(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool will be drained again for “permanent repair” around the Fourth of July, and said that six people have now been arrested for alleged damage to the site.

The Reflecting Pool has been plagued with algae and peeling paint in the days since the Trump administration completed its renovation, which cost taxpayers more than $16 million.

Trump said in a social media post that “large areas of grass are being replaced” around the pool and that the administration “will drain some of the water, either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair.”
Trump has blamed the Reflecting Pool’s issues on vandals, though has yet to offer evidence.

“Six people have been arrested, and seven people have been cited, for the damage they did to our Country’s now beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote in the post.

“The 350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors, is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition. Likewise, the small area at the bottom of the Pool was cut and powerfully lifted off the surface leaving very jagged, uneven edges,” Trump wrote.

On Monday, during an Oval Office event, Trump directed reporters to the Interior Department and the Parks Department for information on ongoing investigations into alleged damages but provided no evidence himself.

The Interior Department and the U.S. Park Police have not responded to multiple outreaches for evidence of the alleged vandalism.

Trump’s post comes after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, during a Fox News interview on Monday night, said the number of vandalism-related arrests had risen to six.

Earlier on Monday afternoon, an Interior Department spokesperson said there had been five arrests for vandalism, five federal citations and 14 vandalism-related police reports.

Algae and leaks have long plagued the Reflecting Pool, which was constructed in the 1920s. Former President Barack Obama made his own attempt at renovations during his administration and spent roughly $35 million on the changes.

ABC’s Emily Chang contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Tuesday adopted a House-passed Iran war powers resolution by a 50-48 vote in a symbolic, yet rare, rebuke of President Donald Trump.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Tuesday bolstered the ability of federal border agents to remove from the country lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, who may have committed a crime involving “moral turpitude.”

In a 6-3 decision by Justice Clarence Thomas in Blanche v. Lau, the court said border agents do not bear the burden of having to prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that an immigrant seeking to re-enter the country after a trip abroad had committed a crime before denying them admission, but need only show that there was reason to believe they had.

“The Immigration and Nationality Act does not impose that requirement,” Thomas wrote. 
The ruling effectively makes it easier for border officials to strip lawful permanent resident (LPR) status from people as they arrive at U.S. ports of entry.

It is also a setback for plaintiff Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen and U.S. green card holder who was deemed inadmissible at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2012 as he was returning from a trip to China. Officials denied his formal re-entry into the U.S. because he faced New Jersey state charges for trademark counterfeiting at the time, though he was conditionally allowed readmission.

.S. immigration law states that green card holders who legally leave the U.S. for short periods should be allowed to re-enter, but there are exceptions – among them if the green card holder is convicted of or admits to having committed “a crime involving moral turpitude.”

A year later, Lau pleaded guilty to the counterfeiting charge and was subsequently ordered deported. He continued to contest his removal, arguing that the crime didn’t constitute one of “moral turpitude.”

In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, argued that the government must bear the burden of first proving that a green card holder had, in fact, committed a crime before stripping their status.

“I worry that the court has now handed the government a massive blank check,” Jackson wrote, in part. “With today’s the decision, the Court allows the government to return an LPR to the status of ‘seeking admission’ upon his entry at the border, so long as the government is able to show later that he was eventually convicted. That sequencing undermines the plain terms and basic operation” of the law.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that oil giant Exxon Mobil can sue the Cuban government over more than $1 billion in seized property, potentially giving the United States greater financial leverage over the cash-strapped country.

In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that state-owned companies can’t argue they are protected by sovereign immunity to fight litigation over assets seized by Cuba’s communist government.

The decision — as well as a similar case last month when the Supreme Court ruled companies can be held liable for using seized property — comes as the Trump administration ratchets pressure on the struggling island nation through embargoes and a criminal indictment of former leader Raul Castro. The decision could open the door to more litigation over assets seized by the Cuban government, adding pressure to the economically distressed country.

The case revolved around the interpretation of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, which was passed by Congress after Cuba shot down two unarmed planes flown by humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue. The law established the right of U.S. nationals to sue over property seized by the Cuban government, though every president until President Donald Trump waived that provision.

The day Trump allowed lawsuits against Cuba in 2019, Exxon Mobil sued over their property in the country — including hundreds of gas stations, an oil refinery, depots and packaging plants — valued at more than $1 billion. In court, the Cuban government argued that the companies were protected by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and that Exxon would need to show they were exempted from that law for the case to proceed. Both the district and circuit courts sided with Cuba — eventually leading the case to the Supreme Court, which reversed those rulings in the opinion on Tuesday.
“It would make little sense for Congress to construct an elaborate statute authorizing suits against the Cuban government agencies and instrumentalities if, because of the FSIA, almost no suits could ever get through the courthouse door,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote that “the entire architecture of the Helms-Burton Act” establishes that sovereign immunity does not apply and that ruling otherwise would “badly undermine Congress’s design and thwart the President’s statutorily authorized assessment of current developments in Cuba.”

“After the President has allowed suits under the Act to go forward, there is no additional FSIA hurdle that a plaintiff must clear in order to sue Cuban agencies or instrumentalities,” wrote Kavanaugh. “The Helms-Burton Act authorizes private suits against Cuban agencies and instrumentalities — suits that would largely be nonstarters if subjected to the FSIA’s requirements.”

The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the majority, writing that the Helms-Burton Act falls short of the high legal bar to show that it eliminates claims of sovereign immunity.

“Nothing in the text or ‘architecture’ of the Helms-Burton Act suggests that Congress abrogated the sovereign immunity of these defendants — much less that it did so with the requisite unmistakable clarity,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote.

Last month, the Supreme Court delivered a similar defeat for Cuba, ruling that cruise lines Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian and MSC can be held liable for using a port confiscated by the Cuban government.

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(WASHINGTON) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday announced is seeking to fine an immigration attorney who allegedly filed false asylum claims — the first time the agency has filed such a claim.

Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, announced five notices of intent to fine attorney Vinod Doddamani, who they say filed 32 immigration cases in which he filed 64 fraudulent documents.

Doddamani faces a $250,000 fine for what DHS says is a pattern of filing allegedly false asylum claims. He allegedly filed the “identical or nearly identical in language and substance, containing the same or nearly the same factual narrative and supporting details regarding the alleged persecution,” according to DHS.

The action against Doddamani comes after DHS’s top lawyer last month directed ICE to go after lawyers who filed fraudulent asylum claims in immigration court. DHS has never sough to punish lawyers who have allegedly file fraudulent claims before.

Filing a false immigration claim violates anti-fraud statues, according to DHS General Counsel James Percival, and those who file them should be held accountable, according to a memo from Percival and reviewed by ABC News.

“Fraudulent asylum claims threaten the safety of Americans by overwhelming our burdened immigration system and delaying the removal of dangerous criminal aliens,” said Percival. “By holding [Doddamani] accountable, we are sending a message to other immigration attorneys who engage in fraud across the country: your days of abusing and defrauding our immigration system are over.”

ABC News has reached out to Doddamani’s attorney for comment.

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(WASHINGTON) — A narrowly divided Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a Louisiana man the ability to sue state prison officials for damages after they forcibly shaved him bald behind bars, allegedly violating his religious rights as a devout Rastafarian.  

In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority said federal law did not permit the plaintiff, Damon Landor, to seek money from individual state employees. 

Landor, whose locks of hair had grown uncut for 20 years, has said he felt “raped” by the experience.

The ruling was a victory for states, which said such claims could bankrupt them.

Religious rights advocates warned that it would severely restrict the ability of victims of religious discrimination to sue for justice and accountability. 

At issue in the case was the Religious Land Use and Incarcerated Persons Act of 2000, which requires states that receive federal funding for their prisons to accommodate the sincere religious beliefs of inmates and allow them to bring lawsuits seeking “appropriate relief.” 

Justice Neil Gorsuch, in the court’s opinion, said the law did not allow individual prison officials to be held personally liable since they were not technically part of the financial “contract” between the federal government and the state. 

“Under the Spending Clause, Congress’s power to spend money does not include the power to regulate,” Gorsuch wrote of the Constitution’s provision that allows Congress to put conditions on funds sent to states. “Spending Clause statutes can bind only those who voluntarily and knowingly undertake obligations by agreement with the federal government.”

“That essential element is missing here,” Gorsuch concluded. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, accused her colleagues of “pulling a rabbit out of the hat” and ignoring decades of precedent. 

“The Court reduces some of Congress’s greatest legislative achievements–federal laws that secure civil rights, environmental stability, healthcare, and more–to nothing more than the wheelings-and-dealings of an especially wealthy private party,” Jackson wrote. 

“Prisoners like Landor who suffer violations of their religious freedom in state prisons — no matter how blatant — will often be left remediless,” Jackson said in dissent. “And encroachments on prisoners’ statutory rights are likely to happen with fair frequency, as state-empowered prison officials will have little incentive to abide by federal law, even if it is handed to them on a piece of paper.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which had supported Landor in the case, called the decision a “devastating blow to the religious freedom and dignity of incarcerated people.” 

“This decision sends a dangerous message that prison officials may escape accountability even for egregious violations of federal law,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Richard Garnett, a Notre Dame Law professor and expert on religious rights, said the ruling highlights the Constitution’s limits on Congress’ ability to regulate states by offering money with strings attached. 

“Our fundamental constitutional commitment to religious freedom for all does and should extend to those being punished for crimes. Today’s ruling, and its understanding of federal-state relations, make it all the more important for state governments to respond by putting in place policies, and remedies, that will protect vulnerable inmates from abuses like the one suffered by Mr. Landor,” Garnett said in a statement. 

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