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State Department official resigns; most Americans oppose Israel’s Gaza war, new poll finds
‘Moving the needle’
But despite this growing clash between the two governments, some feel the United States has done too little to press its ally to change course in Gaza.
Sheline, who first shared her account with The Washington Post, was recruited to join the State Department as a foreign affairs officer in the bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor as part of an Arabic language fellowship connected to her PhD program — and she quit last week just halfway into her two-year contract.
Sheline said that U.S. policy toward Israel had made her job “almost impossible,” whether it was members of civil society simply not wanting to engage with U.S. officials over the country’s backing of Israel or fearing that engagement with the U.S. government would put them at greater risk.
Sheline said she tried to raise her concerns internally, signing onto dissent cables and speaking with her supervisors, as well as in open forums, but to no avail.
“I personally was not expecting to shape policy but it became clear that even moving the needle in a tiny way from the inside just wasn’t going to work,” she said.
State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller has acknowledged a diversity of internal views on the war in Gaza, but he said that while Blinken welcomes employees to “speak up and challenge his thinking,” that doesn’t mean it will lead to a shift in U.S. policy.
Miller told reporters Wednesday that was ultimately up to Biden and senior leaders in his administration.
Sheline is the second State Department official to public resign citing U.S. policy toward Israel since the war began nearly six months ago after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, in which Israeli officials say 1,200 people were killed and around 260 others were taken hostage, with more than 100 still held captive in Gaza.
In October, veteran State Department official Josh Paul left his post with the agency’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs after more than a decade, citing the “blind support” of the U.S. for Israel.
Sheline’s decision to follow suit came as a Gallup poll released Wednesday found that growing numbers of Americans now oppose Israel’s military action in Gaza, an apparent shift in U.S. views.
The poll, conducted between March 1 and 20, found that 55% of respondents said they disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, compared with 45% who expressed disapproval in November.
The share of those in favor of Israel’s actions fell from 50% in November to 36% in March, while the percentage of those who said they had no stance rose from 4% to 9%.
The poll, which surveyed 1,016 adults living across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
It was carried out before the U.N. Security Council on Monday passed its resolution calling for a cease-fire for the rest of the month of Ramadan, which ends April 9.
The U.S. allowed the resolution to pass, in a change of approach.
Sheline said she was concerned that upholding the rule of law had become a political consideration for the administration, which was elected in part on a promise to reestablish U.S. leadership on everything from human rights to international institutions to climate change.
“I continue to be horrified at the largely unconditional support and providing a steady stream of weapons to Israel is considered more important than all of these other extremely significant issues,” Sheline said.
Chantal Da Silva reported from Tel Aviv, and Abigail Williams from Washington.
Jay Marques and Ammar Cheikh Omar contributed.
Lego requests California police department stop using their toy heads to cover suspect mugshots
The toy company Lego requested a Southern California police department refrain from using the company’s toy heads to hide the identities of suspects in photos shared on social media.
The Murrieta Police Department began using Lego heads to cover people’s faces in November 2022. The edited photos garnered attention last week after the department posted a statement titled “Why the covered faces?” on Facebook.
The online images prompted the toy company to contact the police department on March 19.
Lego “respectfully asked us to refrain from using their intellectual property in our social media content, which, of course, we understand and will comply with,” Lt. Jeremy Durrant said in a statement to the Associated Press.
“We are currently exploring other methods to continue publishing our content in a way that is engaging and interesting to our followers,” Durrant added.
Lego did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Murrieta Police Department protects the suspect’s identity in accordance with the law but uploads photos of their faces covered to openly share what is happening in the city.
“The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community, but also honors everyone’s rights & protections as afforded by law; even suspects,” the department wrote on Facebook.
The California legislature amended Penal Code 13665 in July 2021 to prohibit law enforcement from sharing photos of suspects arrested for nonviolent crimes.
Additionally, the state passed Assembly Bill 994 in September 2023, requiring agencies to remove suspect mugshots from social media after 14 days unless special circumstances exist.
The law went into effect in January, according to the department.
Justice Department helping Ukraine in war crimes investigations, Attorney General Garland says
DENVER (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is cooperating with the International Criminal Court and supporting Ukrainian prosecutors carrying out war crime investigation s, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday as he reaffirmed his department’s aid more than a year after the Russian invasion.
Congress recently allowed for new U.S. flexibility in assisting the court with investigations into foreign nationals related to Ukraine, and the Justice Department will be a key part of the United States’ cooperation, Garland said.
“We are not waiting for the hostilities to end before pursuing justice and accountability. We are working closely with our international partners to gather evidence and build cases so that we are ready when the time comes to hold the perpetrators accountable,” he said in a speech to the American Bar Association in Denver.
He appointed a prosecutor to serve at a center opened last month in The Hague to support nations building cases against senior Russian leaders for the crime of aggression. International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression will not issue indictments or arrest warrants for suspects but will instead support investigations already underway in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
The ICC does not have jurisdiction to prosecute aggression in Ukraine because Russia and Ukraine have not ratified the Rome Statute that founded the court, though Ukraine’s prosecutor general has said they plan to join.
The United States also is not an ICC member state. Since the Treaty of Rome, which established the court, took effect, successive U.S. administrations beginning during Bill Clinton’s presidency have taken a largely hands off approach toward the ICC due to concerns it might open investigations and prosecute American soldiers or senior officials.
Although it is not a member of the court, the U.S. has cooperated with the ICC in the past on war crimes issues, notably during the Obama administration when Washington contributed evidence to the investigation into atrocities allegedly committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and surrounding states in east Africa.
However, American antipathy toward the tribunal reached new heights during the Trump administration when it imposed sanctions on the former ICC chief prosecutor and several aides for pursuing investigations into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and Israeli servicemembers in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Biden administration rescinded those sanctions shortly after taking office and its decision to actively assist the court with Ukraine investigations marks another step toward cooperation with the ICC.
The Justice Department is giving wide-ranging assistance to Ukraine, from training on prosecuting environmental crimes to help developing a secure electronic case-management system for more than 90,000 suspected atrocity crimes. Garland also touted the $500 million seized assets and over three dozen indictments the department has handed down to enforce sanctions.
“Ukraine must do three things simultaneously: it must fight a war; it must investigate war crimes; and it must ensure that a just society comes out on the other side of the war,” he said. The Justice Department is “honored to stand with them.”
Garland also encouraged more private lawyers to volunteer to help Ukrainian victims. He recalled how his grandmother and his wife’s family were able to flee Europe as refugees to the United States and avoid the Holocaust. Other relatives were killed by the Nazis.
“We do not know if anyone involved in their deaths were held accountable,” Garland said. “The families of the victims of the current atrocities in Ukraine deserve to know what happened to their loved ones. They deserve justice.”
___
Whitehurst reported from Washington. AP diplomatic writer Matt Lee in Washington contributed.
Justice Department requests protective order in Trump election interference case to limit his public comments
The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after he released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.
Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
Chutkan on Saturday gave Trump’s legal team until 5 p.m. Monday to respond to the government’s request. Trump’s legal team, which has indicated he would look to slow the case down despite prosecutors’ pledge of a speedy trial, then filed a request to extend the response deadline to Thursday and to hold a hearing on the matter, saying it needed more time for discussion.
Chutkan swiftly denied that extension request Saturday evening, reaffirming that Trump must abide by Monday’s deadline.
Protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”
Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s legal team.
They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”
Prosecutors’ proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.
A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president’s post “is the definition of political speech,” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”
Chutkan, a former assistant public defender nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election.
The indictment unsealed this past week accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden as his legal challenges floundered in court.
The indictment chronicles how Trump and his allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.
Trump faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.
The magistrate judge, in that case, agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team’s handling of classified evidence.
Trump is scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from alleged “hush-money” payments made during the 2016 campaign, and in May in the classified documents case.
After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a “persecution” designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.
Smith has said prosecutors will seek a “speedy trial” against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.
U.S. passport demand overwhelms State Department
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U.S. passport demand continues to overwhelm State Department as frustrated summer travelers demand answers
Washington — Connie Raynor and Vicki Heller were making their packing lists for the European cruise of a lifetime.
“We booked in 2022, not realizing that our passports were about to expire,” Raynor told CBS News of the trip, which included 81 family and friends.
“So that’s when the nightmare starts,” Heller added.
They say coordinating logistics was easy compared with renewing their passports. They applied for renewal about three months before departure. Then, realizing the documents may not arrive in time, they requested expedited processing. They even offered to fly to an in-person appointment anywhere in the country, but none were available.
They quite literally missed the boat, receiving their passports several days after their ship left.
“This trip was everything to us,” Raynor said.
The State Department is continuing to receive a surge of passport applications, about 430,000 per week. With turnaround times now up to 13 weeks, panicked passengers are flocking to passport offices and petitioning members of Congress for help.
“We contacted (our) congressman’s office, said ‘what can you do for us?'” Raynor said.
The U.S. issued a record 22 million passports in the 2022 fiscal year as Americans prepared to travel more freely again with the COVID-19 pandemic subsiding.
“I don’t know who is in charge of passports at the State Department, but I wouldn’t trust them to take my lunch order,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told CBS News.
In March, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the State Department was “on track to break” that record this year amid “unprecedented demand” for passports.
“I’ve moved three staff members into working just on just passports. It’s overwhelming our office,” said Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who proposed legislation earlier this month that would improve online tracking of passport applications, allow the State Department to hire more staff and limit turnaround time to 12 weeks.
“This is a basic governmental job,” Lankford said.
As for Raynor and Heller, they are trying to recoup what they can from the cruise line, and issuing a warning to others.
“Check your travel documents, make sure that everything’s in order,” Raynor said.