‘First day’: Trump vows to act ‘very quickly’ to pardon Jan. 6 rioters, says Liz Cheney and House select committee members ‘should be in jail’ in first TV interview since election

President-elect Donald Trump on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 (NBC News/YouTube).

President-elect Donald Trump on “Meet the Press” Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 (NBC News/YouTube).

President Donald Trump “unlawfully” booted three Democrats last month from an independent oversight watchdog in charge of reviewing the government’s use of “surveillance and counterterrorism powers” — in addition to other U.S. intelligence operations — in an attempt to “eradicate a vital check on the infringement of ordinary Americans’ civil liberties,” two of the terminated members allege in a new lawsuit.

“The President’s actions strike at the heart of the separation of powers,” the former officials, Travis LeBlanc and Edward Felten, argued Monday in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “The sole purpose and sole result of the terminations will be to deny the Board a quorum, prevent Congress and the public from learning about how this Administration respects privacy and civil liberties, and starve Congress of the information it needs to legislate and to oversee the executive branch.”

LeBlanc and Felten were both taken off the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) by Trump late last month, along with another member — Sharon Bradford Franklin, whose term was expiring on Jan. 29 — in the midst of the president’s federal firing spree. The pair has asked Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, to rule that their firings were illegal and they should have their positions back.

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