A coalition of African groups filed fraud complaints Wednesday against French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, accusing him of illegally obtaining the rights to run ports and money laundering. French investigators have in the past looked into allegations the Bolloré Group illegally backed political campaigns in exchange for port concessions.

Groups from five African countries filed fraud and corruption complaints Wednesday accusing French billionaire Vincent Bolloré and one of his sons of illegally obtaining and benefitting from port concessions.

A collective made up of non-governmental organisations in Togo, Guinea, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cameroon called Restitution for Africa are accusing the Bolloré Group, Bolloré and his son of unlawfully receiving the rights to run ports and then “laundering” money in those countries through the sale of its Africa logistics business.

Bolloré Group’s African ports and logistics business, which the tycoon sold off in 2022, employed more than 20,000 people in 20 African countries, running 16 ports as well as warehouses and transport hubs across the continent.

Cyrille Bolloré, his youngest son, became head of Bolloré Africa Logistics in 2019, taking over from his father.

French investigators have already looked into allegations that the Bolloré Group had, through its consulting business, illegally backed the 2010 presidential campaigns of Faure Gnassingbe in Togo and Alpha Conde in Guinea, in exchange for port concessions in Lome and Conakry.

The group’s lawyers managed to negotiate a settlement, but French financial prosecutors in 2024 requested Vincent Bolloré be tried on charges of corruption and complicity in breach of trust.

Wednesday’s complaint now accuses Bolloré of corruption, benefitting from influence peddling and unlawfully accepting favours from local officials in Cameroon, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

It charges that this is how the group obtained concessions to run the ports of Douala and Kribi in Cameroon, Tema in Ghana, and Abidjan in Ivory Coast.

The collective alleges that the 2022 sale of Bolloré Africa Logistics, whose profits came from these allegedly illegally obtained port concessions, amounted to money laundering.

Bolloré’s holding company sold Bolloré Africa Logistics to the MSC shipping group for €5.7 billion ($6.05 billion) in 2022.

It was thought at the time to be the mainstay of the tycoon’s fortune. Bolloré and his family are estimated to be worth $9.9 billion, according to Forbes.

Bolloré owns several right-wing media outlets in France.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The White House on Wednesday accused judges of “usurping” executive power after a series of rulings against Donald Trump’s administration, including one that sought to block the deportation of Venezuelan migrants and drew the president’s ire.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged there had been a “concerted effort by the far left” to pick judges who were “clearly acting as partisan activists” to deal with cases involving the Republican’s administration.

“Not only are they usurping the will of the president and the chief executive of our country, but they are undermining the will of the American public,” Leavitt said at a daily briefing.

Leavitt in particular lashed out at District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the suspension over the weekend of the deportation flights carried out under an obscure wartime law, calling him a “Democrat activist.”

Trump’s administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan gang members as part of its mass deportation program of undocumented migrants.

Trump personally called for the judge’s impeachment on Tuesday, saying Boasberg was “a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.”

The Yale-educated Boasberg, 62, was first appointed to the bench by president George W. Bush, a Republican, and later named a district court judge by Obama, a Democrat.

Trump’s comments drew a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said.

Boasberg, in an order in the deportation case on Wednesday, also issued a pointed reminder to Justice Department lawyers that court rulings are to be obeyed.

“As the Supreme Court has made crystal clear, the proper recourse for a party subject to an injunction it believes is legally flawed… is appellate review, not disobedience,” he said.

‘Assault on democracy’

Federal judges are nominated by the president for life and can only be removed by being impeached by the House of Representatives for “high crimes or misdemeanors” and convicted by the Senate.

Impeachment of federal judges is exceedingly rare and the last time a judge was removed by Congress was in 2010.

Trump renewed his attacks on Boasberg on his Truth Social network on Wednesday, although he did not repeat his call for impeachment.

“If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” he said.

Judges have dealt Trump a number of setbacks in recent weeks as his administration pursues its wholesale overhaul of the federal government.

Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship has been blocked by the courts and a judge on Tuesday ordered an immediate halt to the shutdown of the main US aid agency by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

On the same day, another judge suspended the Pentagon’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.

The South African-born billionaire Musk railed against what he called a “judicial coup” in posts on his social network X.

“We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people,” Musk said, misstating the process and the actual number of senators required — 67.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller also lashed out at the judiciary, saying “district court judges have assumed the mantle of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and Commander-in-Chief.”

“It is lunacy. It is pure lawlessness. It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must and will end,” Miller said on X.

Trump, the first convicted felon to serve in the White House, has a history of attacking the judges who presided over his civil and criminal cases.

But Trump’s administration now appears bent on a showdown with the judiciary as he asserts extraordinary levels of executive power.

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The only two Democrats on the US Federal Trade Commission have been flushed out by President Donald Trump, the White House said, opening the door for the Republican to appoint loyalists at the independent regulatory agency.

The FTC’s primary function is to protect the US public against deceptive or unfair business practices.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House official confirmed that FTC commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter were dismissed.

The FTC consists of five commissioners, typically representing both major political parties.

“The president just illegally fired me,” Bedoya wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This is corruption plain and simple.”

Bedoya vowed in an X post to “see the president in court” over the dismissal.

Layoffs of federal workers have been rampant since Trump took office in January and established a “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk, a senior advisor and key financial backer of the Republican’s campaign.

“The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists,” Bedoya said in a post. “Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies.”

Under Trump and former president Joe Biden, the FTC has taken on Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook parent Meta over how they wield market power.

In an interview with Fox Business in February, newly appointed FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson confirmed that ongoing cases against Amazon and Meta would proceed, emphasizing his commitment to “holding Big Tech’s feet to the fire.”

Questions have lingered, however, on whether the Trump presidency will continue with the cases, given an apparent alignment between tech billionaires and the Republican since he won last year’s election.

Since that victory, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made major changes at his company to bring it in line with Trump’s preferences. He has axed US fact-checking on Facebook, named Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board and appointed a Republican advisor as head of global policy.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos visited the president during the transition period and has sought to make his Washington Post newspaper less hostile to the president.

The billionaire has ordered the Post’s opinion section not to run columns opposed to “personal liberties and free markets,” and quashed its planned endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris before the US election.

Musk, Bezos and other tech billionaires were given prominent places at Trump’s inauguration in January, with several making million-dollar donations to the committee organizing the event.

AFP