Reclaim Democracy!

Expanding Access: How States Are Protecting Voting Rights

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By Luisana Rodriguez

While using false claims about voter fraud to undermine public confidence in elections, Republican state legislators have often succeeded in creating new obstacles for Americans to cast ballots. In 2024, voters in 29 states faced at least 63 restrictive voting laws newly enacted since 2020, and the attacks show no sign of letting up.

Yet, despite the understandable attention on these attacks, we also see citizens and legislators working successfully to proactively expand voting access and broaden participation. In September, Michigan’s state senate passed a Voting Rights Act that includes same-day voter registration, increased early voting, and expanded voting-by-mail options. The bill awaits action in the state House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a single-seat majority.

In 2024, Minnesota enacted its own multi-faceted VRA to strengthen voter protection, signed into law by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Democratic Party nominee for Vice-president. The Minnesota Rights Act protects ballot access for all residents and specifically aims to protect communities of color and other historically disenfranchised groups. 

Additionally, New York, Virginia, California, Oregon, Connecticut, Washington D.C., and Illinois, all recently expanded voter access or protection. A recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice notes these positive steps:

  • Virginia: Amplified access to drop boxes and absentee voting for individuals with visual impairments and eligible citizens in jail. New laws allow people with disabilities to vote outside polling places and broaden the criteria for disability eligibility.
  • California: For the upcoming elections, California will place drop boxes on state college campuses to encourage student participation.
  • Oregon: New requirements mandate translations of voting materials into more languages, ensuring that non-English speakers can access important voting information and understand the process better.
  • Connecticut: By offering an extended early voting period, Connecticut aims to improve voter participation and reduce long lines and wait times on Election Day.
  • Washington: A new law automatically restores voting rights to individuals with past convictions, even if they are still on parole, allowing more people to participate in the democratic system.
  • Illinois: The state has expanded vote-by-mail options to make it easier for residents to cast their ballots from home. Polling place hours have been extended, local jurisdictions can now set up polling places in jails, and central polling locations have been created in each county for added convenience.

Of course, no one should be deprived of voting rights because of the state they reside in, so passing nationwide protections like The Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) remains crucial. Throughout U.S. history, underrepresented communities faced tactics designed to repress their voting power, which accelerated since the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, which drastically weakened the Voting Rights Acts (1965) and enabled new state restrictions. Lawmakers passed onerous voter ID laws, voter roll purges, cuts to early voting, and other laws that impede voting and disproportionately affect marginalized groups. 

Color-coded map of U.S. states grouped by ease of voting and participating in elections

See details on how your state ranks for voting accessibility and what can be improved from the Movement Advancement Project, the source of the map above.

As a Venezuelan immigrant, I cannot vote, but I’m invested in the state of our democracy, especially when it comes to the rights of people of color. I consider protecting the rights of eligible BIPOC voters critical since they are not only voting for their own futures but also for the future of their communities, including those of us who don’t cast a ballot. It’s a shared responsibility that highlights the power of collective advocacy in a democracy.

The strength of this democracy relies on today’s actions—because protecting votes creates a fairer system, where decisions reflect the needs of the diverse populations living within our borders. In Venezuela, the regime of acting President Nicolás Maduro made it almost impossible for citizens living abroad to vote in the 2024 presidential election because most of them opposed his government, one that the United Nations accuses of crimes against humanity. 

Despite these barriers, the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, won by a margin of more than two to one. This achievement came from the hard work of dedicated individuals who ensured the ballots were counted and refused to let democracy die, even when the National Electoral Council failed to publish these results and ignored the mandatory transparency required in Venezuelan elections. While Maduro’s regime refuses to give up power, causing social and political conflicts that tear our people apart, the movement led by María Corina Machado continues to work every day to ensure our voices are heard, both at the ballot box and in the streets.

Here in the United States, people are taking crucial steps toward building a more inclusive democracy, where every individual—regardless of background—has a voice. As laws evolve and new challenges emerge, citizens must remain informed, engaged, and proactive in advocating for fair and accessible elections. While it’s now clear no federal voting rights legislation can pass unless a pro-democracy House of Representatives majority emerges from the November elections, we can encourage others in our community to vote, and share news of other state-level successes to remind people that when we work together, we can protect and strengthen our most fundamental rights.

Luisana Rodriguez is a freelance bilingual writer and the co-founder of an affinity group for Latinas in Vermont. She earned her BS in Psychology from Universidad Arturo Michelena in her home country of Venezuela. Luisana has contributed to Business Insider, Reader’s Digest UK, Her Agenda, Latino Leaders Magazine, and Mitú Magazine, among others. Currently, she works in advertising and marketing in Vermont and will soon begin further studies at Champlain College. 

4th Circuit Court of Appeals Ruling in Garcia v. Noem

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A panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit unanimously rejected the Trump regime’s plea to stay a lower court order to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a prison in El Salvador where men abducted from the U.S. are being held in subhuman conditions. The Court’s ruling was unusually concise and clear to non-lawyers, and is well worth reading, especially paragraphs 2-3.

FILED: April 17, 2025
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-1404
KILMAR ARMANDO ABREGO GARCIA; JENNIFER STEFANIA VASQUEZ
SURA; A.A.V., a minor, by and through his next friend and mother, Jennifer
Vasquez Sura,
Plaintiffs – Appellees,
v.
KRISTI NOEM; TODD LYONS; KENNETH GENALO; NIKITA BAKER;
PAMELA JO BONDI; MARCO RUBIO,
Defendants – Appellants.


WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, with whom KING and THACKER, Circuit Judges, join:
Upon review of the government’s motion, the court denies the motion for an
emergency stay pending appeal and for a writ of mandamus. The relief the government is
requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s
robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine
district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it
is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country
in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our
constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody
that there is nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that
Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government
is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to
terminate the withholding of removal order. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.24(f) (requiring that the
government prove “by a preponderance of evidence” that the alien is no longer entitled to
a withholding of removal). Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia
was wrongly or “mistakenly” deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong,
right?

The Supreme Court’s decision remains, as always, our guidepost. That decision
rightly requires the lower federal courts to give “due regard for the deference owed to the
Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” Noem v. Abrego Garcia, No. 24A949,
slip op. at 2 (U.S. Apr. 10, 2025); see also United States v. Curtiss-Wright Exp. Corp., 299
U.S. 304, 319 (1936). That would allow sensitive diplomatic negotiations to be removed
from public view. It would recognize as well that the “facilitation” of Abrego Garcia’s
return leaves the Executive Branch with options in the execution to which the courts in
accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision should extend a genuine deference. That
decision struck a balance that does not permit lower courts to leave Article II by the
wayside.

The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do
essentially nothing. It requires the government “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from
custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he
not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” Abrego Garcia, supra, slip op. at 2. “Facilitate”
is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly
clear. See Abrego Garcia, supra, slip op. at 2 (“[T]he Government should be prepared to
share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”).

The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the
government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a
definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive. Cf.
Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 400 (2024); Christensen v. Harris Cnty.,
529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000). Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is “remove
any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return,” Mot. for Stay at 2, is not well taken in
light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s
release from custody in El Salvador.

“Facilitation” does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual
to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in
disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. “Facilitation” does not
sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign
detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign
detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness
and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have
always stood.

The government is obviously frustrated and displeased with the rulings of the court.
Let one thing be clear. Court rulings are not above criticism. Criticism keeps us on our toes
and helps us do a better job. See Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 24 (1958) (Frankfurter, J.,
concurring) (“Criticism need not be stilled. Active obstruction or defiance is barred.”).
Court rulings can overstep, and they can further intrude upon the prerogatives of other
branches. Courts thus speak with the knowledge of their imperfections but also with a sense
that they instill a fidelity to law that would be sorely missed in their absence.
“Energy in the [E]xecutive” is much to be respected. FEDERALIST NO. 70, at 423
(1789) (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). It can rescue government from
its lassitude and recalibrate imbalances too long left unexamined. The knowledge that
executive energy is a perishable quality understandably breeds impatience with the courts.
Courts, in turn, are frequently attuned to caution and are often uneasy with the Executive
Branch’s breakneck pace.

And the differences do not end there. The Executive is inherently focused upon
ends; the Judiciary much more so upon means. Ends are bestowed on the Executive by
electoral outcomes. Means are entrusted to all of government, but most especially to the
Judiciary by the Constitution itself.

The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with
powers come restraints. If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due
process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will
not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?∗ And
what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary
powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be
present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”
would lose its meaning. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3; see also id. art. II, § 1, cl. 8.


Today, both the United States and the El Salvadoran governments disclaim any
authority and/or responsibility to return Abrego Garcia. See President Trump Participates
in a Bilateral Meeting with the President of El Salvador, WHITE HOUSE (Apr. 14, 2025).
We are told that neither government has the power to act. The result will be to leave matters
generally and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without recourse to law
of any sort.


The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort at mutual
respect. The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the
Executive’s respect for the courts. Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for
impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard
court orders sadly illustrate. ∗ See, e.g., Michelle Stoddart, ‘Homegrowns are Next’: Trump Doubles Down on Sending American ‘Criminals’ to Foreign Prisons, ABC NEWS (Apr. 14, 2025, 6:04 PM);
David Rutz, Trump Open to Sending Violent American Criminals to El Salvador Prisons,
FOX NEWS (Apr. 15, 2025, 11:01 AM EDT).

It is in this atmosphere that we are reminded of President Eisenhower’s sage
example. Putting his “personal opinions” aside, President Eisenhower honored his
“inescapable” duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of
Education II to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.” Address by the President
of the United States, Delivered from his Office at the White House 1-2 (Sept. 24, 1957);
349 U.S. 294, 301 (1955). This great man expressed his unflagging belief that “[t]he very
basis of our individual rights and freedoms is the certainty that the President and the
Executive Branch of Government will support and [e]nsure the carrying out of the
decisions of the Federal Courts.” Id. at 3. Indeed, in our late Executive’s own words,
“[u]nless the President did so, anarchy would result.” Id.

Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a
conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around. The
Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent
of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from
a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. The Executive
may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic
gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.
It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it
may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe
our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American
ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the
best that is within us while there is still time.

In sum, and for the reasons foregoing, we deny the motion for the stay pending
appeal and the writ of mandamus in this case. It is so ordered.


For the Court
/s/ Nwamaka Anowi, Clerk

Speak Out Now on Voter Suppression Bill HR 22

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Donald Trump signed a broad anti-voter executive order (EO) in March, but its impact was mostly symbolic, since presidents cannot make such law unilaterally. EOs merely tell federal officials how POTUS would like to see existing law applied.

But this week, Congress is voting on a horrific voter suppression bill, HR 22, that Trump would sign into law if passed. The bill, referred to by anti-democracy groups as the “SAVE Act” would force states to require that people show proof of citizenship every time they register to vote.

More than 21 million eligible voters lack accessible proof-of-citizenship documents and nearly 70 million married women who took their spouse’s surname could face problems registering (Pew Research estimates this is 80 percent of married women). Many more people could be blocked from voting entirely because their birth documentation differs from current identification in some way. 

The bill passed the House on April 10. We urge you to call phone the U.S. Capitol switchboard ASAP at (202) 224-3121 to advise your Senators on your thoughts.

For more detail, we recommend this Ari Berman report in Mother Jones and this Demos report.

Trump’s “Tariffs” Are Not Economic Tools. They’re Weapons for Domestic Oppression

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Editor’s note: The following thoughts are compiled from an April 3 BlueSky thread by Senator Chris Murphy (Connecticut). Though we prefer the plain language of nationwide sales tax to repeating Trump’s preferred label of tariffs, Murphy beautifully summarizes the proper way to understand and frame Trump’s new sales taxes–the largest tax increase in at least several generations.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

A thread to explain his plan and how we fight back.

This week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won’t understand how the tariffs make economic sense. 

That’s because they don’t. They aren’t designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool.

You see, our founders created a President with limited and checked powers. They specifically put the power of spending and taxation in the hands of the legislature. 

Why? Because they watched how kings and despots used spending and taxes to control their subjects.

British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent. 

Our own revolution was spurred by the King’s use of heavy taxation of the colonies to punish our push for self governance. 

Trump knows that he can weaken (and maybe destroy) democracy by using spending and taxation in the same way. 

He is using access to government funds to bully universities, law firms and state and local governments into loyalty pledges.

Healthy democracies rely on an independent legal profession to maintain the rule of law, independent universities to guard objective truth and provide forums for dissent to authority, and independent state/local government to counterbalance a powerful federal government.

But the private sector also plays a rule to protect democracy. Independent industry has power.

The tariffs are Trump’s tool to erode that independence. Now, one by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief.

What could Trump demand as part of a quiet loyalty pledge? 

Public shows of support from executives for all his economic policy. Contributions to his political efforts. Promises to police employees’ support for his political opposition.

The tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. 

As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.

And once Trump has the lawyers, colleges and industry under his thumb, it becomes very hard for the opposition to have any viable space to maneuver. 

Trump didn’t invent this strategy. It’s the playbook for democratically elected leaders who want to stay in power forever.

The tariffs aren’t economic policy. They are political weapons. 

But as long as we see this clearly, we can stop him. Public mobilization is working. Today, a few Republicans joined Democrats to vote against one set of tariffs. 

The people still have the power.

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Resignation Letter of Hagan Scotten in Response to Pam Bondi’s Attempt to Dismiss Charges Against Eric Adams

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The letter below is written by Hagan Scotten, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney, wrote to Emil Bove, acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General to quit in protest over Pam Bondi’s order to dismiss New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ bribery case. His letter came one day after Danielle Sassoon, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned, refusing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s directive to drop the case. A grand jury indicted Adams but Bondi sought to dismiss his charges in return for a pledge by Adams to assist Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda in NYC.

We offer their letters (Sassoon’s is linked above, with additional context) to highlight those acting with integrity to defeat the attempted authoritarian takeover by the Musk/Trump regime. While those complying with the authoritarians deserve scorn, it’s even more important to celebrate and amplify the growing number of people making personal sacrifices to defend our country from the saboteurs within.

February 12, 2025

Mr. Bove,

I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S.Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General.

In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. 

image saying:

But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens,much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.

Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

Yours truly,Hagan Scotten
Assistant United States Attorney

Elon Musk Targets Federal Civil Servants, Inciting Threats of Violence Against Them*

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By Jim Carlton and Rebecca Ballhaus, Wall Street Journal, Nov 23, 2024 

*Wall Street Journal’s original title: Federal Workers Feel Ire of Musk’s Followers — New efficiency czar targets employees by name on X, sparking pushback 

As co-director of President-elect Donald Trump’s nascent Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk has wasted no time posting to his 205 million followers on X about specific government departments he views as bloated.

But this past week, Musk has escalated from targeting government agencies to singling out individuals — sparking his online army of followers to launch blistering critiques of ordinary federal employees.

One recent post by the billionaire zeroed in on Ashley Thomas, a little-known director of climate diversification at the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., after another user on Musk’s social-media platform X questioned her role.

Musk’s repost — “So many fake jobs” — garnered 32 million views, triggering an avalanche of memes and ridicule from his followers against the employee, such as, “Sorry Ashley Thomas Gravy Train is Over.”

Trump has tapped Musk and biotech-company founder Vivek Ramaswamy to spearhead DOGE — sharing its name with a Musk-promoted cryptocurrency — to slash spending, regulations and restructure federal agencies.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, the two men envisioned “mass head-count reductions” across the federal bureaucracy. On Wednesday, Musk shared on X a past TV interview with Milton Friedman in which the economist recommended the elimination of a number of federal agencies, including the departments of education, commerce, agriculture and housing and urban development. “Milton Friedman was the best,” Musk said in apparent agreement.

Ramaswamy has offered an unusually blunt — and likely impossible to implement — strategy for how to slash the federal workforce: firing those whose Social Security numbers start or end with odd numbers. “Boom. That’s a 75 percent reduction done,” he said on a podcast interview this fall.

Both men have since called out numerous instances of alleged government waste on X, soliciting public recommendations for budget cuts.

This past week, Musk resumed his controversial practice of calling out individuals — a tactic going back to X’s previous incarnation as Twitter.

In 2021, Musk took aim at Mary “Missy” Cummings, a Duke University engineering professor who was appointed to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a top adviser, and who had been critical of Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system.

After taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk targeted Yoel Roth, the platform’s former head of trust and safety, who had recently left. Musk tweeted, incorrectly, that it looked like Roth had argued “in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services.” Some users interpreted it as Musk calling Roth a pedophile, and they posted calls for Roth’s death. Roth moved out of his house temporarily because of threats.

Musk’s targets this past week included Alexis Pelosi, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s relative and a senior climate adviser at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But that post also included the names of two obscure federal officials with climate-related jobs — including one who had actually left her job at the Energy Department in August.

“These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees. “It’s intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.”

Kelley said Musk is going after the wrong target if he focuses only on federal employees. Kelley said far more is spent by federal contractors such as himself — $750 billion annually compared with about $200 billion for the civilian workforce, one third of which are veterans as he is.

“We are a comparative steal, and we want to help clean it up, too,” said Kelley, a former Army sergeant. “The people I represent have been called names like deep state, but they are working people just like you and I.”

The 37-year-old Thomas, the target of Musk’s viral repost, works for a federal agency that partners with private companies to finance ways to improve living standards in developing countries.

With engineering, business and water science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Oxford, Thomas spent years doing field work in Africa and writing research papers such as one on a technology that can help extract water from air in arid countries, according to her past tweets.

Thomas went to work as the agency’s director of climate diversification in 2023, when federal records show she earned $172,075 a year.

An agency official said the climate diversification portfolio is highly technical and is focused on identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather.

How does a routine federal employee come to the attention of multibillionaire Musk?

The controversy erupted when “datahazard,” an X user whose anti-Biden posts have drawn Musk’s attention, questioned Thomas’s job to nearly 170,000 followers.

Musk’s repost sparked a slew of taunts, with followers making jeers such as, “A tough way for Ashley Thomas to find out she’s losing her job.”

Michael Skolnik, a longtime civil rights activist, was among those who fired back at the post. “You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and dangerously targeting a person who works an honest job to provide for their family.”

Neither Musk nor his representatives responded to requests for comment.

A representative of the “datahazard” X account, who didn’t give a name, said it was legitimate to give names of employees like Thomas because she is on a list of senior officials who are public figures. “Taxpayers have a fundamental right to know who runs our government,” the person said via direct message on X.

LinkedIn and Facebook pages for Thomas were no longer live as of Wednesday.

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