Trump administration’s report on ‘anti-Christian bias’ is ridiculous propaganda
Trump administration’s report on ‘anti-Christian bias’ is ridiculous propaganda
The report references the Biden administration’s investigation of a Catholic extremist and its acknowledgment of Transgender Day of Visibility.
The Trump administration is facing rebuke over its release of a report that purports to show the Biden administration’s anti-Christian bias.
On Thursday, the White House’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, led by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of President Donald Trump’s former defense attorneys, released a controversial report that attempts to portray the previous Democratic administration as having launched a partisan attack on Christianity. To give you a sense as to how unfounded these claims are, they include the Biden administration’s law enforcement inquiries into a self-described “radical traditional Catholic Clerical Fascist” and its acknowledgment of Transgender Day of Visibility, which coincidentally fell on Easter last year.
That the White House thinks it has any credibility here is a remarkable window into the administration’s rank derangement, given the recent claims of blasphemy Trump faced after he portrayed himself as Jesus.
The head of the Interfaith Alliance, a faith-based activist group that opposes Christian nationalism, rebuked the report, calling it “abominably hypocritical.” The Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush’s statement cited Trump’s recent attacks on Pope Leo and his previous condemnation of Bishop Mariann Budde for delivering a sermon that called for mercy toward immigrants:Trump’s radical DOJ’s new report is abominably hypocritical. To find anti-Christian bias, the Trump administration should look in the mirror at its own targeting of Christian communities and leaders who dare to oppose its extreme agenda. From attacking Pope Leo to Bishop Budde to so many others, this president has repeatedly threatened and clashed with many of the most prominent Christian denominations in our country.
A hefty portion of the report is dedicated to condemning the Justice Department’s investigation of an extremist in Virginia named Xavier Lopez, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after he was found with a bevy of explosives in 2022. Republicans have sought to frame the FBI’s investigation of Lopez and the church he attended as evidence of anti-Catholic bias, but the DOJ’s inspector general debunked that claim, determining there was no “malicious intent” or evidence of bias in the FBI’s probe despite errors in some of the agency’s investigatory practices. At the time, the FBI said its own review had affirmed “there was no intent or actions taken to investigate Catholics or anyone based on religion.”
The Trump administration’s report buries some important context about Lopez that fueled the investigation, according to the Daily Beast:
On his wall hung a giant Nazi flag, with a crucifix and rosary fixed neatly above the swastika.
Federal agents had been tracking Lopez since 2019 over neo-Nazi posts urging followers to shoot police and attack Black Americans and Jews. He also boasted he could do better than Anders Breivik — the far-right killer who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011, Commonweal Magazine reported.
After Lopez began attending Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) Chapel, agents placed an informant inside the parish to find out whether he was trying to recruit fellow worshippers for a violent attack.
The Trump administration’s report also takes aim at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-extremism organization the DOJ recently hit with a bogus indictment. Federal prosecutors say the organization has funded extremism with its investigatory work into extremist groups; the SPLC has vigorously denied the allegations, saying its work has been done largely to help law enforcement target extremists.
MAGA world figures have tried to peddle absurd claims that racist extremism is a liberal contrivance, and this new report seems intent on fueling these claims by citing two officials’ emails raising questions about the SPLC’s methodology in deeming certain religious groups as extreme. But the DOJ’s report also lends credence to the SPLC’s defense of its actions, with its quoting of an official who said the organization “has been a source for statistics and data not otherwise available to law enforcement.”
Opinion | Trump’s time-bending claim about the Iran war is truly absurd
The Trump administration told Congress Thursday that the legislative branch doesn’t need to worry about authorizing the war with Iran that President Donald Trump launched two months ago. The War Powers Resolution says that a president only has 60 days after deploying U.S. military forces to either fully withdraw those forces or get formal approval from legislators for the campaign to continue. Despite hitting that deadline Friday, the White House is now saying that as far as it’s concerned, the hostilities that began two months ago are “terminated,” leaving no reason for Congress to act.
It’s a confounding sentiment given the U.S. warships still blockading Iranian ports and the possibility that Trump could launch a new round of strikes at any time. But time has clearly become flexible to the Trump administration and its allies. Depending on who you ask, and when, America’s war against Iran is simultaneously ongoing and doesn’t exist; it began 60 days ago but also 40 years ago. The war ended in early April, but our “warfighters” still need unconditional support to achieve victory.
The result is a quantum-flux state of play regarding the Iran war that’s as absurd as it is illegal. The conflicting arguments stretch the limits of credulity in hopes of avoiding laws meant to prevent America being dragged into a conflict with no end — and, in this case, seemingly no real beginning.
When Trump announced the joint U.S.-Israeli bombing against Iran, there was immediate concern that at no point had he tried to get authorization from Congress ahead of the strikes beginning. Hegseth claimed during one of his first press conferences after the campaign began that the U.S. “didn’t start this war,” implying it was an act of self-defense despite the U.S. being the one with fighter jets flying sorties.
More confounding was the claim from the State Department’s legal advisor that the hostilities with Iran merely continue a conflict ongoing since 1979. Despite there being a ceasefire for talks after last June’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the State Department’s analysis claims that “if a conflict has not ended, then it must be ongoing.” (Keep that in mind for two paragraphs from now.)
The White House formally notified Congress about the military deployment on March 2, starting the 60-day clock for approval. While never fully clarifying the war’s goals, the White House halted airstrikes on April 7 when both sides agreed to a ceasefire. Since then, there have been muddled negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and a last-minute extension from Trump as the original two-week pause reached its end. But throughout the off-and-on peace talks, the U.S. has maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ports and Iran has continued to choke off trade in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump says he doesn’t need congressional approval for Iran war because ‘hostilities’ have ended May 1, 2026 / 11:06
Incredibly, when asked about the War Powers Resolution deadline during a Senate hearing Thursday, Hegseth claimed that it was a moot point. While deferring to the White House counsel’s judgement, the defense secretary claimed, “we are in a cease fire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a cease fire.” Hegseth’s statement echoed House Speaker Mike Johnson’s words to NBC News earlier that day: “We are not at war.”
Johnson’s refusal to acknowledge Congress’ role in declaring war is troubling on its own. But it pales next to the administration’s efforts to avoid the War Powers Resolution’s clear requirement when congressional approval is lacking: “terminate any use of United States Armed Forces” regarding the conflict after 60 days. As Just Security noted, “this withdrawal of U.S. forces occurs by operation of law – that is, according to pre-existing terms of the statute, without any further action by Congress.” It’s supposed to be up to Trump to convince Congress to let the troops stay engaged in hostilities at this point, not Congress’ job to force him to remove them.
Moreover, simply claiming that there’s no fighting isn’t the same as the war ending. Previous administrations have claimed under something called “intermittence theory” that the clock starts and stops with each discrete set of military strikes. But a ceasefire is not a lasting peace, and the War Powers Resolution only speaks of “hostilities” ongoing, not armed conflict. In other words, under the law, if U.S. forces are deployed. nobody needs to be firing shots for the clock to keep ticking.
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Meanwhile, the continued blockade of Iranian ports is unquestionably an act of war under international law, not to mention an action that is putting U.S. service members at risk of being drawn into renewed combat. Trump is also reportedly considering a renewed round of attacks to force the re-opening of the strait or convince Iran to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium. Under his administration’s interpretation of the law, the U.S. breaking the ceasefire would merely resume the clock with weeks left before needing authorization — or potentially restart it entirely.
As Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley law school, recently wrote in The New York Times, it is imperative that the courts “simply hold that the War Powers Resolution requires the president to end our involvement in the war with Iran unless and until Congress authorizes it.” Until that happens, Congress’s power to declare war, already weakened, has been made effectively irrelevant. Instead, we live in a world the White House will keep trying to argue that a war that lasts for 10 months is the same as one that lasts 60 days is the same as one that’s lasted forty 40 years is the same as one that only lasted 40 days.
