[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Disgraceful that U.S.-sanctioned Russia allowed leaders to visit Capitol Hill:

For the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian lawmakers have traveled to the United States for talks with members of Congress, as Moscow seeks to restore American ties while a more Kremlin-friendly president occupies the White House.

A Kremlin spokesperson and senior Russian lawmakers said Wednesday that four members of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, had been allowed to travel to the United States despite personal sanctions against them.

The visit is intended to “resume the communication, with no specific agenda,” Leonid Slutsky, chair of the Duma’s foreign affairs committee, told Russian state news agencies. He called it a “test meeting” to “see each other, hear and feel each other.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, Western countries, including the United States, sought to punish the Kremlin by expanding sanctions and isolating Russia diplomatically. President Donald Trump, while keeping sanctions in place, has in some ways brought Russian President Vladimir Putin in from the cold, including by hosting him for a meeting in Alaska in August.

Rep. Looney Luna defended the visit:

Today, for the first time in close to a 1/4 century, 5 members of Congress (bipartisan) met with 5 members of the Russian Duma to discuss peace and bilateral relations. As representatives of the world’s two greatest nuclear super powers, we owe our citizens open dialogue, ideas, and open lines of communication. We will continue to foster this dialogue and push for peace in support of this admins push for peace, as well as economic opportunity.

Yesterday, an entire planeload of Russian Duma members were given a tour of US government buildings, including Capitol Hill.

Here, Russians are seen roaming freely and documenting everything with their western smartphones. pic.twitter.com/U77SQbhSix

— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre (@StratcomCentre) March 27, 2026

Statement by the Free Russia Foundation:

We are outraged that members of the Russian State Duma—individuals who have supported and enabled the Kremlin’s war of aggression against Ukraine—are being welcomed by the members of Congress and Administration officials despite being under U.S. sanctions.

Sanctions are not symbolic. They are a tool of accountability, imposed precisely because these individuals bear responsibility for grave violations of international law, repression at home, and aggression abroad. Allowing sanctioned officials to travel to the United States undermines the credibility of these measures and sends a deeply troubling signal about their enforcement.

At a time when Ukrainian people continue to suffer, and political prisoners in Russia remain behind bars, granting access to those complicit in these policies is unacceptable. It risks normalizing impunity and weakening the united front that democratic countries must maintain.

We call on U.S. authorities to clarify how such entries were permitted, to ensure full enforcement of sanctions regimes, and to prevent any further erosion of accountability. Sanctions must mean consequences—otherwise, they mean nothing.

P.S.

The FBI warns of Russian hackers hijacking Signal and WhatsApp accounts belonging to senior officials, military personnel, civil servants, and journalists.

Russia supplies Iran with drones used to strike U.S. military bases and provides intelligence support.

U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna gives a private tour of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to a delegation of Russian State Duma MPs.

There must be a strong and appropriate response.
Ignoring Russia is a sign of weakness and an open invitation for further action.
Putin is a crocodile – stop feeding him.

Russian intelligence services have gained access to the accounts of influential American figures on several messaging platforms, including Signal, FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) stated:

The @FBI has identified cyber actors associated with Russian Intelligence Services targeting users of commercial messaging applications, including Signal.

The campaign targets individuals of high intelligence value, including current and former U.S. government officials, military personnel, political figures, and journalists.
 
Globally, this effort has resulted in unauthorized access to thousands of individual accounts. After gaining access, the actors can view messages and contact lists, send messages as the victim, and conduct additional phishing from a trusted identity.

It’s important for you to be aware and take action – this vulnerability is not with the application – but you as the end user.

Good thing nobody in authority in the Trump administration uses Signal, or does something crazzzzy like sending war plans to their buds…

Second news item

This tracks with who and what we know Trump to be:

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth struck the names of two Black and two female officers from a military promotions list, sparking bias concerns, according to a new report on Friday.

The New York Times published a lengthy report, citing 11 current and former military administration officials, that suggested Hegseth’s chief of staff told a military leader that President Donald Trump doesn’t “want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events.”

The promotions list in question is for officers who could be jumping to a one-star general position. About three dozen names are reportedly on the list, but Hegseth pushed to remove four, two of whom are Black officers. The other two are women.

Third news item

Trump’s latest E.O. will surely be challenged:

President Trump announced on Thursday he will sign an executive order to “immediately” pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers amid the ongoing shutdown impacting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin,to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

The problem being that this isn’t how to do this:

1/ It’s not just that unilaterally paying TSA agents is illegal.

It’s that Trump has now repeatedly undermined the core of the congressional power of the purse. He’s not spending money that has been appropriated by law (impoundments) and he’s spending money that has not been appropriated.

2/ These actions aren’t just illegal, although they are that. They aren’t just unconstitutional, although they are that. They are anti-constitutional: they strike at the core of one of the principles that allows our entire constitutional order to function.

3/ From the Founding through the present day, the power of the purse has been understood as one of Congress’s most potent tools against the executive: the executive can’t do anything without money, and he can’t spend money without Congress.

4/ If Trump is able to get away with ignoring that, with arrogating the entire power of the purse to himself, then Congress has pretty much no way of checking him.

5/5 Also worth noting that, in Plutarch’s telling–the telling that the Founding generation would have known intimately–it was Caesar’s raiding of the treasury and threatening of the tribune Mettellus, who tried to defend it, that was one of the clearest signs that he intended to become a dictator.

6/5 Morning update: I think the Senate passage of partial funding is a good thing. Congress is taking responsibility for this, not letting Trump do it unilaterally. I hope the House will follow suit.

Fourth news item

It nows heads to the House for approval:

Senators at last agreed via voice vote early Friday morning to approve a funding package that funds the Department of Homeland Security besides Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — a critical step toward ending most of the 42-day long DHS shutdown.

Agencies that would be funded by the Senate’s approved package include TSA, FEMA, The Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Fifth news item

Make sure to watch the video following this excerpt:

In January and February 2026, lawyers representing Somalis in immigration court began reporting that cases with no future hearing, or with one set for years away, were suddenly being scheduled for hearings in February and March.1 This was so little notice that it led lawyers to identify an unofficial “Somali rocket docket” being used to fast-track Somali cases through immigration court. Using publicly available court data, we demonstrate its scale: we found that, nationally, two-thirds (66.25%) of all Somali noncitizens with an open immigration court case were scheduled for a hearing with a new judge on short notice.

This phenomenon follows President Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on Somalis and statements that “we don’t want them in our country,” and the targeting of Somalis in Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR, which oversees the immigration courts) has officially denied the existence of a Somali rocket docket, claiming, “There is no ‘fast-tracking’ of immigration court cases.” The data shows otherwise. The chart below demonstrates how no other nationality has faced remotely similar scheduling activity. Moreover, of the eleven judges we identified as being newly assigned these Somali cases, the top ranks of EOIR leadership are remarkably well-represented: the list includes the chief immigration judge of the entire court system, as well as assistant chief immigration judges in Louisiana, Ohio, California, and Illinois.

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1995933765911101687?s=46&t=wCOAzgpW0wypYvq7vtH5-Q

Have a great weekend.

—Dana