attorneys

DENVER — The office of Colorado’s attorney general is a perch 10 stories above downtown Denver. From his aerie, Phil Weiser has a sweeping view of the city skyline, the gold-domed Capitol and, occasionally, a red hawk on the wing.

But looking toward November, Weiser sees something darker.

Federal agents swarming polling places. Voters intimidated or blocked from casting their ballots. A tyrannical president using his powers, real and imagined, to undermine or try to overturn the Nov. 3 election.

“With this administration what we have seen is it’s important that we not limit our imagination to what … type of harm could happen,” Weiser said during a sunny noon hour in the Mile High City.

For that reason, Colorado’s attorney general and his Democratic peers around the country have spent more than a year strategizing — by phone, via Zoom, sometimes in person — on ways to Trump-proof the midterm election.

They’ve researched history and the law, war-gamed what-ifs, divvied up responsibilities and drafted emergency lawsuits and temporary restraining orders so they can be hurried into court at a moment’s notice.

“We have prepared for a range of contingencies … so that we’re ready to act,” Weiser said.

“We’re not going to be reacting in real time” or pulling all-nighters, he added. “We are going to be following through on plans we’ve made, having looked at what’s possible.”

The efforts of Weiser, California’s Rob Bonta and more than 20 other Democratic attorneys general are part of a mass mobilization aimed at thwarting Trump’s unprecedented efforts to pervert and subvert November’s midterm balloting.

It’s remarkable that kind of man-the-barricades action is needed to preserve and protect the voting franchise in this, the land of the free and home of the brave. But having weighed the threats, Weiser said his greatest fear of election interference comes not from a bad overseas actor or some terrorist group, but rather our own federal government “and what this administration might do.”

So here we are.

To fend off that threat from within, state Democratic parties across the nation are aiming to recruit 10,000 volunteers to guard polling places in the event armed federal agents show up.

Various sponsors have launched education campaigns to explain election rules and offer hotlines for voters who have trouble casting their ballot.

Civil rights groups and democracy-defending organizations have staged their own tabletop exercises brainstorming and rehearsing various scenarios. A group of Democratic U.S. senators has done the same.

“What we’re doing is preparing for the fact that Donald Trump, in 2020, lied about the election in advance, lied about it in the aftermath, went to court … and then he instigated a violent insurrection in this very building,” Marc Elias, a Democratic elections attorney, told MS NOW in a July interview at the Capitol. “So I think we need to take these threats in the 2026 midterm run-up … both seriously and literally.”

In a more courageous, less heedlessly partisan world, Republicans would be working with Democrats to keep the power-drunk Trump in check. (The House and Senate supposedly comprise a separate and equal branch of government, with its own power, prerogatives and such.)

But, as Weiser noted, this Republican-led Congress “has been lacking in backbone, lacking in the role of checks and balances. That has left it to state attorneys general to fill that vacuum, going to court and essentially playing the role of a check on a lawless and often bullying president.”

The nation’s 24 Democratic attorneys general have filed more than 125 lawsuits in Trump’s second term alone, fighting his moves on trade and tariffs, energy and immigration policies and efforts to gut or eliminate programs and whole government agencies. They’ve prevailed in the overwhelming majority of cases that have been adjudicated or settled.

Even before Trump was elected again, some attorneys general began conferring on ways to fight the excesses they anticipated in a second administration. Anyone who didn’t see them coming wasn’t paying attention, said Weiser, who, most likely, will be elected Colorado’s next governor on Nov. 3.

(His victory in Colorado’s Democratic primary stemmed in good part from Weiser’s record battling Trump in court.)

“The worst-case scenario was that a Trump presidency would work to implement Project 2025 and would do things like try to end birthright citizenship, try to interfere with the delivery of ballots in the mail, would seek to use ICE in ways that were a basic affront to the rule of law,” Weiser said. “All those things have happened.”

So why not expect more of the same come November?

Trump is constitutionally (small “c”) incapable of acknowledging the result of any election he didn’t win. He’s openly urged supporters to “cheat like hell.” Thus, one can only assume malign intent when the president tries to wantonly purge voter rolls, hijack the U.S. Postal service to gum up mail balloting and override the Constitution (capital “c”) by federalizing November’s election.

Some might call such fears melodramatic, or overblown.

But as Weiser said, “We need to stay nervous and stay vigiliant because [of] what this president has shown, Jan. 6 being one of the telling examples.”

Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of elections “is historic,” the attorney general said. “It is unique. It’s a threat. And it’s why we have to stand our guard.”

Vote, to bring this rogue president to heel. Stay vigilant, to make sure that vote counts.

Two good watchwords for this midterm election.

Sept. 21, 2026 12:45 PM PT

AUSTIN, Texas — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was in custody Monday at an ICE detention center in Texas after he was released from a hospital with a bullet still lodged in his back, according to a spokesperson for the man’s attorney.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin, the state capital, on Sunday before he was shot during a traffic stop, said Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz, a spokesperson for immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.

Ruiz said Perez called his wife around 12:30 p.m. Sunday to tell her that he had been shot. She said Perez’s wife hasn’t spoken with him since then.

Perez was being detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles southwest of Austin, Ruiz told the Associated Press. She said Lincoln-Goldfinch spoke by phone with Perez, who told her that he was being interrogated while a bullet remained in his back. Perez also said he had no pain medication, according to Ruiz.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who “had a final order of removal.”

Perez is an asylum seeker and entered the United States through a parole program, and he has no criminal history, Ruiz said.

“Regardless of his status, the use of force was unwarranted,” Ruiz said. “As far as we understand, he was here legally.”

The shooting occurred amid a surge in ICE enforcement across the U.S. during President Trump’s second term. During the summer, it reported more than 50,000 monthly arrests in July and August — a first for the agency.

Immigration officers have come under intense scrutiny amid a series of shootings during the crackdown. At least four people have been fatally shot by federal officers during immigration enforcement operations this year.

Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters Sunday that the shooting occurred after a traffic stop. She said local police were not involved. Local officials said the man was shot once in the torso and had been hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

Perez’s wife and attorney were unable to get information on his condition from the hospital Sunday until hospital attorneys told them about 6 p.m. that he had been discharged 90 minutes earlier, Ruiz said.

She said ICE had not confirmed any information to Lincoln-Goldfinch, who used legal databases and other means to discover where he was being detained.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said Sunday he wants local police to have a role in investigating the shooting. Watson said it wouldn’t be appropriate for ICE to investigate on its own.

At the scene of the shooting, a dark blue Toyota Corolla was parked under an overpass with damage to its passenger-side door and what appeared to be bullet holes before it was towed away Sunday evening.

About 100 anti-ICE protesters gathered Sunday in the shooting’s aftermath.

Wilder and Bedayn write for the Associated Press. AP writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.

California Atty. General Rob Bonta and Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison have reached an agreement to end the state’s antitrust fight, paving the way for Ellison to complete his $111-billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, said a person familiar with the matter.

The two sides have agreed to resolve antitrust claims that Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general brought in late July, said the source, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the settlement.

As part of the deal, Paramount agreed to pay a penalty if the company fails to make good on a promise to distribute 30 films per year in theaters and to spend $1.5 billion on film production in Hollywood over the next five years, said the source who was not authorized to comment.

Representatives of Paramount and Bonta did not respond to a request for comment.

A federal judge must approve the agreement. Paramount would then be poised to quickly finalize its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery — a blockbuster combination that will reshape Hollywood by collapsing two historic film studios with rights to Batman, Harry Potter, “Top Gun,” and Bugs Bunny and by combining the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services.

In addition to CBS, Paramount would own dozens of cable television channels, including CNN, TBS, HGTV, Food Network and Comedy Central.

The road to a resolution was fraught. Bonta abruptly canceled a negotiation session with Paramount in late August after potential deal terms leaked. Then, after talks restarted and the settlement began taking shape, several powerful Bonta allies, including New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Connecticut Atty. Gen. William Tong, signaled their displeasure with proposed deal terms.

They felt the deal points didn’t go far enough to mitigate the potential clout Paramount would wield over the film and television industries if it was allowed to swallow its larger industry rival, according to three people familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment.

Ellison’s goal had long been to complete the Warner takeover by the end of September — before midterm Congressional elections and prior to a key deadline for Paramount to increase its payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders. Ellison received a boost from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for California governor, who pressed Bonta to end the dispute rather than take the case to trial in Oakland in March.

Newsom said he took “seriously” Paramount’s threat to leave the state. He advocated for a settlement behind the scenes, according to two people close to the matter who were not authorized to comment.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Ellison was highly motivated to strike a deal because his company’s expenses will soon accelerate. Beginning Oct. 1, Paramount is on the hook to pay Warner investors a “ticking fee” of 25 cents per quarter, per share until the deal closed. That obligation is expected to add $7 million a day to the cost of the $31 a share that Paramount agreed to pay Warner shareholders when it won the bidding war back in February.

Paramount’s takeover will be heavily leveraged. The company’s bankers have lined up nearly $80 billion in debt to finance the merger. Ellison’s father, billionaire Larry Ellison, late last year agreed to backstop the $47-billion in equity needed to complete the acquisition. Royal families from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi have agreed to chip in $24 billion for an equity stake by assuming some of Ellison’s financial commitments.

Late last week, the Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount’s request to allow the foreign investors to own nearly 50% of the merged company. The Ellison family, however, will retain its voting control.

Paramount has promised Wall Street that it would make more than $6 billion in cost cuts. A recent Los Angeles County economic report predicted the merger could lead to an estimated 4,500 workers in the Los Angeles region losing their jobs as Ellison works to combine the two companies.

The truce comes after Paramount received clearances from regulators around the world, including the European Commission, Canada and the U.S. Justice Department.

But despite those approvals, Paramount spent weeks over the summer wrangling with Bonta and applying political pressure. Ellison threatened to move his studio from its historic Melrose Avenue address to Texas or Tennessee.

Larry Ellison separately announced plans to switch the headquarters of his software behemoth Oracle to Nashville from Austin, Texas (after Oracle relocated from Silicon Valley six years ago).

Paramount also enlisted major Hollywood unions, the Directors Guild of America and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and prominent cinema chains to drop their opposition to the deal.

Bonta’s suit had leaned heavily into potential harms to theatrical distribution and lawyers for the states had been banking on theater executives’ testimony at trial.

The parties also were facing a key court hearing Thursday. Paramount was poised to ask U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in Oakland to make the states and the Writers Guild of America post a $1.88-billion bond that would cover some of Paramount’s delay-related deal costs should the company eventually prevail.

The states and the WGA, which also sued to block the merger, have balked at the request, which was designed by Paramount to create fissures within the coalition of states by raising doubts about the strength of their case.

Paramount’s high-profile lobbying campaign reached a crescendo in late August after Paramount called out activist-actor Mark Ruffalo, accusing him of resorting to “antisemitic tropes” to argue against the merger.

Prominent Jewish groups rushed to Paramount’s aid. Ruffalo, who frequently works with HBO, denied the allegation, saying he had a 1st Amendment right to speak against the deal as well as Oracle’s business ties to Israel. Numerous Jewish artists came to Ruffalo’s defense, saying his free speech rights were being squelched.

Bonta abruptly canceled a settlement conference, accusing Paramount of leaking confidential information.

“If you want to have an adult, legitimate, serious settlement discussion — no problem,” Bonta said during an Aug. 25 appearance in Los Angeles. “But if you want to play games, we’ve got better things to do.”

The states’ 37-page lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, claimed the Paramount-Warner combination would violate the U.S. Clayton Act, a century-old antitrust law to prevent mergers that weaken competition and raise costs for consumers.

The states, which also included Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey and New Mexico, had argued the tie-up of two legacy movie studios would give Paramount-Warner too much marketshare in two categories — wide-release movies and potential blockbusters.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has pressed to get his blockbuster deal done before his company must make higher payouts to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders and before the mid-term elections, which could change the makeup in Congress.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

The states also said Paramount-Warner would control nearly 30% of the cable television channel space with more than 50 networks.

Paramount has been facing a June 4 deadline to complete the deal — or owe Warner Bros. Discovery a $7-billion breakup fee. Paramount has already paid $2.8-billion to cover a termination fee paid to Netflix after the streamer withdrew from the auction in February.