US updates: Trump sued by inspectors general over firing

Elon Musk's social media platform X agreed to settle a lawsuit over what was then Twitter banning Donald Trump after the mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

X will pay about $10 million to the case Trump brought against Twitter and Jack Dorsey, Twitter's former CEO, protesting his ban, the US-based paper reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

More than 140 police officers were injured during the January 6 riots. Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 1,500 of the people arrested for having a role in the riots.

Twitter and other social media platforms removed Trump at the time due to concerns he would promote further violence with bogus claims that voter fraud caused his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.

After Musk bought Twitter, he reinstated Trump's account and renamed the platform X. Musk contributed over $200 million to Trump's presidential campaign and was named the head of a newly created agency aimed at reducing the US budget.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, agreed in January to pay Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit he filed claiming he was wrongfully censored by Facebook and Instagram after the US Capitol riot, according to the social media giant.

In a setback to labor unions, a US district judge ruled that the Trump administration can continue to carry out a federal worker buyout program, part of the White House plan to overhaul the US federal government.

The unions, representing more than 800,000 federal employees, said the administration's "deferred resignation" offer to federal civilian employees was unlawful.

The plan was set in motion by an email sent to nearly all federal employees on January 28 titled "Fork in the Road," where the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) said employees could choose to resign now and retain all pay and benefits until September 30 or face an uncertain future. Interested employees needed to only reply with the word "resign" to take part.

The unions argued that OPM's buyout directive was "stunningly arbitrary" and violated the Antideficiency Act, a federal law that bars agencies from spending more money than Congress appropriated.

OPM is ignoring the adverse consequences resignations could have on the government's ability to function, the unions argued.

US District Judge George O'Toole last week delayed the initial February 6 deadline for employees to resign to February 10. He then that day put the deadline on hold while he considered the case.

But on Wednesday, O'Toole dissolved his own order, concluding that the unions lacked legal standing to challenge the program.

Lawyers for the unions have not commented on the decision, but they are still eligible to push the case to the next level, an appeals court.

About 75,000  federal workers have accepted the deferred buyout program, the Semafor media outlet reported late on Wednesday, citing a senior administration official.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US non-government organization, is demanding access to dozens of migrants who were flown to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump announced in late January that he would order the US military and Homeland Security officials to prepare the Guantanamo base to receive up to 30,000 migrants. The first flight arrived last week.

But, according to the ACLU lawsuit, the migrants are being denied the right to an attorney. The organization is suing on behalf of the detainees' family members because the migrants themselves have been disconnected from the outside world since they arrived in Guantanamo.

"Shipping immigrants off to Guantanamo without access to lawyers or the outside world cannot be reconciled with our country's laws or principles," said Lee Gelernt, ACLU lawyer and lead counsel on the case.

"It will now be up to the courts to reaffirm that the rule of law governs our nation," Gelernt added.

The White House has provided few details about the status of the detainees, aside from saying that the first flight had alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua on board.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin questioned the ACLU raising concerns about "highly dangerous
criminal aliens including murderers and vicious gang members" rather than US citizens.

McLaughlin insisted that the Guantanamo detention site has a system for migrants to phone lawyers.

The White House said it would announce the imposition of reciprocal tariffs on every country that currently charges duties on US imports.

The move has sparked fears of a global trade war.

"It's time to be reciprocal," Trump told reporters earlier this week. "You'll be hearing that word a lot. Reciprocal. If they charge us, we charge them," the US president said.

Scott Lincicome, a trade policy expert at the Cato Institute think tank told US financial services firm Morningstar that Vietnam, Brazil and India are some of the countries which could be targeted in the world of reciprocal tariffs.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that the tariffs could be announced prior to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit.

With reciprocal tariffs Trump would fulfill his long-standing pledge to raise taxes on most imported goods. The policy would represent a clear break with the policy of his predecessors, who did not emphasize tariffs as a source of government revenue.

Earlier this week, the  US president said that in addition to the reciprocal tariffs, he was also looking at separate tariffs on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.

US consumer inflation unexpectedly accelerated last month. The US Labor Department said in a statement that the consumer price index (CPI) edged up to 3.0%. The figure is slightly above economists' estimates. 

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell told the US Congress on Wednesday that the CPI data reinforced the US central bank's recent cautious approach on interest rate cuts.

"We're close but not there on inflation," he said. "And you did see today's inflation print which says the same thing."

Trump made tackling inflation and the cost of living in the US one of the centerpieces of his presidential campaign. 

The US president addressed the numbers by making a reference to his predecessor, Joe Biden, whom he had blamed during the campaign for the presidency.

"BIDEN INFLATION UP!" Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social account shortly after the data was published.

He also sent a not-so-subtle message to Powell, saying that interest rates should be lowered to "go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!"

Wednesday's inflation report does not take into account the direct impact from Trump's tariff measures, which went into effect this month.

Since his reelection in November, Trump has taken credit for positive economic and political developments while placing blame for negative ones on Biden administration policies.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that one US citizen and two other individuals were released from detention in Belarus.

Earlier, US Ambassador to Lithuania Kara McDonald told US Broadcaster CNN that "three hostages" had been released from Belarus. 

"We are very excited to welcome the release of these three hostages from Belarus, one a US citizen... It is a big day for team America, for the president, for the secretary of state," McDonald said.

In a separate announcement, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said all three individuals were safe in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, adding that one of them, activist Alena Maushuk, was "in a serious health condition."

The US Senate confirmed Donald Trump's choice to be director of national intelligence, the latest Trump nominee to join his cabinet. Tulsi Gabbard had been accused of supporting the now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, of spreading Russian propaganda, and in particular, for peddling false conspiracy theories about the Ukraine war.

Gabbard was approved with a 52-48 vote margin. All Democrats voted against her, while all Republican senators voted in favor, except for former Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

"In my assessment, Tulsi Gabbard failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this tremendous national trust," McConnell said in a statement, adding that she brings "unnecessary risk," given her past statements and actions.

Democrats warned that Gabbard should not be given access to the country's most sensitive classified secrets.

"On the night that Russia invaded Ukraine and launched the first full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation in Europe since World War II, what was Ms. Gabbard doing?" Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the vote.

"She was spending her energy blaming NATO and the US for what Putin did... That alone should be disqualifying for anyone seeking to become the top intelligence advisor to the president," Schumer added.

President Donald Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a lengthy phone call, where the Russian president agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

"We agreed to work together, very closely, including visitng each other's nations," Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social.

"We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now." 

Trump's US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke at a NATO meeting in Brussels, where he ruled out Ukraine becoming a NATO member or regaining all its pre-2014 land is not realistic.

The defense chief went on to say that Europe must provide the "overwhelming share" of future aid to Ukraine, and that the US would not tolerate an "imbalanced relationship" in NATO.

He called on members of the military alliance to donate more arms, step up military production and spend more on defense. He gave 5% of GDP as a minimum goal for NATO countries' military spending.

Eight US inspectors general (IG) joined together in a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and his administration over his decision to fire them.

The IGs say they play a nonpartisan oversight role over trillions of dollars in federal spending and they oversee millions of federal employees, according to the lawsuit.

"The purported firings violated unambiguous federal statute, each enacted by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by the President -- to protect inspectors general from precisely this sort of interference with the discharge of their critical, non-partisan oversight duties," the lawsuit said.

Trump fired the IGs from the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, State, Agriculture, Education and Labor, and the Small Business Administration.

According to the Inspector General Act, presidents have the power to remove inspectors general, but the Trump administration is supposed to give Congress a required 30-day notice. 

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to Trump's flurry of executive orders and actions in the first weeks of his administration.