Hundreds of Venezuelans swept up in Donald Trump’s immigration dragnet were abruptly freed from a maximum security Salvadoran jail and sent home as part of a prisoner swap Friday, ending a months-long high-profile ordeal. The 252 men were accused — without evidence — of being gang members and flown to the notorious CECOT “anti-terror” jail last March.There, they were shackled, shorn and paraded before cameras — becoming emblematic of Trump’s immigration crackdown and drawing howls of protest.On Friday, after months of legal challenges and political stonewalling, the men arrived at an airport near Caracas.The Trump administration said they were released in exchange for 10 Americans or US residents held in Venezuela, and an undefined number of “political prisoners.””Today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on social media.The migrants’ return to Venezuela sparked tearful celebrations from family members who had heard nothing from them in months.”I don’t have words to explain how I feel!” said Juan Yamarte. “My brother (Mervin) is back home, back in Venezuela.”Mervin’s mother told AFP she could not contain her happiness. “I arranged a party and I’m making a soup,” she said.The men had been deported from the United States under rarely used wartime powers and denied court hearings. Exiled Salvadoran rights group Cristosal believes that just seven of the 252 men had criminal records.Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro thanked Trump for “the decision to rectify this totally irregular situation.”- ‘High price’ -In the United States, families were also excited to see their loved ones return. One had been imprisoned for nearly a year.Global Reach, an NGO that works for wrongly detained Americans, said one of the men freed was 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, held since he was “kidnapped” by Venezuelan border guards while vacationing in Colombia in January.”We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal,” it quoted his younger sister Sophie Hunter as saying.Uruguay said one of its citizens, resident in the United States, was among those liberated after nine months in Venezuelan detention.Another plane arrived at Maiquetia airport earlier Friday from Houston with 244 Venezuelans deported from the United States and seven children who Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said had been “rescued from the kidnapping to which they were being subjected.”The children were among 30 who Caracas says remained in the US after their Venezuelan parents were deported.Clamping down on migrants is a flagship pursuit of Trump’s administration, which has ramped up raids and deportations.It has agreed with Maduro to send undocumented Venezuelans back home, and flights have been arriving near daily also from Mexico, where many got stuck trying to enter the United States.Official figures show that since February, more than 8,200 people have been repatriated to Venezuela from the United States and Mexico, including some 1,000 children.The Venezuelans detained in El Salvador had no right to phone calls or visits, and their relatives unsuccessfully requested proof of life.Bukele had CECOT built as part of his war on criminal gangs, but he agreed to receive millions of dollars from the United States to house the Venezuelans there.Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have denounced the detentions as a violation of human rights.burs-arb/mlm

US President Donald Trump sued media magnate Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal for at least $10 billion Friday over publication of a bombshell article on his friendship with the infamous alleged sex trafficker of underage girls, Jeffrey Epstein.The defamation lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, saw the 79-year-old Republican hitting back at a scandal threatening to cause serious political damage.”We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump posted on Truth Social late Friday.The Journal reported Thursday that in 2003, the then-real estate magnate wrote a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein, illustrated with a naked woman and alluding to a shared “secret.”The lawsuit, which also names two reporters, the Dow Jones corporation, and Murdoch’s parent company News Corp. as defendants, claims that no such letter exists and that the paper intended to malign Trump with a story that has now been viewed by hundreds of millions of people.”And given the timing of the Defendants’ article, which shows their malicious intent behind it, the overwhelming financial and reputational harm suffered by President Trump will continue to multiply,” it said.Dow Jones, the Journal’s longtime publisher, responded to Trump’s libel suit Friday saying it is standing by the story.”We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit,” a Dow Jones spokesperson said in a statement.- Alleged cover-up -In another bid to dampen outrage among his own supporters about an alleged government cover-up of Epstein’s activities and 2019 death, Trump ordered US Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the unsealing of grand jury testimony from the prosecution against the disgraced financier.In a filing in New York, Bondi cited “extensive public interest” for the unusual request to release what is typically secret testimony.Epstein, a longtime friend of Trump and multiple high-profile men, was found hanging dead in a New York prison cell while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited dozens of underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida.The case sparked conspiracy theories, especially among Trump’s far-right voters, about an alleged international cabal of wealthy pedophiles. Epstein’s death — declared a suicide — before he could face trial supercharged the narrative.When Trump returned to power for a second term this January, his supporters clamored for revelations about Epstein’s supposed list of clients. But Bondi issued an official memo this month declaring there was no such list.The discontent in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base poses a rare challenge to the Republican’s control of the political narrative in the United States.It remained unclear whether a court would authorize the unsealing of the grand jury testimony.But even if such material were made public, there is no assurance it would shed much, if any, light on the main questions raised in the conspiracy theories — particularly the existence and possible contents of an Epstein client list.Asked Friday by reporters if he would pursue the broader release of information related to the case, Trump did not answer.- Naked woman and signature -Trump was close with Epstein for years, and the two were photographed and videoed together at parties, although there has never been evidence of wrongdoing.The Wall Street Journal article published late Thursday was damaging because it indicated a shared interest in sex.The Journal reported that Trump had wished Epstein a happy 50th birthday in 2003 with a “bawdy” letter, part of an album of messages from rich and well-known figures.According to the Journal, the Trump letter contained the outline of a naked woman, apparently drawn with a marker, and had the future president’s signature “Donald” mimicking pubic hair. It ends, according to the newspaper, with “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”Trump reacted in a series of furious social media posts, saying “it’s not my language. It’s not my words.””I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said.US media has published multiple drawings done by Trump in the past, with several dating to the early 2000s when he used his celebrity status to donate sketches for charity.

Donald Trump has spent six months testing the limits of his authority like no other modern US president, say analysts — browbeating Congress and the courts in a power grab that may come to define his second term.Since January, the Republican leader has repeatedly pushed to secure more power for himself, calling for judges to be axed, firing independent watchdogs and sidestepping the legislative process.Barbara Perry, a University of Virginia professor and an expert on the presidency, called Trump’s successes in shattering the restraints on his office “frightening.”  “All presidents have been subject to Congress’s and the Supreme Court’s checks on their power, as well as splits in their own political parties,” she said. “Trump has faced almost none of these counterpoints in this second term.”It is all a far cry from his first stint in office, when Trump and his supporters believe he was hamstrung by investigations and “deep state” officials seeking to frustrate his agenda.But those guardrails have looked brittle this time around as Trump has fired federal workers, dismantled government departments and sent military troops into the streets to quell protest. He has also sought to exert his influence well beyond traditional presidential reach, ruthlessly targeting universities and the press, and punishing law firms he believes have crossed him.- Checks and balances -The US system of checks and balances — the administration, the courts and Congress as equal but separate branches of government — is designed to ensure no one amasses too much power.But when it comes to Trump’s agenda — whether ending diversity efforts and birthright citizenship or freezing foreign aid — he has largely dodged the hard work of shepherding bills through Congress.Policies have instead been enacted by presidential edict.Six months in, Trump has already announced more second-term executive orders than any American leader since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.He has even sought to bend the economy to his will, escalating attacks on the chief of the independent central bank in a bid to lower interest rates. Once a robust restraining force against presidential overreach, the Republican-led Congress has largely forsaken its oversight role, foregoing the investigations that previous presidents have faced.That has left the judiciary as the main gatekeeper.But Trump has managed partly to neuter the authority of the federal bench too, winning a Supreme Court opinion that mostly reduces the reach of judges’ rulings to their own states. In his first term the high court made Trump immune from prosecution for actions taken as part of his official duties — no matter how criminal.And almost every time Trump has turned to the country’s highest legal tribunal to rein in the lower courts in his second term, it has obliged.- Sole authority -His long shadow has extended far beyond Washington’s institutions, pushing into private realms his predecessors avoided.Trump has picked fights with elite universities, prestigious law firms and the press — threatening funding or their ability to do business. The arts haven’t escaped his clunking fist either, with the 79-year-old taking over the running of the Kennedy Center in Washington. Trump has claimed falsely that the US Constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants as the ultimate authority over government activities.This so-called “unitary executive theory” was pushed in the “Project 2025” blueprint for government produced by Trump’s right-wing allies during last year’s election campaign.Although he disavowed “Project 2025″ after it became politically toxic, Trump’s own platform made the same claims for expansive presidential powers.Pessimistic about the other branches’ ability to hold the administration to account, the minority Democrats have largely been limited to handwringing in press conferences.Political strategist Andrew Koneschusky, a former senior Democratic Senate aide, believes the checks on Trump’s authority may ultimately have to be political rather than legal or constitutional. He points to Trump’s tanking polling numbers — especially on his signature issue of immigration following mass deportations of otherwise law-abiding undocumented migrants.”It’s not entirely comforting that politics and public opinion are the primary checks on his power,” Koneschusky said.”It would be better to see Congress flex its muscle as a co-equal branch of government. But it’s at least something.”