaotic outcome that could have challenged OpenAI’s commercial structure, Microsoft partnership, and future fund-raising plans.”
This was by no means the first time Musk had taken to throwing a brief of anger against OpenAI. In March 2024, showing that intelligence can be authentically artificial, he filed a lawsuit citing a contract violation of a contract that did not exist. Using the misguided legal offices of Irell & Manella – the same firm that erroneously claimed on behalf of PETA that a monkey could hold copyright – Musk pursued what Techdirt’s Mike Masnick appropriately called a “vibes based” action. “Elon doesn’t have a contract with OpenAI which the company could have breached. And that’s kinda a problem in a breach of contract lawsuit.” This insuperable logic led Musk to abandon the lawsuit in June that year.
For Musk, the wells of indignation run deep. This is a man in the habit of losing or settling claims, be it with former Twitter executives and employees of the social platform now known as X, losing to investors in that same company for misleading public statements made during his untidy, often chaotic takeover, or having his lawsuit promptly dismissed against advertisers that exited that troubled platform. While such behaviour should draw scorn, those drawing benefit from his litigious pathologies – lawyers, in the main – can only be grateful. “In a lot of ways, he is just another businessperson asserting his rights,” says a credulous Shubha Ghosh, lawyer and law academic at Syracuse University. “I don’t think he’s abusing the legal system. Whether he uses it effectively, I’m not sure.” Wrong, certainly, on the first count.
ICC Issues Arrest Warrants For Five Additional Senior Israeli Officials
The Hague-based court previously issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former War Minister Yoav Gallant
By News Desk, The Cradle., MAY 17, 2026 https://thecradle.co/articles/icc-issues-secret-arrest-warrants-for-five-additional-senior-israeli-officials-report
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued secret arrest warrants for three Israeli politicians and two military officials, Haaretz reported on 17 May, citing diplomatic sources.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued secret arrest warrants for three Israeli politicians and two military officials, Haaretz reported on 17 May, citing diplomatic sources.
The timing of their issuance is unknown. The ICC has often issued arrest warrants in secret, publicly announcing them only later to enable a possible arrest of the suspect.
Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and State Attorney’s Office do not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The Hague-based court issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former War Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024.
The timing of their issuance is unknown. The ICC has often issued arrest warrants in secret, publicly announcing them only later to enable a possible arrest of the suspect.
Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and State Attorney’s Office do not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The Hague-based court issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former War Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested that ICC judges issue the arrest warrants in May 2024, alleging that Netanyahu and Gallant were responsible for war crimes committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, according to the ICC prosecutor.
In response to the issuance of the arrest warrants, the US and Israel carried out a campaign to pressure the ICC to prevent and cancel the arrest warrants issued against the Israeli leaders, Le Monde reported in August 2025.
The campaign, which targeted the ICC chief prosecutor Khan, began in March 2024 after he announced his intention to seek the indictment of Netanyahu and Gallant.
In response, the Israeli prime minister launched a campaign to use “all means” to stop the prosecutor with the help of his allies in London, Washington, and Berlin.
At the end of April 2024, a staff member at the ICC accused Khan of sexual assault.
A source speaking to Le Monde said the allegations were part of an effort to “get rid of the prosecutor” and “hijack the process” of arrest warrants.
In October 2024, while the judges were still determining whether to issue the arrest warrants, a mysterious account named “ICC Leaks” appeared on the social network site X.
The account publicized the allegations of sexual assault made against Karim Khan internally at the ICC the previous May.
The ICC finally issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on 21 November 2024.
In February 2025, Chief Prosecutor Khan was placed under sanctions by the US.
Netanyahu applauded the move, calling the court “anti-Semitic and corrupt.”
Khan continued to work on two other indictments against Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich.
However, Khan has been on temporary leave since 16 May 2025, pending the outcome of the investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations, which he strenuously denies.
During its genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, while destroying most of the strip.
Jewish settlers insist they will colonize Gaza, as they are colonizing the occupied West Bank.
“We are here on the way to new Jewish communities in Gaza,” settler leader Daniella Weiss stated in an interview at the border of the strip in late April.
“The 2 million or whatever number of Arabs, Gazans, who live here will not live in Gaza,” Weiss added. “It can take a week, it can take maybe a few months. They will not live here.”
‘Effort to Stifle and Intimidate’: Trump DOJ Subpoenas News Outlets Over Iran War Coverage
Trump has said media outlets who circulate what he baselessly calls “false information” should be charged with treason.
By Jake Johnson , CommonDreams, May 12, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/news/effort-to-stifle-and-intimidate-trump-doj-subpoenas-news-outlets-over-iran-war-coverage
“The government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering,” said the newspaper’s publisher.
The US Justice Department has reportedly subpoenaed The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets at the urging of President Donald Trump, who has complained incessantly about coverage of his illegal and disastrous Iran war.
The Journal reported Monday that it received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of its journalists as Trump pushed the Justice Department—now led by his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche—to investigate war-related leaks. “Blanche vowed to secure subpoenas specifically targeting the records of reporters who have worked on sensitive national security stories,” the Journal reported, citing an unnamed administration official.
During one meeting, the Journal reported, “Trump passed a stack of news articles he and other senior officials thought threatened national security to Blanche with a sticky note on it that said ‘treason.’”
Trump and other top administration officials, including Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, have publicly voiced outrage over the US media’s Iran war coverage and threatened reporters who publish classified information—a common journalistic practice.
In April, Trump said he would work to imprison journalists involved in reporting on a US fighter jet shot down in Iran and subsequent efforts to rescue the warplane’s crew. The previous month, Trump floated “charges for treason” against journalists he accused of circulating “false information” about the Iran war.
Ashok Sinha, the chief communications officer of Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, said in a statement that “the government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering.”
“We will vigorously oppose this effort to stifle and intimidate essential reporting,” said Sinha.
The subpoena targeting Journal reporters pertained to “a February 23 article that reported that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others at the Pentagon warned the president about the risks of an extended military campaign against Iran,” the newspaper reported Monday.
“Other news outlets, including Axios and the Washington Post, published similar stories that day,” the Journal added. “Trump launched the war five days later, on February 28.”
CNN reported Monday that “in addition to The Journal, other news outlets have also received subpoenas in recent months.”
“But some of the news organizations have chosen not to comment on the matter for the time being,” CNN added.
Scott Stedman, an investigative journalist with The Newsground, accused the leaders of targeted outlets of “cowardice” for not speaking out against the Trump administration’s brazen assault on press freedom.
“The president uses the DOJ to target your news organization with subpoenas because he wants to out your sources and you don’t even have the guts to say anything,” Stedman wrote. “Grow a fucking spine!”
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