President Donald Trump, who has insisted on federalizing voting and who issued an executive order last March to pressure states to require proof of citizenship to register voters, is reportedly now being urged to declare an emergency over voting.

“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” The Washington Post reported in an exclusive.

“President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue.”

According to Florida lawyer Peter Ticktin, who is advocating for a presidential order on voting, “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes.”

“That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it,” Ticktin told the Post.

Claiming there is an emergency would allow the president to ban voting by mail and voting machines “as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.”

Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, which critics say could disenfranchise millions of American citizens who do not currently have a passport or access to their birth certificates. It could also disenfranchise people who have married and changed their names but did not do so on all their legal documents.

“Trump has said that if the bill fails, he will act unilaterally to impose the changes for the midterms,” the Post reported.

Image via Reuters

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that President Donald Trump‘s sweeping global tariffs were unlawful, administration officials are strategizing ways to keep at least some of the $133 billion already collected — even after the Trump Justice Department told the courts the funds would be paid back, plus interest, if he lost the case.

“Early ideas include policies to discourage companies from claiming their refunds, prevent the government from paying the money back or otherwise preserve at least some of the tariff revenue, according to five people familiar with the conversations, granted anonymity to discuss them,” according to Politico.

Another idea would be to claim that the funds are now lawfully held, after the administration announced its would use alternate legal vehicles to support collecting the tariffs going forward.

Yet another possible plan would be to allow companies that agree to forfeit a portion of the funds to obtain faster refunds.

READ MORE: Florida Bill Spurs Political Persecution and Surveillance Fears — Sponsor Says ‘Trust Me’

“Trump is trying to paint a blurry picture that the courts haven’t decided what to do with the money,” one of the people familiar with the strategies told Politico. They added that the normal refund process takes about two-and-a-half years, which would give the Trump administration “two years before there’s real question marks that they’re being insincere in returning that money.”

Should the Trump administration attempt to slow-walk refunds, Politico reports, its attempts would be challenged in the courts — and challenged by Democrats who see the refunds as a winning issue in a consequential political year.

“Trade lawyers and customs experts are skeptical that any mechanism the administration devises would hold up in court,” Politico noted. Judges at the Court of International Trade “are likely to scrutinize any effort that appears designed to sidestep repayment.”

“Obviously courts will not like it if the government not only doesn’t honor its word, but then makes everybody file a lawsuit to get the refund,” said Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer for one of the companies that sued the Trump administration over the tariffs.

“What is fair in this case is the people that were harmed get the money back because that money was illegal,” Schwab told Yahoo Finance. “That money that they were charged was illegal.”

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Image via Reuters 

Controversial Florida legislation is raising alarms over issues including free speech, political persecution, surveillance, and viewpoint discrimination. But the bill’s sponsor says opponents should trust him to alter what critics charge is broad language that could be used to target alleged subversives based on their opinions.

The bill, which advanced in committee on Tuesday, “would allow secretive government surveillance and arrests of Floridians based on views, opinions or actions,” according to the Florida Trident.

The “primary mission” of what would be a new Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) unit “would include the detection, identification, and neutralization of ‘adversary intelligence entities,’ which include a ‘person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat of are inimical to the interests of the this state and the United States of America.'”

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Danny Alvarez, “told the committee Tuesday that an amendment was in the works addressing concerns that he said had arisen in recent days over dangers the bill posed to free speech and risks of political persecution.”

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Rep. Alvarez says he is “very aware” of the concerns surrounding First Amendment rights. “But just understand, this is going after terrorists, nation state bad actors, not political speech.” He defended the need for the new legislation, citing the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

“People are looking for boogeymen here,” Alvarez said of the bill’s critics, according to The Intercept.

“There’s no boogeyman. I’m going to strip everything that makes you question it. You just have to trust me to get to the next committee,” he said. “But while you look for boogeymen, I need to be looking for terrorists. I need to prevent the next bomb.”

Alvarez disputed critics’ concerns, telling The Intercept that his bill “does not authorize investigations based solely on speech.”

“Any action must be tied to demonstrable conduct and constitutional standards. The First Amendment remains fully intact, and the unit operates under strong statutory safeguards and oversight.”

But critics see a “civil liberties nightmare in the making that could be used to target Muslims and alleged subversives based solely on their views or opinions, much like the FBI’s notorious COINTELPRO program,” The Intercept noted.

Adversary Intelligence Entities

“According to the bill,” The Intercept reports, “adversary intelligence entities” are entities that “include but are not limited to ‘any national, foreign, multinational, friendly, competitor, opponent, adversary, or recognized enemy government or nongovernmental organization, company, business, corporation, consortium, group, agency, cell, terrorist, insurgent, guerrilla entity, or person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”

Bobby Block, the executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, “said the bill’s sweeping language leaves open the possibility that the new unit could target people simply based on their views, citing the language about actors who hold views deemed ‘inimical’ to Florida,” meaning harmful or hostile.

“What does that mean? If I’m not a white Christian nationalist, does that mean my views are inimical to the values? It begs a lot of questions,” Block said.

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Image: Official Florida House photo