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Trump admin live updates: Dems react to Hegseth discussing Yemen strike in 2nd chat

The Signal chat included Hegseth's wife, brother and lawyer, sources said.

President Donald Trump continues to take sweeping executive actions in his second term, including an order this week targeting a senior official from his first administration who became one of his critics.

Focus continues on the legal battle regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was living in Maryland when he was wrongfully deported by the administration.


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Judge denies Associated Press' motion to enforce order on press access

Judge Trevor McFadden has denied the Associated Press' motion to enforce his order restoring the outlet's access to the press pool, saying senior White House officials are entitled to the presumption of good faith as they work to follow the directive he issued last week.

The ruling comes despite arguments from Associated Press lawyer Charles Tobin that Trump aides have already violated the order by delaying its implementation for several days and relegating the wire service to what Tobin called a "vastly inferior" status, in a rotation whose bounds and participants aren't clear.

"They're playing games," Tobin argued, pointing to a White House memo dated Tuesday that eliminates the dedicated pool slot for wire service reporters and moves them into a broader collective of print outlets.

Department of Justice lawyer Jane Lyons insisted the White House has already abided by the order, pointing to the memo's terms as evidence, as well as the inclusion of an Associated Press photographer in the pool starting on Thursday. Lyons urged the court to allow the matter to play out.

In issuing his ruling on Friday, McFadden said he was "not inclined to see anything wrong" with the new White House pool policy but added that the record would indicate whether his order is being followed.

"The proof is in the pudding," McFadden said, nodding to the Associated Press' fear that it may only be assigned pool days when the president is going golfing. The Associated Press said it expects its first day back in the pool will be tomorrow, in the "Secondary Print" slot.

-ABC News' Steven Portnoy


Judge says Trump cannot deport noncitizens to third countries without due process

A federal judge is blocking the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens to countries other than their places of origin without due process.

Judge Brian Murphy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Friday issued an injunction that bars the Trump administration from deporting any noncitizen to a country not explicitly mentioned in his or her order of removal without first allowing them to raise concerns about his or her safety.

"Defendants argue that the United States may send a deportable alien to a country not of their origin, not where an immigration judge has ordered, where they may be immediately tortured and killed, without providing that person any opportunity to tell the deporting authorities that they face grave danger or death because of such a deportation," Murphy wrote. "All nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, Congress, common sense, basic decency, and this Court all disagree."

The ruling throws a roadblock in the Trump administration's frequent policy of removing noncitizens to countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Panama even if the noncitizens lack an order of removal to those countries.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous


Trump administration to gut CFPB to 206-person staff

In new court filings, the Trump administration said it plans to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with a 206-person staff, a steep decrease from the 1,680 employees who previously worked for the agency. Some departments within the CFPB were cut entirely or reduced to a single employee, according to Mark Paoletta, the agency's chief legal officer.

"An approximately 200-person agency allows the Bureau to fulfill its statutory duties and better aligns with the new leadership's priorities and management philosophy," Paoletta wrote.

The declaration comes ahead of a court hearing in which a federal judge is set to determine if the massive cuts to CFPB ran afoul of a court order.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous and Alexander Mallin


Administration releases first batch of files related to assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

The Trump administration said Friday it was releasing the first trove of files relating to the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the documents are now accessible online. There are 10,000 pages, which were previously classified and include some redactions, the office said.

"In the course of searching FBI and CIA warehouses for records not previously turned over to The National Archives, an additional 50,000 pages of RFK assassination files were discovered," the office said. "The agencies are working to make these records available and will continue to search government facilities for additional files."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of RFK and Trump's health and human services secretary, said in a statement that "lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government."