In revoking Biden’s security clearance, Trump makes clear his motivation is payback. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the day of President Trump’s inauguration. President Trump said he was revoking former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s security clearances on Friday as retribution for Mr. Biden having rescinded his four years ago in response to what Mr. Biden called Mr. Trump’s “erratic behavior” around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Mr. Trump made no effort to disguise his reasoning. He did not accuse Mr. Biden of any security breaches. Instead, he wrote on social media that there was “no need” for Mr. Biden to continue having access to classified information, exactly parroting the justification Mr. Biden offered in 2021 for denying briefings to Mr. Trump. As a practical matter, the decision will have little import. Former presidents get episodic briefings partly as a courtesy, and partly because, in times of a more bipartisan spirit, sitting presidents sometimes call former occupants of the office for advice, or to ask about their experience in handling a delicate diplomatic negotiation. But there seems to be no chance of Mr. Trump ever calling his predecessor. Instead, the security clearance revocation serves primarily to add to a remarkable list of grievance-driven acts by Mr. Trump in his first 19 days in office. The president has already withdrawn federal protection for five former members of his first administration. Those included some officials — former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser — whom a stream of intelligence suggests Iran has plotted to kill. On the first day of his presidency, Mr. Trump signed an order revoking the security clearances for 51 former senior intelligence officials who signed an open letter in 2020 saying that the discovery of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s son, “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Later investigation found no apparent Russian involvement. But even then, Mr. Trump stopped short of going after his predecessor, who earlier in the day he had waved goodbye to as Mr. Biden left the Capitol in a helicopter. That hesitance ended on Friday evening, as Mr. Trump headed to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate and club. He then plans to go to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl on Sunday. “I think it is just performative,” Beth Sanner, who gave Mr. Trump his highly classified Presidential Daily Brief during his first term, said in an interview on Friday night. “The only reason a former president needs briefing is to prepare before they speak to foreign leaders, or because they have some other kind of engagement that relates to foreign policy,” Ms. Sanner said. “But there is no real reason to do it except before those moments, and in this case it’s hard to imagine Biden is really going to need it.” In his social media posting, Mr. Trump cited an investigation by Robert K. Hur, a special counsel appointed to examine how a number of classified documents from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president ended up in his garage. (Unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden was not prosecuted over his handling of classified material.) “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information,” Mr. Trump wrote, in the latter case misstating the report’s findings. “I will always protect our national security.” The timing was curious: All week there have been questions about whether young employees of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency had appropriate security clearances to enter payment systems in the Treasury Department, or gain access to personnel records at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, acting on his behalf, were dismantling. Mr. Trump was clearly riled by the memory, four years ago, of how Mr. Biden stripped him of his clearance. “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?” Mr. Biden said in an interview with Norah O’Donnell of CBS News at the time. “What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?” Mr. Biden’s move to deprive Mr. Trump of the traditional briefings was surprising at the time: Continued briefings for ex-presidents have been an institutional staple of Washington for decades, a bipartisan tradition in an era of greater and greater partisanship. But in breaking a precedent, it also seemed to create one. The obvious question raised by Mr. Trump’s action is whether he considers it a final settling of scores between the country’s second-oldest and oldest presidents, or whether it is an opening salvo. Already this week Mr. Trump has been hunting down Biden-era appointees and firing them, even from institutions — like the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts or Voice of America — that have long enjoyed an air of bipartisanship. Republicans in Congress have promised more investigations into the Biden presidency, which Mr. Trump often called the “Biden Crime Family,” which could put those close to Mr. Biden in legal jeopardy. Theoretically, Mr. Trump could even pull Mr. Biden’s Secret Service detail. But that seems unlikely, because it could invite reciprocal action against Mr. Trump when he leaves office.
Ambassador tells Rubio U.S.A.I.D. cuts would cause ‘major vulnerability’ in Africa. Food aid provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development being distributed in South Sudan in 2023. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times The U.S. ambassador to Mozambique, Peter H. Vrooman, has sent an urgent cable to Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that the forced withdrawal from Mozambique of all employees of the main U.S. aid agency would result in a “major vulnerability,” making it impossible for the U.S. government to properly manage $1.5 billion in aid programs, much of it delivering lifesaving humanitarian assistance. The cable, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, said the absence of experienced agency employees in Mozambique would leave in limbo 114 active funding awards and 225 more junior workers, likely local citizens, “that will all require management and supervision.” The cable paints a picture of chaos about to descend on the U.S. diplomatic mission and vulnerable citizens of Mozambique because of the imminent departure of the experienced aid workers, many of whom are Foreign Service officers with many years or decades of service. “As a result, we are unable to put in place sufficient protections, procedures and management to prevent fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement,” Mr. Vrooman wrote in the cable, which is labeled “sensitive but unclassified.” Other chiefs of missions across Africa are sending similar cables to Mr. Rubio in a rare coordinated effort, said a person with knowledge of the cables. Mr. Rubio announced on Monday that he would be acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., ending its independent status, and was appointing Pete Marocco, a divisive State Department official who worked in the first Trump administration, to oversee daily operations. The move came after a task force led by Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to President Trump, worked with Mr. Marocco to force drastic cuts to the agency, freeze much of its technology infrastructure and lock workers out of electronic systems, essentially halting the agency’s operations in advance of complete dismantlement. The top officials then ordered all U.S.A.I.D. employees around the world — more than 10,000 workers — to go on leave as of Friday and said all direct hires must return to the United States within 30 days. Those orders have now been temporarily blocked by a judge. On Jan. 20, Mr. Trump signed an executive order halting foreign aid as his major foreign policy action, and Mr. Rubio has said officials will do a 90-day review of all such aid. The total government budget for U.S. foreign aid across several agencies, much of it humanitarian assistance, is about $60 billion per year, less than 1 percent of the federal budget. In the cable from the embassy in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, Mr. Vrooman, a diplomat of nearly 35 years who has also served as ambassador to Rwanda, argued for Mr. Rubio to allow five aid agency employees to be exempted from the forced departure “to complete required property and management controls and contract wind-down operations, if ordered, in a manner that safeguards U.S. national interests and minimizes legal liabilities” to the U.S. government. Mr. Vrooman also argued for exemptions to eight health positions to try to keep lifesaving humanitarian assistance programs running. Mr. Rubio has granted a waiver to the blanket foreign aid halt for such programs, but many American officials say they cannot keep the programs running for various reasons. The absence of the necessary health employees “will jeopardize the effectiveness of the waiver to save lives,” Mr. Vrooman wrote, in bold letters. He noted that U.S.A.I.D. supports 40 active lifesaving and emergency active field programs, and that in Mozambique more than two million people depend on the provision of antiretroviral drugs to prevent the spread of H.I.V., AIDS and strains of tuberculosis. One U.S.A.I.D. program that requires an experienced manager to be present in Mozambique provides essential treatment for 389,000 people living with H.I.V., Mr. Vrooman noted. He also wrote in the cable that U.S.A.I.D. families with school-age children should be allowed to stay in the country until mid-June, when the school year ends. Mr. Vrooman did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
Trump fires the nation’s archivist in latest round of personnel purge. The National Archives has been a target of President Trump’s since it set off the classified documents case against him. The nation’s archivist, Colleen Shogan, said on social media Friday night she had been fired by President Trump, in the latest act of retribution against a perceived foe that the president had promised to deliver upon returning to the White House. It was leaders of her agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, who raised concerns about Mr. Trump possessing boxes of classified documents that he had taken after he left office in 2021, setting off a criminal case against him. Ms. Shogan announced her firing on her professional LinkedIn page. “This evening, President Trump fired me,” Ms. Shogan wrote. “No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets — I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a post on social media, Sergio Gor, who runs the presidential personnel office, confirmed Ms. Shogan’s dismissal. Ms. Shogan, the first woman appointed to the typically apolitical role, was something of an unusual target for Mr. Trump. She was not involved in the criminal investigations into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, and was not the leader of the Archives when it raised concerns about Mr. Trump. She had also had high-profile clashes with the Biden administration. Last year, she blocked attempts by Democratic lawmakers to add a 28th amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, to enshrine gender equality into the Constitution. Ms. Shogan refused to publish the amendment on the grounds that it had not met the necessary requirements, even after President Joseph R. Biden, who appointed her, declared that it did. But her affiliation with an agency despised by Mr. Trump appeared to be all the justification he needed to dismiss her. The Archives, which is responsible for issuing and preserving the nation’s records, alerted the Justice Department in early 2022 about Mr. Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents after it learned that he had taken more than a dozen boxes of presidential records to Mar-a-Lago, his private residence and club in Florida, after he left office. Ms. Shogan began leading the agency in May 2023. But on the day that his electoral win was slated to be certified last month, Mr. Trump vowed that he would replace Ms. Shogan during an interview with a conservative radio host who told Mr. Trump his “problems” with the documents case came about because the archivist at the time “hated you.” “I think I can tell you that we will get somebody — yes,” Mr. Trump said. “We will have a new archivist.” The F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 after trying for more than a year to get Mr. Trump to return documents. The case eventually led to Mr. Trump’s being charged by the special counsel Jack Smith with mishandling classified documents and obstructing the Justice Department investigation. The case was ultimately dismissed last year by a judge Mr. Trump had appointed on the grounds that Mr. Smith had been unlawfully appointed to his job.
Trump halts all aid to South Africa, claiming mistreatment of white landowners. President Trump after arriving in Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday. Pete Marovich for The New York Times President Trump on Friday ordered that all foreign assistance to South Africa be halted and said his administration would prioritize the resettling of white, “Afrikaner refugees” into the United States because of what he called actions by the country’s government that “racially disfavored landowners.” In the order, Mr. Trump said that “the United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa” and that American officials should do everything possible to help “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.” It follows Mr. Trump’s accusation on his social media site on Sunday that the South African government was engaged in a “massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum.” He vowed a full investigation and promised to cut off aid. “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” the president wrote in the post. “It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention.” The order was stunning in providing official American backing to long-held conspiracy theories about the mistreatment of white South Africans in the post-apartheid era. Mr. Trump has made repeated claims without evidence that echoed those conspiracy theories. In 2018, he ordered his secretary of state to look into “the large scale killing of farmers” — a claim disputed by official figures and the country’s biggest farmers’ group. Mr. Trump’s recent comments were in reference to a policy that President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa signed into law last month. The law, known as the Expropriation Act, repeals an apartheid-era law and allows the government in certain instances to acquire privately held land in the public interest without paying compensation — something that can be done only after a justification process subject to judicial review. The order from Mr. Trump came a day after Mr. Ramaphosa delivered his State of the Nation address with a defiance that appeared to be a reference to the American president’s accusations. “We will not be bullied,” he said. The South African leader vowed to stand united in the face of what he called “the rise of nationalism and protectionism.” “We will speak with one voice in defense of our national interest, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy,” he said. In addition to the halt in foreign aid, Mr. Trump ordered officials to provide “humanitarian” assistance to Afrikaners and to allow members of the white South African minority to seek refuge in the United States through the American refugee program. Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the South African government has taken a willing-seller approach to try to transfer the ownership of more land to the country’s Black majority. The new law, with limited exceptions to that approach, came as many Black South Africans have argued that Nelson Mandela and other leaders did not do enough to force the white minority to give up wealth that had been accrued during apartheid. South Africa’s colonial regimes were particularly brutal in dispossessing Black people of their land and forcefully removing them. Despite the efforts of postcolonial governments, the result remains clear to this day: White South Africans, who make up 7 percent of the population, own farmland that covers the majority of the country’s territory. In an earlier executive order, Mr. Trump had demanded a three-month pause in the United States’ refugee program, blocking the admission of desperate people fleeing war, economic strife, natural disasters or political persecution. Friday’s order appeared to make white South Africans an exception to the broader halt. While it is not clear whether he had an influence on the president’s order, Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become a close adviser to the president, is from South Africa. In 2023, Mr. Musk posted similar far-right conspiracy claims about South Africa on X, the social media platform he owns. “They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa,” Mr. Musk wrote. Mr. Ramaphosa and Mr. Musk spoke by phone after that social media post, with the South African president trying to clarify what his administration has called “misinformation” peddled by Mr. Trump. In much of South Africa, Mr. Trump’s attacks in recent days inspired a rare bit of political unity, with leftist, centrist and even some far-right activists all saying that the American president’s characterization of the land transfer law was wrong. His comments amplified a long-held grievance among some white South Africans who claim they have been discriminated against by the Black-led government after apartheid. But Mr. Trump’s comments also angered many South Africans, who saw the law as a necessary means of redressing historical injustice. Since 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, the country has enjoyed a close relationship with the United States. Barack Obama visited there several times during his presidency, including when he attended the memorial service for Mr. Mandela, who had been imprisoned for 27 years before becoming the country’s president. But Mr. Trump’s actions on Friday made it clear that he does not view the relationship in the same way. South Africa received more than $400 million in aid from the United States in 2023, almost all of which went to funding efforts to fight H.I.V. and AIDS. The government has said that American funding makes up about 17 percent of its budget for battling H.I.V. Ernst Roets, the executive director of the Afrikaner Foundation, which lobbies for international support of the interests of Afrikaners, said that while the government was not seizing land, it was trying to create a legal and policy framework to be able to do so. The expropriation law opens the door to abuse, Mr. Roets said, because the government “can justify a lot of things under the banner of public interest.” But even Mr. Roets and his group had not called on Mr. Trump to broadly cut aid to South Africa, instead seeking targeted actions against government leaders. After Mr. Trump first commented about land confiscation, the South African government tried to broker a conversation between its foreign minister and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, according to Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States. But the Trump administration did not respond, he said.
Newsom signs bills to fight Trump in California, including legal aid for immigrants. Gov. Gavin Newsom has treaded more cautiously in recent weeks in dealing with President Trump, after the president threatened to withhold disaster aid from California. Two days after meeting with President Trump at the White House to seek disaster aid, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed legislation on Friday that authorized $50 million in state funds intended to counter the president’s agenda. Half of the money was dedicated to legal aid, including for undocumented immigrants who have faced deportation threats from the Trump administration, and the other half was intended to cover additional state litigation costs as California spars with the federal government in court. Mr. Newsom signed a pair of bills with no news cameras, bringing to a quiet end an effort he launched with vigor two days after the election. Three months ago, he asked state lawmakers to move quickly to defend the state from presumed incursions by Mr. Trump and called for a special legislative session. The governor seemed to be positioning himself as a national leader of the Democratic resistance in the days following the election. But he has treaded more cautiously in recent weeks after the president threatened to withhold disaster aid from California. On Wednesday, he met with Mr. Trump for more than an hour in the Oval Office. The bills signed by Mr. Newsom passed on a party-line vote, but proved trickier than first thought in the state’s Democratic-led Legislature as Mr. Trump and Republican state lawmakers have tried to distinguish between the deportation of criminal undocumented immigrants and others they say they are not targeting for now. Democratic lawmakers, in an attempt to inoculate themselves from arguments that they were using state dollars to help violent offenders, added a message to clarify that the state legal aid was not meant to help immigrants with criminal backgrounds — a clear acknowledgment of Republican criticisms and the mood of the electorate. Mr. Newsom also made that point in a signing statement. “None of the funding in this bill is intended to be used for immigration-related legal services for noncitizens convicted of serious or violent felonies,” the governor wrote. He encouraged legislators to pass a new law making it clear that this funding will be allocated based on restrictions in existing state law. Those restrictions prohibit people convicted of violent felonies from benefiting from state grants for immigration-related legal services. Earlier this week, the legislation set off fiery debate in the State Capitol. Republicans argued that the special legislative session called by Mr. Newsom was an ill-timed political stunt that would harm California’s efforts to seek federal funding to help Los Angeles recover from last month’s wildfires, which killed 29 people and leveled thousands of homes. Democrats, who hold more than two-thirds of the state legislative seats, pressed the need to gird for legal battles with the Trump administration. “Californians are being threatened by an out-of-control administration in Washington that doesn’t care about the Constitution, that thinks there are no limits to its power,” Robert Rivas, the Democratic Assembly speaker, said as lawmakers passed the bills on Monday. “I can say with clarity: We do not trust President Donald Trump.” Democratic state legislators had planned to send the bills to Mr. Newsom last week, but Republicans raised concerns that the legal aid could help defend immigrants accused of violent crimes. They emphasized that message in Sacramento the same week that Mr. Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, which calls for the authorities to detain unauthorized immigrants who are charged with crimes ranging from violent offenses to misdemeanors such as burglary and shoplifting. “The least you could do is stop spending taxpayer funds to keep violent criminals in our country,” said Carl DeMaio, a Republican assemblyman. The argument initially concerned some Democrats, and State Assembly leaders postponed their vote while they sought assurances that the legislation as written wouldn’t wind up helping people with criminal records. The rightward shift that the nation experienced in the last election was evident in California state contests as well. Republicans flipped three state legislative seats previously held by Democrats, and Mr. Trump won 10 counties that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. carried in 2020. Two of the counties fell partly in a Central Valley district represented by Esmeralda Soria, a Democratic assemblywoman. Yet she said she had no qualms about voting for the legal aid bill to support undocumented immigrants. “When you talk to people in my district, they care about our local economy, and they understand that we need immigrants,” she said. “Who’s going to pick their fruit and vegetables?” The legislation lays the groundwork for California to resume its role of jousting with the federal government. The state sued the Trump administration more than 100 times during the president’s first term and has been involved in three lawsuits challenging his orders since Mr. Trump re-entered the White House last month.
Child protection group is told to comply with Trump’s gender order. The headquarters of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., last year. The group that is the backbone of the country’s efforts to fight child sexual abuse said it would comply this week with a request by the Trump administration to remove references to transgender children on its website. But it told The New York Times that it would not alter its approach in helping children of all identities in crisis. “Our mission is unchanged,” said Derrick Driscoll, the group’s chief operating officer. It was a forceful response to a far-reaching order from the White House last month, requiring the federal government to recognize only two sexes: male and female. The Justice Department told the group, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to review all of its public-facing materials for compliance. After news of the request spread online, some expressed concern that any changes could harm L.G.B.T. youth, who are at particular risk for sex trafficking, or result in transgender children being called by their birth name, a practice referred to as “deadnaming,” which could impede investigations. But Mr. Driscoll, in an interview, said the directive would have “no impact on our operational programs.” When asked how it could affect Amber Alerts involving transgender children, he said the center’s longstanding policy remained the same: “Whatever name is reported to us by the parents or law enforcement is what we use,” he said. The center helps distribute Amber Alerts when children are abducted and serves as a clearinghouse for reports of online child sexual abuse material, which it shares with law enforcement agencies around the country. While it operates as a private nonprofit, it receives about 80 percent of its funding from the federal government. For the current year, that figure totaled around $40 million in grants. The national center was founded by John and Revé Walsh after their son was abducted and later found murdered in the 1980s. It has received bipartisan support since its creation was announced by President Ronald Reagan. And it has regularly been supported by bills sponsored by Democrats and Republicans alike, including a landmark 2008 bill backed by then-Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., as well as a 2018 bill led by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, among others. The Justice Department’s order to the group was first reported on social media by Marisa Kabas, an independent journalist. Three documents mentioning transgender issues have already been removed from the center’s website, according to The Verge.
A move to freeze funding for electric-vehicle charging stations confounds the states that are building them. An electric vehicle charging station at a Pilot Travel Center in London, Ohio. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times A new federal order that freezes a Biden-era program to build a national network of electric vehicle charging stations has confounded states, which had been allocated billions of dollars by Congress for the program. In interviews on Friday, some state officials said that as a result of the memo from the Trump administration, they had stopped work on the charging stations. Others said they intended to keep going. In Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has welcomed federal money to build 19 E.V. charging stations, Breanna Badanes, a spokeswoman for the state’s Transportation Department, said Friday that “it’s safe to say we’re not sure” how or whether the state will build more. “Those stations will continue operating, but as far as what comes next, we’re in the same boat with everyone else, just trying to figure it out,” she said. The Feb. 6 memo signed by Emily Biondi, an associate administrator at the U.S. Transportation Department, said that the administration was “suspending approval of state electric vehicle infrastructure deployment plans.” The memo singled out the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, which was authorized under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. A national network of fast charging stations was part of President Joseph R. Biden’s Jr.’s effort to combat climate change by accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles. Under the program, states were to receive $5 billion to build 500,000 charging stations by 2030. To date, about $3.3 billion has been allocated to states. Of that, $511 million has been awarded in contracts but only $40 million has been spent, according to Nick Nigro, the founder of Atlas Public Policy, a research firm. Asked to clarify whether the freeze applied to the money that has been allocated but not awarded by states to contractors, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Department wrote in an email, “During this process, no new obligations may occur under the program, but reimbursement of existing obligations will continue in order to not disrupt current financial commitments.” The memo seems to align with President Trump’s opposition to federal support for electric vehicles. He has promised to revoke pollution limits on automobiles that were designed to increase sales of zero-emissions cars, and to end federal tax credits of up to $7,500 to buyers of electric vehicles. But, “different people seem to be reading it differently,” said Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Some state officials said they believed that the administration intends to pull back unspent money that has already been allocated to the states by formula — a move that would be unheard-of, as such formula funding “has been the bedrock of federal-state partnership for 100 years,” Mr. Tymon said. Vermont, which has built four charging ports at one location with the federal funds, will halt work on its program, said Patrick Murphy, the policy director at the Vermont Agency of Transportation. In December, the state awarded 11 new projects to add 60 charging ports across the state. Those projects will not proceed with funding from the federal program until the state receives further guidance from the Transportation Department, Mr. Murphy said. Some state officials said the federal government’s directive would not substantially change their plans. The Maryland Department of Transportation said in a statement that it was “moving forward with its obligated NEVI funding,” adding that it was “awaiting new guidance from US D.O.T. to advance future funding rounds of this congressionally authorized program. Maryland is committed to pressing forward with our strategy to deliver charging infrastructure for clean cars to drivers across the state.” Officials at the Tennessee Department of Transportation said the state would continue to finalize contracts with companies during the pause. “There are still coordination and planning activities the department will be working on which is part of our state’s larger transportation and energy programs,” Beth Emmons, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement. Tennessee has not yet opened a charging station with the federal funding, although it has selected 30 sites. If plans for the federally funded charging stations are canceled, it could harm companies in regions and industries that are typically aligned with Mr. Trump. One of the largest recipients of the state E.V. charging money is Love’s, an Oklahoma-based truck stop company with more than 600 gasoline and diesel stations and convenience stores. Several states used their NEVI funding to sign contracts with the company to build E.V. charging stations. Kim Okafor, general manager of zero emissions programs for Love’s, said in a statement: “Love’s remains committed to meeting customers’ needs regardless of fuel type and believes a robust electric vehicle charging network is a part of that. Love’s will continue to monitor related executive orders and subsequent changes in law to determine the next steps.” Loren McDonald, the chief analyst at Paren, an E.V. analytics company, said the program’s pause would not have a “huge negative impact on the industry,” given that the federal program’s charging ports made up a relatively small share of the total number of charging stations built in the past year. He said the program’s pause would be most felt in rural areas where companies have less reason to build chargers without federal subsidies. “The whole role and value of the program is putting those charging stations out in upstate New York or rural Alabama,” Mr. McDonald said.
States accuse Trump of ignoring constitutional protections by granting DOGE access to sensitive data. A lawsuit filed by Letitia James, who is the attorney general of New York, and other attorneys general cited social media posts they say show Elon Musk’s intention to stop federal funding. A federal judge early Saturday temporarily restricted access by Elon Musk’s government efficiency program to the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems, saying there was a risk of “irreparable harm.” The Trump administration’s new policy of allowing political appointees and “special government employees” access to these systems, which contain highly sensitive information such as bank details, heightens the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in an emergency order. Judge Engelmayer ordered any such official who was granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.” He also restricted the Trump administration from granting access to these categories of officials. The defendants — President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Treasury Department — should show cause on Feb. 14 before Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, who is handling the case on a permanent basis, Judge Engelmayer said. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Friday by Letitia James of New York along with 18 other Democratic state attorneys general, charging that when President Trump gave Mr. Musk the run of government computer systems, he had breached protections enshrined in the Constitution and “failed to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.” The attorneys general said the president had given “virtually unfettered access” to the federal government’s most sensitive information to young aides who work for Mr. Musk, who runs a program the administration calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, though it is not an actual department. While the group was supposedly assigned to cut costs, members are “attempting to access government data to support initiatives to block federal funds from reaching certain disfavored beneficiaries,” according to the suit. Mr. Musk has publicly stated his intention to “recklessly freeze streams of federal funding without warning,” the suit said, pointing to his social media posts in recent days. Efforts to reach press officers at the White House were not immediately successful. Mr. Musk’s team was given access to the government’s most fundamental computer data, including the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, which is used to disburse funds including Social Security benefits, veteran’s benefits and federal employee wages. The system — which channels about 90 percent of the payments for the U.S. government, which spent about $6.75 trillion last fiscal year — pays funds directly to people in the states, as well as to state governments, the suit says. Before President Trump took office last month, access was granted to only a limited number of career civil servants with security clearances, the suit said. But Mr. Musk’s efforts had interrupted federal funding for health clinics, preschools, and climate initiatives, according to the filing. The money had already been allocated by Congress. The Constitution assigns to lawmakers the job of deciding government spending. “President Trump does not have the power to give away Americans’ private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress,” Ms. James said in a statement. “Musk and DOGE have no authority to access Americans’ private information and some of our country’s most sensitive data.” The lawsuit was filed in concert with the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. It is one of many resisting Mr. Trump’s aggressive actions since he took office last month. Three unions this week sued the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources division, to block an effort to persuade roughly two million federal employees to resign. Two anonymous sets of F.B.I. agents and employees sued to keep the Trump administration from releasing the identities of people who worked on investigations into the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. They won an order on Friday requiring the administration to keep their names secret. Ms. James and other attorneys general challenged Mr. Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship. This week, she warned New York hospitals that complying with a White House executive order seeking to end gender-affirming medical care for young people could violate state law. The actions of DOGE — bulldozing through the federal government — have been confounding and concerning to Democratic lawmakers and federal employees. With license from Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk’s mandate appears to be vast: His team has tried to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, a key international source of foreign assistance. On Friday, a federal judge in Washington ordered a pause on an effort to put 2,200 U.S.A.I.D. employees on leave and rapidly withdraw employees stationed abroad. On Friday, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Musk would turn his attention to the Pentagon, which has billions of dollars in contracts with companies Mr. Musk owns. The heart of the lawsuit filed by Ms. James’s coalition on Friday was focused on Mr. Musk’s access to the Treasury Department. The department’s system is a repository of some Americans’ most sensitive information, including Social Security numbers and bank account numbers, which the attorneys general said puts residents of their states at personal risk. In a video message on Friday, Ms. James said that the president “does not have the power to give our private information away to whomever he wants.” “As Democratic attorneys general, we’re suing to stop this unprecedented and unauthorized attack,” she said.