Americans can be forgiven if their faith in our justice system is shaken.

We have now seen so much naked partisanship that has nothing to do with truth and justice that it is becoming ever harder to place faith in this pillar of our democracy.

Yes, President Donald Trump has been the victim of partisan prosecution, with Manhattan’s district attorney promising to find something, anything to stick on him.

But Trump is the person most responsible for the ongoing degradation of American belief in fair and impartial justice.

Every week, it seems, we see another outrageous abuse of the presidential pardon power in absolution of personal and political allies, donors, sycophants and those who are otherwise somehow useful to the president.

Of the long list of pardons Trump has issued, that of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a relatively conservative Democrat from the Texas border, is among the worst.

Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, were accused of accepting $600,000 from an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijan and from a bank headquartered in Mexico City in exchange for official acts on Cuellar’s part to benefit Azerbaijan and the bank. The payments were allegedly routed through a shell company owned by Imelda with fake consulting work as the cover.

The Cuellars maintained their innocence. Trump called the prosecution a political weapon the Biden administration used to bludgeon Cuellar because the congressman advocated for tough immigration enforcement on the border.

But Trump’s own Justice Department reviewed the charges this year and pressed forward with 12 of 14 counts in the indictment. They dropped two charges based on a Trump-driven decision to sharply limit prosecution under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a tool that helped prosecutors bring cases against foreigners seeking to corruptly influence U.S. officials.

Career prosecutors and top officials in the Justice Department decided that the underlying facts of the case nevertheless indicated corruption. Those charges will never get their day in court.

Trump, apparently, saw his pardon as the quid in a political quid pro quo. Because when Cuellar announced he would remain a Democrat, the president was furious. How can anyone believe in a justice system where a pardon is part of a political deal?

Lest we think this is only a Trump problem, it is assuredly not. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House leader, described the indictment against Cuellar as “thin.” It wasn’t. It represented an exhaustive investigation and prosecution effort under the Biden and Trump administrations.

We are increasingly in a pick-your-own-truth world. The president makes it worse every time he undermines the pursuit of justice in the name of his political and personal interests.

— The Dallas Morning News

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By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group in Congress is urging the Education Department to add nursing to a list of college programs that are considered “professional,” adding to public outcry after nurses were omitted from a new agency definition.

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The Trump administration’s list of professional programs includes medicine, law and theology but leaves out nursing and some other fields that industry groups had asked to be included. The “professional” label would allow students to borrow larger amounts of federal loans to pursue graduate degrees in those fields.

Under new rules proposed by the Trump administration, students in graduate programs deemed professional could borrow up to $200,000 for their degrees in total, and up to $50,000 a year. Loans for other graduate programs would be capped at $100,000 in total and $20,500 per year.

In the past, graduate students had been able to borrow federal loans up to the full cost of their programs.

In a Friday letter, lawmakers argue that a $100,000 cap on nursing graduate programs would make it harder for students to pay for expensive but high-demand programs, like those for nurse anesthetists. The annual cap would also pinch students in year-round nurse practitioner programs, which charge for three terms a year rather than just two and often cost more than $20,500 a year, they wrote.

The letter challenges the Education Department’s claim that few nursing students would be affected by the caps.

Programs for certified nurse anesthetists can cost more than $200,000, lawmakers said, but the programs typically pay off and supply a workforce that “overwhelmingly provides anesthesia to rural and underserved communities where higher cost physicians do not practice.”

The letter was signed by more than 140 lawmakers, including 12 Republicans. It was sent by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., leaders of the Senate and House nursing caucuses.

Another Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, sent a similar letter this week. Excluding nurses would require students to take out riskier private loans or put tuition out of reach entirely, said Torres, who represents the South Bronx.

“A restrictive interpretation would undermine our healthcare and education systems, weaken our workforce, and close doors for low-income, first-generation, and immigrant students who make up much of my district,” Torres said.

The Trump administration has said new loan caps are needed to pressure colleges to reduce tuition prices.

In deciding what would count as a professional degree, the department relied on a 1965 law governing student financial aid. The law lays out several examples of professional programs but says it is not an exhaustive list. The Trump administration adopted those examples as the only fields in its definition.

Those deemed professional are: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.

The definition drew blowback from nursing organizations and other industry groups that were left out, including physical therapists and social workers. Department officials have said the new proposal may change as it’s finalized in a federal rulemaking process.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal appeals court blocked the immediate release of hundreds of immigrants detained during a Chicago area immigration crackdown in a split decision Thursday that also allowed the extension of a consent decree outlining how federal immigration agents can make warrantless arrests.

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The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments last week about the 2022 agreement governing how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can arrest immigrants besides those being specifically targeted in an operation. The consent decree has been in the spotlight amid the Trump administration’s Chicago-area immigration crackdown that’s led to more than 4,000 arrests.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings, who found the government violated the agreement, ordered the release of more than 600 immigrants on bond, which the appeals court paused. Roughly 450 remain in custody, attorneys say.

In the 2-1 opinion, the appeals court said Cummings overstepped his authority on the blanket release of the detainees without assessing each case individually. The consent decree “carefully maps out what the district judge can or cannot order” to balance enforcement and public safety, according to the opinion. But the ruling also said the Trump administration wrongly categorized all immigrant arrestees as subject to mandatory detention.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they were disheartened by the ruling but glad the court upheld the extension of the agreement, which among other things requires ICE to show documentation for each arrest it makes. Federal judges elsewhere including in Colorado have also ruled to limit warrantless arrests.

Attorneys pushed for a quick decision, saying many are being deported without knowing their options. The hundreds of detainees, mostly from the Chicago area, were arrested from summer through the early weeks of the “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration crackdown in the fall. Attorneys have said they have collected information on hundreds of more people they believe were also improperly arrested.

“We will work tirelessly to ensure that people who were unlawfully arrested will be able to return to their families and communities as soon as possible,” said Keren Zwick with the National Immigrant Justice Center.

A message left Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.

The consent decree, which expired earlier this year, was extended until February. The federal government tried to challenge the extension in court.

The agreement was originally reached between immigrant rights groups and the federal government following a lawsuit over 2018 immigration sweeps. It applies to immigrants arrested in six states covered by the ICE field office in Chicago. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin.