More: In late March, at the height of the Iran war, Israel quietly approved more settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank than it ever had at one time.
Staff members at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem saw the move as potentially flouting one of President Trump's explicit red lines for Israel " no annexation of the West Bank " and drafted an urgent report intended for policy makers in Washington.
That memo never reached Washington. It was quashed by David Milstein, a top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, according to three U.S. officials briefed on the process.
This was no isolated incident.
Since taking up his post in April 2025, Mr. Milstein, 36, has repeatedly suppressed or significantly revised embassy reporting on Israeli activities to present the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to a dozen people who work with or interact with Mr. Milstein in both Jerusalem and Washington:
As settler violence in the West Bank surged in the spring, for instance, he stymied embassy reporting suggesting that the Israeli government was failing to take action, according to the three officials. Instead the embassy sent a cable to Washington, viewed by The New York Times, praising Israel for "cracking down" on the attacks.
When members of Congress pushed for accountability over the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and security forces, he suppressed a detailed report that the embassy staff had written, effectively stonewalling lawmakers' efforts to gain information, according to multiple officials briefed on the matter.
Soon after arriving in Jerusalem, Mr. Milstein began insisting on approving communications from the embassy section that handles Palestinian affairs, multiple officials with direct knowledge of the process said. The flow of cables plummeted from several a week to a few a month, as some staffers refrained from writing reports for fear that Mr. Milstein would block or rewrite them, these officials said.
Mr. Milstein's interventions go far beyond those of any recent predecessor, several officials said. They and others said they were speaking out of concern that officials in Washington were getting a distorted view of Israeli actions through core diplomatic channels.
Mr. Milstein's efforts have helped insulate Israel's right-wing government against potential blowback from a Trump Administration that has been its closest ally.
"You know why I'm furious right now? I was hearing from everybody on plaintiffs' side that this was going to happen and I said repeatedly, no, I trust the government," Judge Ana Reyes told the DOJ. "I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done."
Reyes imposed a temporary pause on the Justice Department's tree removal at the golf course until Tuesday morning, demanding to know who ordered the weekend removal and how long government attorneys knew of the plan. She said that if her current order is violated by "even two seconds" that there will be contempt proceedings, and flatly rejected the administration's claims they had done all they could.
"Do you have email accounts? Do you have cell phones? Do you have regular phones? Do you have the ability to get into a car and go to where plaintiffs are and tell them?" she asked of their efforts.
"You did not do your best. You did your absolute worst."