The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board urged President Donald Trump on Friday not to get involved in what they called a "boondoggle" of a liquefied natural gas project in eastern Africa.

The project is run by the French company TotalEnergies, and backed by the U.S. Export-Import Bank — but there are numerous red flags that have caused the British and Dutch governments to pull out, and, the board argued, the Trump administration should follow their lead.

"The project is a calamity waiting to happen," wrote the board. "The region is prone to political instability, so much so that the Mozambique government last decade enlisted the Wagner Group, Russia’s mercenary outfit, to assist with security. TotalEnergies paused the project in 2021 after attacks by Islamic insurgents in the region. A human-rights group last month filed a criminal complaint with the French counterterrorism prosecutor’s office accusing TotalEnergies of being complicit with war crimes by Mozambique soldiers who were trying to put down the insurgency."

TotalEnergies denies the allegations, said the board, and some have argued they were cooked up by "the climate lobby" to put down fossil fuels — but that doesn't matter, the board argued, because the "project’s risks are incontestable" as violence erupts in Mozambique yet again.

"CEO Patrick Pouyanne is trying to undermine U.S. LNG growth and European sanctions on Russian gas," argued the board, noting that Pouyanne has stated that if Trump is "pushing to abandon Russian LNG quicker, it’s because somewhere he knows that it will boost prices ... We must keep the diversity of our supplies.”

"He no doubt worries that Europe’s plan to wean itself off Russian gas will hurt his risky investments in a country where Mr. Putin can ruin a business on his political whim," the board concluded. "Why would Mr. Trump finance another one of the Frenchman’s dubious bets?"

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fessed up on Friday over who was responsible for the Trump administration's brazen defiance of a court order.

In March, the Trump administration made the controversial decision to transfer Venezuelan detainees to El Salvador despite a judicial order temporarily blocking their removal. The move ignited a confrontation between the Trump administration and Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who was weighing whether to hold officials in contempt of court.

The case centers on two flights carrying predominantly Venezuelan migrants, which were redirected to El Salvador and held in the country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, despite Boasberg's explicit order to return the planes to the United States. President Donald Trump attacked Boasberg on social media, calling him a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator.

Noem admitted in a federal court filing Friday evening that she decided the migrants on the two airplanes would be turned over to that country despite Boasberg's order, The Washington Post reported. Her admission comes as Boasberg resumes an inquiry into whether she ought to face a contempt prosecution for defying the order.

"The resumption of Boasberg’s probe after a seven-month delay as appeals were heard and Noem’s reply revives a momentous clash between President Donald Trump’s administration and the judiciary," the Post wrote. The report noted her filing lacked details, as did the filings of other officials involved in the move, which could lead the judge to have them testify in court.

Justice Department attorneys appeared to remain defiant, writing in a filing that if Boasberg “continues to believe” his "order was sufficiently clear in imposing an obligation to halt the transfer of custody for detainees who had already been removed from the United States, the Court should proceed promptly with a referral."

A federal judge said on Friday that President Donald Trump did not have the legal authority to hold immigrants at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba before shipping them out for deportation, The New York Times reported.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, did not immediately order the operation to be shut down, but denied the government's motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has vowed to seek a closure order.

"While successive administrations have for decades housed migrants at Guantánamo who have been intercepted at sea trying to reach the United States, Judge Sooknanan found that never before had the U.S. government used the base to hold people being deported from the United States," said the report. "The White House began using Guantánamo as a way station for deportees in February after an order from President Trump to prepare the base to hold up to 30,000 migrants."

So far, around 710 detainees have been held at the facility, under guard by U.S. soldiers and Marines, using a setup of tents installed for the purpose.

“The court squarely rejected the Trump administration’s legal claim that Congress gave it the extraordinary power to detain immigrants in military bases overseas,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt. “We will now move promptly to end the policy based on this legal ruling.”

This comes as the Trump administration faces mounting criticism for its broader mass deportation program, from massive sweeps of cities around the country, to the summary deportation of individuals in violation of court orders.