The five suspended mayors represent the Istanbul districts of Avcilar, Buyukcekmece and Gaziosmanpasa, as well as Seyhan and Ceyhan in the Mediterranean province of Adana. Their suspensions were announced by the Interior Ministry after they were detained over claims of bribery and extortion.
The Justice Department under Democratic and Republican administrations has recognized the use of an autopen to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades. Trump presented no evidence that Biden was unaware of the actions taken in his name, and the president’s absolute pardon power is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.“It’s a very bad thing, very dangerous,” Trump said, arguing that, “Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president.”
Those comments came a day after Trump directed his administration to investigate Biden’s actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor’s “cognitive decline” and casting doubts on the legitimacy of histo sign pardons and other documents. An executive order he signed marked a significant escalation inand could lay the groundwork for arguments by the Republican that a range of Biden’s actions as president were invalid.
Biden responded in a statement Wednesday night: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”Trump wrote in a memo Wednesday that, “This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.”
The American public, he said, “was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel David Warrington to handle the investigation.With a majority of Muslim populations in most of the worst-hit countries, families who previously bought rams to take part in the annual joyful festival are finding it difficult to sustain that lifestyle with some spending significantly more of their disposable income on trying to fulfill the religious rites.
“Everyone is suffering,” Nigerian ram seller Jaji Kaligini said as he lamented thefueled by President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies, such as a sudden
. “We don’t know what to do.”have worsened the living conditions, the military government banned ram exports this year to stabilize local supply. While that has helped availability, it has affected tightened supplies in neighboring Nigeria and Benin.