Trump administration is having early talks to hold a military parade in nation’s capital on June 14

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By MICHELLE L. PRICE and LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is having early discussions about a grand military parade in the nation’s capital this summer, something that is a long-held dream of President Donald Trump.

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D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Monday that the administration had reached out to the city about holding a parade on June 14 that would stretch from Arlington, Virginia, where the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery are located, across the Potomac River and into Washington, D.C.

The Army is in early discussions about potentially adding a parade to the Army’s 250th birthday festival, which is being held June 14, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are ongoing and no decisions have been made.

June 14 is also Trump’s 79th birthday.

The White House in a statement said that “no military parade has been scheduled.”

The Army birthday festival, which has been in the planning stages for about two years, is to include an array of activities and displays on the National Mall, including Army Stryker armored vehicles, Humvees, helicopters and other equipment.

In a statement, Col. David Butler, an Army spokesman, said that “it’s too early to say yet whether or not we’re having a parade but we’re working with the White House as well as several government agencies to make the celebration a national level event.”

Trump in his first term proposed having a grand military parade in the U.S. after watching one in France on Bastille Day in 2017. Trump said after watching the two-hour procession along the famed Champs-Elysees that he wanted a grander one in Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But the event never happened due to expected high costs, with one estimate of a $92 million price tag, and logistical hangups.

Trump in 2018 said in a post on the social media site then known as Twitter that he was canceling the event over costs and accused local politicians of price gouging.

“When asked to give us a price for holding a great celebratory military parade, they wanted a number so ridiculously high that I cancelled it,” he said in his post.

Bowser, speaking at a news conference Monday, said she didn’t know if the event was being “characterized as a military parade” but said military tanks rolling through the city’s streets “would not be good.”

“If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads,” she said.

Takis Karantonis, the chair of the Arlington County Board, said in a statement that Secret Service contacted the county on Friday “regarding the possibility of a military parade to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army, but no further details were offered.”

Karantonis said it was not clear what the scope of the parade would be but said, “I would hope the Federal Government remains sensitive to the pain and concerns of numerous active military and veteran residents, who have lost or might lose their jobs in recent federal decisions, as they reflect on how best to celebrate the Army’s anniversary.”

Though Bowser was more matter-of-fact in her remarks Monday, the District of Columbia had publicly mocked the idea of a military parade during Trump’s first term.

The D.C. Council’s official account on X said in a January 2019 post about winter weather that schools and government offices would still open on time, but then added: “The Giant Tank Parade: Still cancelled.”

Months later, in June 2019, the account posted a Defense Department memo to show that the military opposed using tanks on city streets.

The latest parade plans were first reported by Washington City Paper on Sunday.

Associated Press writer Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

Supreme Court allows Trump to deport Venezuelans under wartime law, but only after judges’ review

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to use an 18th century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants, but said they must get a court hearing before they are taken from the United States.

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In a bitterly divided decision, the court said the administration must give Venezuelans who it claims are gang members “reasonable time” to go to court.

But the conservative majority said the legal challenges must take place in Texas, instead of a Washington courtroom.

In dissent, the three liberal justices said the administration has sought to avoid judicial review in this case and the court “now rewards the government for its behavior.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined portions of the dissent.

The justices acted on the administration’s emergency appeal after the federal appeals court in Washington left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants accused of being gang members under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.

“For all the rhetoric of the dissents,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion, the high court order confirms “that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”

The case has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension between the White House and the federal courts.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called the court’s ruling “a landmark victory for the rule of law.”

“An activist judge in Washington, DC does not have the jurisdiction to seize control of President Trump’s authority to conduct foreign policy and keep the American people safe,” Bondi wrote in a social media post.

The original order blocking the deportations to El Salvador was issued by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.

President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II to justify the deportation of hundreds of people under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of five Venezuelan noncitizens who were being held in Texas, hours after the proclamation was made public and as immigration authorities were shepherding hundreds of migrants to waiting airplanes.

Boasberg imposed a temporary halt on deportations and also ordered planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants to return to the U.S. That did not happen. The judge held a hearing last week over whether the government defied his order to turn the planes around. The administration has invoked a “ state secrets privilege ” and refused to give Boasberg any additional information about the deportations.

Trump and his allies have called for impeaching Boasberg. In a rare statement, Chief Justice John Roberts said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

Push to release Sen. Nicole Mitchell arrest video gets new chance on appeal

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The Minnesota Court of Appeals is asking a lower court to consider once again whether to release police video from the arrest of state Sen. Nicole Mitchell for suspected first-degree burglary last April.

Conservative news website Alpha News filed a court action last year seeking the release of body and dash camera footage captured by police as they found Mitchell in her estranged stepmother’s Detroit Lakes home last April.

The group argued that Mitchell and her attorneys made public statements that contradicted the police account of her arrest and that there was a “strong public interest and benefit in knowing about the truth related to criminal charges against a sitting State Senator.”

Becker County Judge Gretchen Thilmony ruled that Mitchell’s rights as a person accused of a crime outweighed public interest in her case and did not release arrest videos.

But in a Monday ruling, a panel of three appeals court judges said the lower court needed to consider the broader public benefit that could come from releasing a video tied to a case involving an elected official.

District court must reevaluate request

The ruling written by Appeals Court Judge Elizabeth Bentley did not take any position on whether it would be in the public interest to release the video, but now the district court must reevaluate Alpha News’ request.

Mitchell, a DFL senator from Woodbury, is scheduled to go to trial for a first-degree burglary charge after the 2025 regular legislative session ends in May. The trial was originally scheduled for January, but under state law, legislators can delay their trials until the conclusion of business at the state Capitol.

The arrest came after police responded to a break-in call in the early morning hours of April 22, 2024, and found the senator in her stepmother’s home. Mitchell said she was trying to retrieve her father’s ashes and other sentimental items and that her stepmother suffers from dementia.

“Clearly I’m not good at this,” Mitchell allegedly told officers, later adding she knew “she did something bad.”

Sen. Nicole Mitchell (Courtesy of the Becker County Sheriff’s Office)

In ethics complaints, Senate Republicans have questioned contradictions between Mitchell’s account of events and those outlined in the charges. Alpha News argued the contradictions warranted the release of the body camera videos.

After her release from jail, Mitchell made a post on social media where she said she entered the house to check on her stepmother, who had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The stepmother had obtained a restraining order against Mitchell and told multiple media outlets that she fears her stepdaughter. Mitchell claimed her stepmother suffers from “paranoia” because of her condition.

“The release of the body camera footage is essential to provide clarity about the events of April 22, 2024,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson said in a statement. “The public deserves transparency and accountability, and I hope the court will stand with them in that pursuit. Legislators must be held to a higher standard, not shielded from consequences because of the office they hold.”

Mitchell now faces two felony charges in connection with the break-in, where prosecutors allege the senator used a crowbar to pry open a basement window. Prosecutors filed a burglary tools charge in February, nearly 10 months after Mitchell’s arrest on a first-degree burglary charge.

Mitchell’s attorney: Release could jeopardize due process

In a statement on the appeals court decision, Mitchell’s defense attorney. Bruce Ringstrom Jr. said releasing body camera footage could create a jury selection problem with the trial set to begin in just two months.

“The judge presiding over the criminal case has already ordered that video coverage of the trial is allowed,” he said in an email. “Release of the evidence before the criminal trial jeopardizes due process.”

Mitchell, a first-term senator and former broadcast meteorologist who is a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, was elected in 2022 and is in the third year of her four-year term. She is scheduled to face election again until 2026.

Despite calls from fellow DFLers to resign, Mitchell has said she won’t leave office. Repeated efforts by minority Senate Republicans to remove her from office have failed as they would require significant levels of support from Democrats.

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St. Paul Mayor Carter appoints Matt Privratsky as interim council member

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St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has officially appointed Matt Privratsky to fill a vacant seat on the city council, restoring a voting Ward 4 member to the post the council tried and failed to fill on its own.

The Ward 4 seat had been held by former Council President Mitra Jalali, who stepped down on Feb. 5 and officially left city employ on March 8. Privratsky, a lobbyist for clean energy developers, served as her legislative aide from October 2018 to October 2021.

“Matt’s history of community action, prior service in City Hall, and alignment with former Council President Jalali make him the perfect choice,” said Carter, in a written statement. “I am honored to appoint him to fill this vacancy until Election Day.”

Privratsky is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday, in time for public hearings on a major amendment to the city’s rent control ordinance and a raft of tenant protections, issues that had left the six other members of the council divided over whom to appoint to fill the Ward 4 seat.

After interviewing four finalists, members of the city council attempted, multiple times across two weeks, to recommend Privratsky or Hamline-Midway neighborhood advocate Lisa Clare Nelson as the council’s preferred choice, but the motions were repeatedly blocked or voided by fellow council members.

Under the city charter, the council has 30 days to fill the vacancy or the decision falls to the mayor, who has urged the council to repeal rent control for buildings constructed after 2004, with the goal of jumpstarting lagging housing construction.

The two other finalists were artist and community organizer Sean Lim and nonprofit consultant Melissa Martinez-Sones, who withdrew her name from the running amid the council’s public and highly-charged infighting.

Privratsky is a former director of public affairs for Fresh Energy and launched his career at the Minnesota Rural Electric Association after serving as news director for a Morris radio station. He is currently the director of government affairs for Nokomis Energy, a Minneapolis-based energy developer.

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