case

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a federal judge ruled Monday in directing prosecutors to provide defense lawyers with all grand jury materials from the case.

Those problems, wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to the grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications during the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings.

“The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted,” Fitzpatrick wrote “However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”

The 24-page opinion is the most blistering assessment yet by a judge of the Justice Department’s actions leading up to the Comey indictment. It underscores how procedural missteps and prosecutorial inexperience have combined to imperil the prosecution pushed by President Trump for reasons separate and apart from the substance of the disputed allegations against Comey.

The Comey case and a separate prosecution of New York Atty, Gen. Letitia James have heightened concerns that the Justice Department is being weaponized in pursuit of Trump’s political opponents. Both defendants have filed multiple motions to dismiss the cases against them before trial, arguing that the prosecutions are improperly vindictive and that the prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed.

A different judge is set to decide by Thanksgiving on the challenges by Comey and James to Halligan’s appointment.

Though grand jury proceedings are presumptively secret, Comey’s lawyers had sought records from the process out of concern that irregularities may have tainted the case. The sole prosecutor who defense lawyers say presented the case to the grand jury was Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience who was appointed just days before the indictment to the job of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In his order Monday, Fitzpatrick said that after reviewing the grand jury transcript himself, he had come away deeply concerned about the integrity of the case.

“Here, the procedural and substantive irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct resulting in prejudice to Mr. Comey,” Fitzpatrick said.

The Justice Department responded to the ruling by asking that it be put on hold to give prosecutors time to file objections. The government said it believed Fitzpatrick “may have misinterpreted” some facts in issuing his ruling.

Fitzpatrick listed, among nearly a dozen irregularities in his ruling, two comments that a prosecutor — presumably, Halligan — made to the grand jury that he said represented “fundamental misstatements of the law.”

The actual statements are blacked out, but Fitzpatrick said the prosecutor seems to have ignored the fact that a grand jury may not draw a negative inference about a person who exercises his right not to testify in front of it. He said she also appeared to suggest to grand jurors that they did not need to rely only on what was presented to them and could instead be assured that there was additional evidence that would be presented at trial.

The judge also drew attention to the jumbled manner in which the indictment was obtained and indicated that a transcript and recording of the proceedings do not provide a full account of what occurred. Halligan initially sought a three-count indictment of Comey, but after the grand jury rejected one of the three proposed counts and found probable cause to indict on the other two counts, a second two-count indictment was prepared and signed.

But Fitzpatrick said it was not clear to him in reviewing the record that the indictment that Halligan presented in court at the conclusion of the process had been presented to the grand jury for its deliberation.

“Either way, this unusual series of events, still not fully explained by the prosecutor’s declaration, calls into question the presumption of regularity generally associated with grand jury proceedings, and provides another genuine issue the defense may raise to challenge the manner in which the government obtained the indictment,” he wrote.

The two-count indictment charges Comey with lying to Congress in September 2020 when he suggested under questioning that he had not authorized FBI leaks of information to the news media. His lawyers say the question he was responding to was vague and confusing but the answer he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee was true.

The line of questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz appeared to focus on whether Comey had authorized his former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, to speak with the news media. But since the indictment, prosecutors have made clear that their indictment centers on allegations that Comey permitted a separate person — a close friend and Columbia University law professor, Dan Richman — to serve as an anonymous source in interactions with reporters.

The FBI executed search warrants in 2019 and 2020 to access messages between Richman and Comey as part of a media leaks investigation that did not result in charges. But Fitzpatrick said he was concerned that communications between the men that might have been protected by attorney-client privilege — Richman was at one point functioning as a lawyer for Comey — were exposed to the grand jury without Comey having had an opportunity to object.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

Cook’s lawyer says the criminal referrals against her ‘fail on even the most cursory look at the facts’.

United States Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s lawyer has offered the first detailed defence of mortgage applications that gave rise to President Donald Trump’s move to fire her, saying apparent discrepancies in loan documents were either accurate at the time or an “inadvertent notation” that couldn’t constitute fraud given other disclosures to her lenders.

Cook has denied wrongdoing, but until Monday, neither she nor her legal team had responded in any detail to the fraud accusations first made in August by Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William Pulte.

She has challenged her removal in court, and the US Supreme Court has for now blocked Trump’s firing attempt and will hear arguments in the case in January.

A Department of Justice spokesperson said the department “does not comment on current or prospective litigation, including matters that may be an investigation”.

In a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi seen by the Reuters news agency, Cook’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said the criminal referrals Pulte made against her “fail on even the most cursory look at the facts”.

The two separate criminal referrals Pulte made fail to establish any evidence that Cook intentionally deceived her lenders when she obtained mortgage loans for three properties in Michigan, Georgia and Massachusetts, the letter said.

Lowell also accused Pulte of selectively targeting Trump’s political enemies while ignoring similar allegations against Republican officials, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Lowell said other recent conduct by Pulte “undercut his criminal referrals concerning Governor Cook”. That behaviour includes the recent dismissal of the FHFA’s acting inspector general and several internal watchdogs at Fannie Mae, one of the mortgage-finance giants under FHFA control.

The letter also cited a recent article by Reuters that said the White House ousted FHFA acting Inspector General Joe Allen right after he tried to provide key discovery material to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia who are pursuing an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

James was charged with bank fraud and lying to her lender also after Pulte made a referral to the Justice Department. She has pleaded not guilty, and she is seeking a dismissal of the case on multiple grounds, including vindictive and selective prosecution.

Cook’s case is being handled in part by Ed Martin, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, whom Bondi named as a special assistant US attorney to assist with mortgage fraud probes into public figures.

The case is still being investigated, and no criminal charges have been brought. The department is also separately investigating Democratic California Senator Adam Schiff, also at Pulte’s request.

California is once again fighting in federal court for a Jewish family’s right to have a precious Impressionist painting returned to them by a Spanish museum nearly 90 years after it was looted by the Nazis.

The state is also defending its own authority to legally require art and other stolen treasures to be returned to other victims with ties to the state, even in disputes that stretch far beyond its borders.

The state has repeatedly weighed in on the case since the Cassirer family first filed it while living in San Diego in 2005. Last year, it passed a new law designed to bolster the legal rights of the Cassirers and other families in California to recover valuable property stolen from them in acts of genocide or political persecution.

On Monday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office filed a motion to intervene in the Cassirer case directly in order to defend that law. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation — which is owned by Spain and holds the Camille Pissarro masterpiece — has claimed that the law is unconstitutional and should therefore be ignored.

Bonta, in a statement to The Times, said the law is “about fairness, moral — and legal — responsibility, and doing what’s right,” and the state will defend it in court.

“There is nothing that can undo the horrors and loss experienced by individuals during the Holocaust. But there is something we can do — that California has done — to return what was stolen back to survivors and their families and bring them some measure of justice and healing,” Bonta said. “As Attorney General, my job is to defend the laws of California, and I intend to do so here.”

Bonta said his office “has supported the Cassirers’ quest for justice for two decades,” and “will continue to fight with them for the rightful return of this invaluable family heirloom.”

Thaddeus J. Stauber, an attorney for the museum, did not did not answer questions from The Times. Bonta’s office said Stauber did not oppose its intervening in the case.

Sam Dubbin, the Cassirers’ longtime attorney, thanked Bonta’s office for “intervening in this case again to defend California’s interests in protecting the integrity of the art market and the rights of stolen property victims.”

“California law has always provided strong protections for the victims of stolen property and stolen art in particular, which the Legislature has consistently reinforced,” Dubbin said.

The state bucked the powerful U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by passing the law last year. The appellate court found in a ruling in January 2024 that the painting was lawfully owned by the Spanish museum.

Bonta’s latest move ratchets up the intrigue surrounding the 20-year-old case, which is being watched around the globe for its potential implications in the high-stakes world of looted art litigation.

The painting in question — Pissarro’s “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain” — is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Both sides acknowledge it was stolen from Lilly Cassirer Neubauer by the Nazis in 1939, after she agreed in desperation to surrender it to a Nazi appraiser in exchange for a visa to flee Germany at the dawn of World War II.

The attention surrounding the case, and its potential to set new precedent in international law, likely makes the painting even more valuable.

After World War II, Lilly received compensation for the painting from the German government, but the family never relinquished its right to the masterpiece — which at the time was considered lost. What she was paid was a fraction of the current estimated worth.

In the decades that followed, Lilly’s grandson Claude Cassirer — who had also survived the Holocaust — moved with his family to San Diego.

In 2000, Claude made the shocking discovery that the painting was not lost to time after all, but part of a vast art collection that Spain had acquired from the late Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, the scion of a German industrialist family with ties to Hitler’s regime. Spain restored an early 19th-century palace near the Prado Museum in Madrid in order to house the collection as the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Claude asked the museum to return the painting to his family. It refused. He sued in U.S. federal court in 2005. The case has been moving through the courts ever since.

California passed its new law in response to the 9th Circuit ruling last year, which held that state law at the time required it to apply an archaic Spanish law. That measure dictates that the title to stolen goods passes legitimately to a new owner over time, if that owner wasn’t aware the goods were stolen when they acquired them — which the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection has argued makes its ownership of the painting legally sound.

In September 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new law during a small gathering with the families of Holocaust survivors at the Holocaust Museum LA. Lilly’s great-grandson and Claude’s son David Cassirer, who now lives in Colorado, was there, praising the state’s lawmakers for “taking a definitive stand in favor of the true owners of stolen art.”

In March, the Supreme Court in a brief order ruled that the 9th Circuit must reconsider its ruling in light of California’s new law.

In September, the Thyssen-Bournemisza Collection filed a motion asking the appellate court to rule in its favor once more. It put forward multiple arguments, but among them was that California’s new law was “constitutionally indefensible” and deprived the museum of its due process rights.

“Under binding Supreme Court precedent, a State may not, by legislative fiat, reopen time-barred claims and transfer property whose ownership is already vested,” the museum argued.

It said the U.S., under federal law, “does not seek to impose its property laws or the property laws of its own states on other foreign sovereigns, but rather expressly acknowledges that different legal traditions and systems must be taken into account to facilitate just and fair solutions with regard to Nazi-looted art cases.”

It said California’s law takes an “aggressive approach” that “disrupts the federal government’s efforts to maintain uniformity and amicable relations with foreign nations,” and “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of federal policy.”

David Cassirer, the lead plaintiff in the case since Claude’s death in 2010, argued the opposite in his own filing to the court.

Cassirer argued that California’s new law requires an outcome in his favor — which he said would also happen to be in line with “moral commitments made by the United States and governments worldwide, including Spain, to Nazi victims and their families.”

“It is undisputed that California substantive law mandates the award of title here to the Cassirer family, as Lilly’s heirs, of which Plaintiff David Cassirer is the last surviving member,” Cassirer’s attorneys wrote.

They wrote that California law holds that “a thief cannot convey good title to stolen works of art,” and therefore requires the return of the painting to Cassirer.

Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who sponsored the bill in the legislature, praised Bonta for stepping in to defend the law — which he called “part of a decades long quest for justice and is rooted in the belief that California must stand on the right side of history.”

ATLANTA — The fate of the Georgia election interference case against President Trump and others is now in the hands of a new prosecutor who has to decide how he is going to move forward with the sprawling indictment.

After courts removed Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had chosen to lead the case, it was up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to name someone to take over. Council Executive Director Pete Skandalakis said Friday that he would handle the case himself after he was unable to find anyone else willing to do it.

The indictment against Trump and 18 others was returned by a grand jury in August 2023 and uses the state’s anti-racketeering law to allege a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in the 2020 election.

Here are some things to know about Skandalakis and what might come next for this prosecution.

How did Skandalakis end up with this case?

When a prosecutor recuses or is removed from a case in Georgia, the executive director of the nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council steps in to appoint a substitute prosecutor. Skandalakis, who has led the agency since January 2018, said in an emailed statement that he contacted several prosecutors about taking over the election interference case and they all declined.

The judge overseeing the case had said that if a new prosecutor wasn’t appointed by Friday, he would dismiss the case. Skandalakis said that while he could easily have let the judge’s deadline pass without appointing anyone and allowed the case to be dismissed, he “did not believe that to be the right course of action.”

He acknowledged that he had not had a chance to fully review the case, having only recently received from Willis’ office 101 boxes of documents and an eight-terabyte hard drive with the full investigative file. Appointing himself to the case, he said, “will allow me to complete a comprehensive review and make an informed decision regarding how best to proceed.”

Prior to his time at the council, Skandalakis spent about 25 years as the elected Republican district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, southwest of Atlanta. But former Gwinnett County Dist. Atty. Danny Porter, who has known Skandalakis for more than 40 years, said they shared a philosophy that the district attorney’s office should be nonpartisan.

“I wouldn’t put too much weight on the fact that he ran as a Republican,” Porter said. “I feel certain that he’s going to do what he said he’s going to do and give it a fair and transparent review and come to conclusions based on the law and the facts.”

Skandalakis is no stranger to sensitive high-profile cases. He took on the investigation into the June 2020 shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man, by a white police officer after Willis recused her office from the case. He ultimately decided that the two officers involved had acted reasonably, and he declined to pursue charges.

What happens next?

Skandalakis will continue to review the case file to decide how he wants to proceed. The judge has set a Dec. 1 status hearing and said the prosecution should be prepared to say at that time whether it intends to seek a new indictment.

Skandalakis has declined to comment beyond the statement he released Friday. But Porter, who has served as a substitute prosecutor, said the first step is generally to get the case filed, which Skandalakis has done. Then, Porter said, it is not improper to have a discussion with the removed prosecutor about their summary of the case, but that should be the last contact between the two prosecution teams about the case.

Then the substitute prosecutor would start from scratch, figuring out how the case is organized, determining the budget and resources needed and figuring out how to handle it.

The size of this case makes all that a “nearly impossible task for one person to do,” Porter said. While Skandalakis has a “great staff” with some really talented prosecutors, they all have other cases on their plates.

The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council has a tight budget, and the state Legislature is dominated by Republicans, many loyal to Trump, who are unlikely to grant any special appropriations for this prosecution. But Skandalakis could look for money elsewhere to hire contract attorneys and cover other expenses, Porter said.

Then Skandalakis will have to decide whether he wants to continue on the course that Willis had charted, pursue only some of the charges or dismiss the case.

“I think the case as it’s indicted is completely untryable,” Porter said, adding that he would try to slim it down, either by seeking a new indictment or asking the judge to sever some counts to break it down into smaller cases, Porter said.

What is in the indictment?

The indictment includes charges related to a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump urged the state’s top elections official to help him “find” the votes he needed to win. Other charges have to do with a getting a slate of Republican electors to falsely declare that Trump won the state, allegations of harassment of a Georgia election worker and a breach of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.

Four of the 19 people charged pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors in the months following the indictment. Trump and the other 14 people charged have all pleaded not guilty. It seems unlikely that any action against Trump could proceed while he is in office — given U.S. Justice Department policy and a Supreme Court ruling that shield a president from prosecution — but the others do not have that protection.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s problems with fixing the high cost of living might be giving voters a feeling of deja vu.

Just like the president who came before him, Trump is trying to sell the country on his plans to create factory jobs. The Republican says he wants to lower prescription drug costs, as did Democratic President Biden. Both tried to shame companies for price increases.

Trump is even leaning on a message that echoes Biden’s assertions in 2021 that elevated inflation is a “transitory” problem that will soon vanish.

“We’re going to be hitting 1.5% pretty soon,” Trump told reporters Monday. ”It’s all coming down.”

Even as Trump keeps saying an economic boom is around the corner, there are signs that he has already exhausted voters’ patience as his campaign promises to quickly fix inflation have gone unfulfilled.

Voter frustration

Voters in this month’s elections swung hard to Democrats over concerns about affordability. That has left Trump, who dismisses his weak polling on the economy as fake, floating half-formed ideas to ease financial pressures.

He is promising a $2,000 rebate on his tariffs and said he may offer 50-year mortgages — 20 years longer than any available now — to reduce the size of monthly payments. On Friday, Trump scrapped his tariffs on beef, coffee, tea, fruit juice, cocoa, spices, bananas, oranges, tomatoes and certain fertilizers, acknowledging that they “may, in some cases,” have contributed to higher prices.

But those are largely “gimmicky” moves unlikely to move the needle much on inflation, said Bharat Ramamurti, a former deputy director of Biden’s National Economic Council.

“They’re in this very tough position where they’ve developed a reputation for not caring enough about costs, where the tools they have available to them are unlikely to be able to help people in the short term,” Ramamurti said.

Ramamurti said the Biden administration learned the hard way that voters are not appeased by a president saying his policies would ultimately cause their incomes to rise.

“That argument does not resonate,” he said. “Take it from me.”

Biden on inflation

Biden inherited an economy trying to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, which had shut down schools and offices, causing mass layoffs and historic levels of government borrowing. In March 2021, he signed into law a $1.9-trillion relief package. Critics said it was excessive and could cause prices to rise.

As the economy reopened, there were shortages of computer chips, kitchen appliances, autos and even furniture. Cargo ships were stuck waiting to dock at ports, creating supply chain issues. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 pushed up energy and food costs, and consumer prices reached a four-decade high that June. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates to cool inflation.

Biden tried to convince Americans that the economy was strong. “Bidenomics is working,” he said in a 2023 speech. “Today, the U.S. has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.”

Though many economic indicators compared with those of other nations at the time largely supported his assertions, his arguments did little to sway voters. Only 36% of U.S. adults in August 2023 approved of his handling of the economy, according to a poll at the time by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump on inflation

Republicans made the case that Biden’s policies made inflation worse. Democrats are using that same framing against Trump today.

Here is their argument: Trump’s tariffs are getting passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices; his cancellation of clean energy projects means there will be fewer new sources of electricity as utility bills climb; his mass deportations made it costlier for the immigrant-heavy construction sector to build houses.

Former Biden administration officials note that Trump came into office in January with strong economic growth, a solid job market and inflation declining close to historic levels, only for him to reverse those trends.

“It’s striking how many Americans are aware of his trade policy and rightly blame the turnaround in prices on that erratic policy,” said Gene Sperling, a senior Biden advisor who also led the National Economic Council in the Obama and Clinton administrations.

“He is in a tough trap of his own doing — and it’s not likely to get easier,” Sperling said.

Consumer prices had been increasing at an annual rate of 2.3% in April when Trump launched his tariffs, and that rate accelerated to 3% in September.

The inflationary surge has been less than what voters endured under Biden, but the political fallout so far appears to be similar: 67% of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s performance, according to November polling data from AP-NORC.

“In both instances, the president caused a nontrivial share of the inflation,” said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank. “I think President Biden didn’t take this concern seriously enough in his first few months in office and President Trump isn’t taking this concern seriously enough right now.”

Strain noted that the two presidents have even responded to the challenge in “weirdly, eerily similar ways” by playing down inflation as a problem, pointing to other economic indicators and looking to address concerns by issuing government checks.

White House strategies

Trump administration officials have made the case that their mix of income tax cuts, foreign investment frameworks tied to tariffs and changes in enforcing regulations will lead to more factories and jobs. All of that, they say, could increase the supply of goods and services and reduce the forces driving inflation.

“The policies that we’re pursuing right now are increasing supply,” Kevin Hassett, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, told the Economic Club of Washington on Wednesday.

The Fed has cut its benchmark interest rates, which could increase the supply of money in the economy for investment. But the central bank has done so because of a weakening job market despite inflation being above its 2% target, and there are concerns that rate cuts of the size Trump wants could fuel more inflation.

Time might not be on Trump’s side

It takes time for consumer sentiment to improve after the inflation rate drops, according to research done by Ryan Cummings, an economist who worked on Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers.

His read of the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment is that the effects of the post-pandemic rise in inflation are no longer a driving factor. These days, voters are frustrated because Trump had primed them to believe he could lower grocery prices and other expenses, but has failed to deliver.

“When it comes to structural affordability issues — housing, child care, education and healthcare — Trump has pushed in the wrong direction in each one,” said Cummings, who is now chief of staff at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

He said Trump’s best chance of beating inflation now might be “if he gets a very lucky break on commodity prices” through a bumper harvest worldwide and oil production continuing to run ahead of demand.

For now, Trump has decided to continue to rely on attacking Biden for anything that has gone wrong in the economy, as he did last week in an interview with Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“The problem was that Biden did this,” Trump said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

The longest U.S. government shutdown in history is over, but the fallout will continue to hit two groups particularly hard for months to come: federally funded defense lawyers and the people they represent.

Thousands of court-appointed lawyers, known as Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, along with paralegals, investigators, expert witnesses and interpreters, haven’t been paid since June after federal funding for the Defender Services program fell $130 million short of what the judiciary requested and ran out July 3. They had been told they would receive deferred payment once Congress passed a new budget, but as the government shutdown dragged on, many couldn’t move forward with trials or take on new clients.

Nationally, CJA lawyers handle about 40% of cases in which the defendant cannot afford an attorney. As many cases have ground to a halt, defendants’ lives have been put on hold as they wait for their day in court. Meanwhile, the federal government has continued to arrest and charge people.

“The system’s about to break,” Michael Chernis, a CJA panel attorney in Southern California, said during the shutdown. He hasn’t taken new cases since August and had to take out a loan to make payroll for his law firm.

Unpaid defense team members in several states said they had to dip into their retirement savings or turn to gig work, such as driving for Uber, to support their families.

Panel attorneys should begin receiving payment as early as next week. Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said in a Thursday memo that the resolution Congress passed to fund the government through Jan. 30 provided an extra $114 million for the Defender Services program “to address the backlog of panel attorney payments.”

But the crisis isn’t over. Conrad said a spending bill pending for the 2026 fiscal year is still $196 million short and funding is likely to run out to pay CJA panel attorneys next June.

The problem is particularly severe in the Central District of California, the largest and one of the most complex federal trial courts in the United States. Out of the approximately 100 such lawyers for the district, about 80 have stopped taking on new cases.

Chernis has a client who lives in Sacramento, but neither Chernis nor a court-appointed investigator have been able to cover the cost of travel to meet with him to discuss the case. The expert they need for the trial will also not agree to travel to Los Angeles to work on the case without payment, Chernis said.

In New Mexico, one judge halted a death penalty case, which is costly and labor-intensive to prepare, and at least 40 lawyers have resolved not to take on new cases even after the shutdown ended if the overall funding shortfall is not resolved.

California’s Central District Chief Judge Dolly Gee wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Sen. Adam Schiff that the situation had become “dire.”

“These attorneys have sought delays in cases when they cannot find investigators and experts who are willing to work without pay, which has added to the court’s backlog of cases, and left defendants languishing in already overcrowded local prison,” Gee said. “Without additional funding, we will soon be unable to appoint counsel for all defendants who are constitutionally entitled to representation.”

She said judges may have to face the prospect of having to dismiss cases for defendants who can’t retain a lawyer.

Just hours before the government shutdown ended, Judge John A. Mendez in the Eastern District of California did, tossing out a criminal case against a man indicted on a charge of distribution of methamphetamine.

“The right to effective assistance of counsel is a bedrock principle of this country and is indisputably necessary for the operation of a fair criminal justice system,” Mendez wrote.

Everyone in the United States has the right to due process — including the right to legal counsel and a fair and speedy trial, guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments.

Critics of the Trump administration have argued that it is chipping away at that right. Immigrant advocacy groups have made the allegation in multiple lawsuits. Most notably, they cite the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran-born man who was living with his family in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at a notorious prison. He has since returned to the U.S., but he continues to face the threat of deportation as his case moves through the courts.

President Trump has been circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May that he does not know whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.

The funding upheaval has delayed Christian Cerna-Camacho’s trial by at least three months. His lawyer said in court filings that one investigator, who has spent hours poring over body-camera recordings, news reports and social media content, was unable to do more work until he is paid.

Cerna-Camacho was arrested in June and is accused of punching a federal officer during a June 7 protest in Paramount against Trump’s immigration raids. He is out on bond but cannot find a construction job while he wears an ankle monitor because it poses a safety risk at the site, his attorney Scott Tenley wrote in a recent court filing.

David Kaloynides, a CJA panel attorney in Los Angeles, couldn’t even communicate with some of his clients during the shutdown because they speak only Spanish, and interpreters were not being paid. His caseload is full to the point where he’s scheduling trials in 2027, while many clients wait in jail, he said.

“We don’t do this appointed work because of the money; we do it because we’re dedicated,” Kaloynides said. “But we also can’t do it for free.”

Ding writes for the Associated Press.

An indictment unveiled this week charging Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff with political corruption threw California’s top political circles into chaos — and stirred speculation in the state capital about what triggered the federal investigation.

Authorities have not revealed any targets beyond Dana Williamson and two other influential political operatives associated with the state’s most powerful Democrats, all of whom are accused of fraud and siphoning campaign funds for personal use.

But details contained in the indictment and other public records indicate that the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice had a keen interest in Williamson and other operatives’ involvement in the handling of a legal case involving “Corporation 1.” The facts revealed about “Corporation 1” match details of a controversial sex discrimination investigation that the state of California led into one of the world’s largest video game companies, Santa-Monica based Activision Blizzard Inc.

Williamson — an influential deal-maker and one of the state’s premier Democratic political consultants before and after she ran Newsom’s office — was arrested on corruption charges Wednesday. Two longtime associates, lobbyist Greg Campbell, a former high-level staffer in the California Assembly, and Sean McCluskie, a longtime aide to former state Atty. Gen. and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, have agreed to plead guilty to related charges.

After Williamson pleaded not guilty in a tearful court appearance Wednesday, her attorney, McGregor Scott, said that federal authorities had charged his client only after first approaching her to seek help with a probe they were conducting into Newsom, the nature of which remains unclear. Williamson declined to cooperate.

The governor has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Still, Republicans already are using the indictments to attack Newsom, who has openly said he is considering a run for president in 2028.

Williamson’s attorney did not offer any specifics on what federal officials may have been investigating.

But numerous threads in the indictment echo details in the Activision saga.

Williamson and Campbell both worked as advisors to Activision Blizzard, according to financial disclosures on file with the state. Williamson reported receiving income from the company prior to her appointment in Newsom’s office, state records show. According to records first filed earlier this year, Campbell disclosed that his lobbying firm started being paid by Activision around the time Williamson joined the governor’s office. Activision reported paying $240,000 to his firm in 2023 and 2024. The amount Williamson was paid from Activision was not disclosed.

Activision officials did not respond to emails requesting comment. Lawyers for Williamson, Campbell and McCluskie also did not respond or declined to comment.

The state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing in 2021 sued Activision Blizzard, which distributes video games such as “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush,” alleging that company officials discriminated against women, paid them less than men and ignored reports of egregious sexual harassment.

The complaint alleged that the company: “fostered a pervasive “frat boy” workplace culture that continues to thrive. In the office, women are subjected to “cube crawls” in which male employees drink copious amounts of alcohol as they “crawl” their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees. Male employees proudly come into work hungover, play video games for long periods of time during work while delegating their responsibilities to female employees, engage in banter about their sexual encounters, talk openly about female bodies, and joke about rape.”

Activision officials denied the allegations.

The allegations also were investigated by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Activision Blizzard agreed to a consent decree, approved in March 2022, with the agency that required the company to set up an $18-million fund for employees who experienced sexual harassment or discrimination, pregnancy discrimination or retaliation.

Just weeks later, the case drew national attention again when the lawyer overseeing the case for the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Janet Wipper, was fired by the Newsom administration, and her chief deputy resigned and alleged that she was doing so to protest interference of Newsom’s office in the investigation.

“The Office of the Governor repeatedly demanded advance notice of litigation strategy and of next steps in the litigation,” the deputy, Melanie Proctor, wrote to her colleagues. “As we continued to win in state court, this interference increased, mimicking the interests of Activision’s counsel.”

A member of Activision’s board of directors contributed $40,200 for Newsom’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign, and an additional $100,000 to a committee opposing the 2021 recall campaign against Newsom — an effort that failed.

Newsom’s office denied it was meddling. “Claims of interference by our office are categorically false,” Erin Mellon, Newsom’s then-communications director said at the time.

As case continued to grind through Los Angeles Superior Court, the company stepped up its lobbying presence in Sacramento, according to disclosures filed with the state. Documents show Activision began paying Campbell starting in late 2022 to lobby on its behalf.

Around this time, Newsom announced that he was hiring Williamson to be his chief of staff.

In December 2023 the state announced it had reached a settlement agreement with Activision for $54 million, with the bulk of the funds going to compensate women who had been underpaid. The company did not admit any wrongdoing.

The FBI has made inquires about the Activision settlement, though the focus of the inquiry is unclear. When reached last week, Calabasas attorney Alan Goldstein, who handled a sexual harassment suit against Activision, said he received call from an FBI agent looking to probe California’s settlement — but that he couldn’t recall a “substantive conversation.”

Federal investigators were also looking at how Campbell, Williamson and another Sacramento political consultant, Alexis Podesta, conducted their affairs. In unveiling their charges this week, the U.S. Attorney’s office said the investigation began more than three years ago. All three consultants were members of the Sacramento-based Collaborative, a cooperative of top Democratic political operatives.

Podesta from 2017 to 2020 served as secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, which included the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing — the agency that launched the investigation of Activision in 2018.

Williamson received a federal subpoena for information about her handling of a government loan her business had received during the pandemic, according to details in the indictment. The indictment accused Williamson of spending vast sums on luxury items — including a Gucci bag, Chanel earrings and a $150,000 Mexican birthday vacation and party, plus yacht rental and private jet travel — and then claimed them as business expenses on her taxes.

She and Campbell had also allegedly conspired with McCluskie to siphon money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account to pay McCuskie’s wife for a fake, “no-show” job working for Williamson. When Williamson went to work for Newsom, the indictment alleges, Podesta took over handling the pass through payments.

By June 2024, someone in the circle was cooperating with federal investigators and wearing a wire, recording Williamson’s private conversations, according to transcripts included in the indictment.

On Nov.14, 2024, according to the indictment, FBI agents interviewed Williamson, questioning her about the Becerra campaign funds and about the pandemic funds.

Investigators also asked her about her actions “while serving in public office to influence the litigation involving the State of California and a former client –Corporation 1,” according to the indictment. The indictment doesn’t identify Corporation 1., but details match the Activision litigation. The indictment notes that Corporation 1 was Williamson’s former client and that it was involved in settlement discussions over a lawsuit with the state in 2023. It also references a state lawyer who had been fired in connection with the litigation.

Williamson, according to the indictment, told the FBI she did not pass any inside information to Campbell or other associates outside the government. But based on their recorded conversations, the indictment said, investigators believed that was not true.

They alleged that in January 2023, Williamson, shortly after starting as Newsom’s chief of staff, revealed to Podesta that she had “told a high level government attorney to … get [the case] settled.”

The indictment notes that “Corporation 1” was not only Williamson’s former client, but also now Podesta’s current client.

In June 2024, Williamson complained to Podesta that someone had submitted a California Public Records Act request seeking information about meetings and communications between Newsom officials and the company, according to the indictment.

Proctor, the state attorney who resigned in 2022 and had alleged that the Newsom administration was meddling in the Activision case, posted on her Bluesky social media account in July that she had submitted a public records request on May 29, 2024. She also posted the response from Newsom’s office, showing a meeting in January 2024 in the governor’s office between Williamson, Podesta, and Robert Kotick, the former Chief Executive of Activision.

In their June conversation, according to the indictment, Williamson told Podesta “I just wanted to alert you to the PRAS that we’re starting to get,” the indictment stated. (PRAs refer to public records requests.)

“Yeah. Ugh. F— her. They really don’t know who they are messing with,” Podesta responded.

“They really don’t,” Williamson said.

Podesta, who is identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 2” was not charged. On Thursday she sent a message to numerous associates offering her take on the situation.

“While I cannot discuss the details of the ongoing investigation, I want to state plainly that I have always conducted myself –and my business–with integrity.” She also said that she continued to “cooperate fully with federal authorities.”

On Friday afternoon, McCluskie and Campbell appeared in federal court in Sacramento to be arraigned on conspiracy charges in back-to-back proceedings.

Both men had previously reached plea agreements with prosecutors, and will be back in court to enter those pleas, Mcluskie in late November and Campbell in early December.

Prosecutors did not seek detention for either man, but they were ordered to surrender their passports and avoid associating with other co-conspirators.

In brief remarks to reporters, Campbell’s attorney, Todd Pickles, said that his client “takes full accountability for his actions” and would “in appropriate time further discuss the charges.” But, Pickles noted, those charges “do not include Mr. Campbell engaging in advocacy or lobbying on behalf of any client.”

Times staff writers Katie King and Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.

There hasn’t been a “substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse by staff against an inmate in the nation’s largest jail system since 2021.

At first glance, the statistic — based on Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department data — might appear to indicate that a federal law called the Prison Rape Elimination Act has finally accomplished its mission more than two decades after it was enacted by Congress.

But a broad array of local oversight officials and advocacy groups are raising eyebrows over the claim, and bringing new scrutiny to how the Sheriff’s Department investigates allegations of sexual abuse made by inmates against their jailers.

L.A. County incarcerates about 13,000 people — including roughly 1,500 women — throughout its network of jails watched over by sheriff’s deputies.

Sheriff’s Department records show that between January 2022 and September 2025, inmates filed 592 allegations of abuse and harassment against staff. None were deemed “substantiated,” which the Sheriff’s Department defines on its website as “an allegation that was investigated and determined to have occurred.”

The suggestion that there has not been enough evidence to support even one alleged incident by staff against an inmate in nearly four years has struck some tasked with monitoring the Sheriff’s Department as absurd.

“When you have this many complaints and you have zero that are founded, there is something wrong with the process,” said George B. Newhouse, a member of the L.A. Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.

L.A. County’s Office of Inspector General and advocacy groups, including the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and Peace Over Violence, also shared concerns about the lack of substantiated allegations during a Nov. 4 virtual discussion of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. The law was enacted in 2003 in an effort to reduce widespread sexual abuse behind bars.

In 2012, the federal government instituted a set of rules known as PREA standards, which laid out steps that jail and prison operators are required to take to prevent and reduce sexual abuse and harassment between inmates and staff.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Ryan Vaccaro said the department “has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment.” He added that monthly town hall meetings are held in jails to educate inmates about PREA and record any questions and complaints they have about the federal standards.

“Our team is dedicated to ensuring our residents know we have a zero-tolerance policy and know how to get help when they need it,” he said. “All PREA allegations are documented and processed promptly, thoroughly and objectively.”

During a public meeting last month, Hans Johnson, the chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, pressed John Barkley, assistant director and PREA coordinator at the Sheriff’s Department, to explain the lack of substantiated reports, and how long it typically takes for allegations to be investigated.

Dozens of the harassment and abuse claims identified in the sheriff’s department records are listed as “pending,” which the department defines on its website as an “allegation still under investigation.”

“It kind of beggars credulity that that number of complaints could be raised and that none could be substantiated,” Johnson said. “It’s just a red flag.”

Barkley said “every case is investigated” and found to be either “substantiated, unsubstantiated or unfounded.” He said “every situation is different. The thing that we’re mandated to do is to do the investigation promptly and to do it thoroughly.”

In a statement a colleague read aloud at the Nov. 4 forum, Portland, Ore., resident Frank Mendoza said that while he was incarcerated at L.A.’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility in 2006, “officers at the jail repeatedly harassed me because I was openly gay” and one beat and raped him in his cell.

“I was then left in the cell naked, bloodied, and completely humiliated,” Mendoza said in his statement. “I tried to report what happened. First, I told the officer on the next shift who found me on the floor of my cell, and all he did was order me to get dressed. That was the norm. Officers didn’t tell on one another.”

Mendoza alleged he wasn’t provided medical treatment or examined for injuries caused by the assault. When he reported the rape, he found that “without a forensic exam, it was impossible to build a criminal case.”

Now, Mendoza gives voice to other people who have been victims of sexual abuse and harassment while incarcerated through his advocacy work as a member of Just Detention International’s Survivor Council.

“It’s clear the county still has a lot of work to do to ensure the safety of people in detention,” he said. “At the same time, the fact that such a hearing is happening is evidence to me of a culture shift and that people are listening.”

The Sheriff’s Department also tracks inmate-on-inmate allegations, which accounted for 296 reports of sexual abuse or harassment between January 2022 and June 2025. Of those, 28 were classified as “substantiated.”

The numbers have spiked since then, with 82 inmate-on-inmate allegations between July and September 2025. Of those claims, the department deemed five involving sexual abuse to be “substantiated,” along with another five claims of sexual harassment.

During that three-month period, inmates made 121 sexual abuse and harassment claims against staff, none of which have been identified as “substantiated” by the Sheriff’s Department.

Arthur Calloway, co-vice-chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, asked at the October meeting whether the sheriff’s department could be trusted to investigate inmate claims against its own employees.

He added that, “if it was all objective, there would be some substantiated ones actually to trickle out” from claims filed since January 2022.

Barkley responded that “many of those” unsubstantiated outcomes are “dictated on whether the D.A. takes the case.” He added that “if the D.A. decides that they’re not going to prosecute the case with inmate-on-inmate, then it is going to be an unsubstantiated.”

The L.A. County district attorney’s office said in a statement that the Sheriff’s Department first conducts internal investigations of allegations of criminal activity. Then, the department “may present their investigation to our Justice System Integrity Division (JSID) to determine whether criminal charges should be filed,” the statement said.

The Sheriff’s Department can also opt “to discipline their employee administratively in addition to, or in lieu of, seeking criminal charges,” the statement said.

The prosecutor’s office noted that substantiated and unsubstantiated are terms used by the Sheriff’s Department for “administrative purposes,” not legal outcomes.

“JSID reviews all cases presented to them by law enforcement using the standard of whether charges can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” the D.A.’s office said.

The Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that sexual abuse cases are investigated internally and that when they are “determined to meet the elements of a crime,” they “are submitted to the District Attorney’s Office.”

The department said that since January 2022, four such cases “resulted in administrative investigations and five were/are being investigated by” the department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau. None of those have been deemed “substantiated.”

“Substantiated allegations, often require cooperation and some sort of evidence, which can make them more challenging,” the Sheriff’s Department said. “However, unsubstantiated allegations are more common because it has a lower threshold.”

Dara Williams, assistant inspector general, said it “would be much better if all complaints were investigated by people who were outside the chain of command.”

Otherwise, she said, when sheriff’s department employees are the ones determining “what triggers an investigation, there is some bias.”

Inspector General Max Huntsman told The Times that he believes the Sheriff’s Department is “not in compliance with PREA in many senses,” such as its internal policies and the physical state of its aging correctional facilities.

At the public meeting last month, Barkley, the PREA coordinator at the Sheriff’s Department, explained that a sergeant must record every sexual abuse and harassment allegation in a dedicated database by the end of the shift when it is received. After that, he said, the allegation is automatically sent to sheriff’s leaders and the inspector general’s office.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Johnson, the chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, called on the Sheriff’s Department to take steps to ensure it is conducting fair and thorough reviews of all inmate allegations.

“It is unacceptable to have no substantiated cases reported,” he said.

Nov. 14 (UPI) — The Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council announced a replacement for Fani Willis as the prosecutor in the election interference case against President Donald Trump and 14 others charged.

PAC Executive Director Peter J. Skandalakis announced on Friday, that he would prosecute the case because the group couldn’t find anyone to take it up.

“Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment,” he said in the announcement. “Out of respect for their privacy and professional discretion, I will not identify those prosecutors or disclose their reasons for declining.”

In September, the Georgia Supreme Court denied Willis’ attempt to continue in the case. It refused to hear her appeal of a lower court’s decision to disqualify her because of “impropriety.” She had a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor in the case.

Another reason he chose to prosecute the case is that he has some familiarity with the case file. The documents he received to review included 101 banker boxes of documents and an 8-terabyte hard drive, which he hasn’t had the time to fully read.

Some of the others charged include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

On Nov. 7, Trump pardoned 77 people, including those involved in the Georgia case.

Skandalakis said the pardons don’t apply to state charges, only federal ones. “Therefore, the task before my office remains unchanged,” he said.

Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow said the “politically charged prosecution has come to an end.”

“We remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case against President Trump,” Sadow said.

Skandalakis noted the importance of the case.

“I am keenly aware that this matter has been of significant public interest since January 2021, when District Attorney Fani Willis announced the initiation of the investigation,” he said in a statement. “My only objective is to ensure that this case is handled properly, fairly, and with full transparency discharging my duties without fear, favor, or affection.”

ATLANTA — The leader of a nonpartisan organization announced he will take over the Georgia election interference case against President Trump and others after Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis was removed from the case.

The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia was tasked with finding someone to lead the case after Willis was disqualified over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she’d chosen to lead it. The organization’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, said Friday that he would take the case on himself.

“The filing of this appointment reflects my inability to secure another conflict prosecutor to assume responsibility for this case,” Skandalakis said in an emailed statement. “Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment.”

While it is unlikely that any action against Trump could proceed while he is the sitting president, there are 14 other people still facing charges in the case, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Trump earlier this week announced pardons for people accused of backing his efforts to overturn the results of that election — including those charged in Georgia — but that doesn’t affect state charges.

After the Georgia Supreme Court in September declined to hear Willis’ appeal of her disqualification, it fell to the nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find a new prosecutor. Skandalakis can continue to follow Willis’ vision for the prosecution, decide to pursue only some charges or dismiss the case altogether.

“While it would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee’s deadline to lapse or to inform the Court that no conflict prosecutor could be secured — thereby allowing the case to be dismissed for want of prosecution — I did not believe that to be the right course of action,” Skandalakis wrote. “The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case. Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.”

The Associated Press sent text messages seeking comment to a spokesperson for Willis and a lawyer for Trump.

Willis announced the sprawling indictment against Trump and 18 others in August 2023. She used the state’s anti-racketeering law to allege a wide-ranging conspiracy to try to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Defense attorneys sought Willis’ removal after one of them revealed in January 2024 that Willis had engaged in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. The defense attorneys said the relationship created a conflict of interest, alleging that Willis personally profited from the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations the pair took.

During an extraordinary hearing the following month, Willis and Wade both testified about the intimate details of their personal relationship. They maintained that their romance didn’t begin until after Wade was hired and said that they split the costs for vacations and other outings.

The trial judge, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, rebuked Willis, saying in an order in March 2024 that her actions showed a “tremendous lapse in judgment.” But he said he did not find a conflict of interest that would disqualify Willis. He ultimately ruled that Willis could remain on the case if Wade resigned, which the special prosecutor did hours later.

Defense attorneys appealed that ruling, and the Georgia Court of Appeals removed Willis from the case in December, citing an “appearance of impropriety.” The high court in September declined to hear Willis’ appeal.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom flew around the country last year campaigning for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his chief of staff Dana Williamson — known as one of California’s toughest political insiders — was not only helping to helm the ship in Sacramento, but under criminal investigation by federal law enforcement.

The resulting criminal case, which splashed into public view with Williamson’s arrest Wednesday, does not implicate Newsom in any wrongdoing. Williamson’s alleged misdeeds occurred in private work prior to her joining his staff, and his office said it placed her on leave in November 2024 after she informed him she was under investigation.

Nonetheless, the bombshell allegations struck at the center of the political power circle surrounding Newsom, rattling one of the nation’s most prominent and important hubs of Democratic state power at a time when President Trump and his Republican administration wield power in Washington.

Williamson was charged with bank and tax fraud for allegedly siphoning campaign and COVID-19 recovery funds into her and an associate’s pockets and claiming personal luxuries as business expenses on tax forms. According to the indictment, the campaign funds were drawn from a dormant state account of another top California Democrat: gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra.

Two other well-connected aides in state politics were also charged — and struck plea deals confirming the scheme — while a third, with deep ties to one of the most well-connected circles of political and business consultants in the country, appeared in charging documents as an uncharged co-conspirator.

Williamson’s attorney McGregor Scott, a former U.S. attorney in Sacramento, told The Times on Wednesday that federal authorities had approached Williamson more than a year ago, seeking help with some kind of probe of the governor himself.

“She told them she had no information to provide them, and then we wind up today with these charges,” Scott said. The nature of that alleged probe is unclear.

Newsom’s office on Thursday said it was “not aware of any federal investigation involving the governor.”

Lauren Horwood, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento, said she could not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation involving Newsom, in accordance with Justice Department policy. None of the charging documents released in the cases against the three aides mention Newsom.

A loquacious liberal foil to Trump and likely 2028 presidential contender, Newsom has been in Brazil since Sunday and on Wednesday left for a planned trip into the Amazon with a small delegation after attending the United Nations climate summit known as COP30. He left the conference before news of Williamson’s arrest, and could not be reached directly by The Times for comment.

In his absence, Newsom’s representatives have tried to draw a connection between the federal case and the contentious relationship between California and the Trump administration, though offered no evidence that the investigation was influenced by the White House.

“At a time when the president is openly calling for his attorney general to investigate his political enemies, it is especially important to honor the American principle of being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of one’s peers,” a Newsom spokesperson said Wednesday.

“Under the Trump administration, the DOJ routinely targets the state, which has resulted in us suing the federal administration 46 times,” a Newsom spokesperson said Thursday.

Trump and his administration have been accused of using their power — and control over the Justice Department — to go after his political enemies. Charges reportedly deemed weak and unfounded by career prosecutors have been brought forward anyway against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, while Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is being investigated for years-old occupancy claims in mortgage documents. All have denied wrongdoing.

The case against Williamson and the other California aides, however, is something different — originating years ago under the Biden administration.

“Today’s charges are the result of three years of relentless investigative work, in partnership with IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said Wednesday.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, rejected the notion that the case was in any way driven by the Trump administration or politically motivated.

“What an absurd claim to make when public reporting has already noted that this investigation began under the Biden DOJ,” Jackson said. “The Trump administration is restoring integrity and accountability to the Justice Department.”

Prosecutors also have plea deals with two of the primary suspects in the case, in which they corroborate some of the allegations.

According to the 23-count indictment, unsealed Wednesday morning, Williamson conspired with Sean McCluskie — a former top aid to Becerra — and lobbyist Greg Campbell to bill Becerra’s dormant state campaign account for bogus consulting services. The three allegedly used shell companies to funnel money out of the campaign fund starting in 2022.

Federal authorities alleged the bulk of the payments were made to McCluskie’s wife, who did not actually provide consulting services, and deposited into an account accessed by McCluskie. Becerra, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, said Wednesday’s charges alleging “impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch,” and that he was cooperating with authorities.

In addition, Williamson was charged with falsifying documents for a COVID-era small business loan, and with claiming luxury goods and services — including a $15,353 Chanel purse, $21,000 in private jet travel and a $150,000 birthday trip to Mexico, complete with an $11,000 yacht trip — as business expenses on her tax returns, federal prosecutors said.

Williamson appeared in federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday afternoon, and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Williamson’s attorney said he has been in “regular communication” with federal prosecutors about the case for some time, and had asked to meet with prosecutors to “present our side” before any charges were brought, but that request “was not honored.”

Instead, officials “chose grandstanding instead of the normal process” and arrested Williamson at home Wednesday, despite her being seriously ill and in need of a liver transplant, Scott said. Williamson could not be reached for comment directly.

Williamson previously worked as a Cabinet secretary to former Gov. Jerry Brown, who also could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The case against Williamson is bolstered by acknowledgments of guilt from at least two others.

McCluskie — a former chief deputy attorney general of California when Becerra was attorney general — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and is cooperating with authorities, court filings show. He could not be reached for comment.

Campbell pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to defraud and commit offenses against the U.S. government. Campbell’s attorney Todd Pickles said his client “takes full accountability for his actions and is cooperating fully with the legal process.”

The case also involves another longtime California political insider: Alexis Podesta, a former secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency who Newsom appointed to the State Compensation Insurance Fund board of directors in January 2020. A spokesperson for the board confirmed Podesta remained a member as of Thursday morning.

Bill Portanova, Podesta’s attorney, confirmed to The Times that Podesta is the person identified as “Co-Conspirator 2” in charging documents — including McCluskie’s plea agreement, which alleges she funneled the campaign funds to him.

Portanova said Podesta inherited responsibilities for handling the Becerra account from Williamson when Williamson left to become Newsom’s chief of staff. Podesta did not perceive anything “unusual about the accounts, how they were set up or who had set them up,” so continued making payments as previously arranged, Portanova said.

However, “when confronted with the information that it was improper payments,” Portanova said, she immediately stopped the payments, and “has been fully cooperative with the federal authorities at every stage of these proceedings.”

He said she is not charged, and “should not be charged” moving forward. He otherwise declined to comment, as “investigations are ongoing.”

Podesta had close ties to some of the most influential Democratic political consultants in California, adding to the intrigue surrounding the case.

In September 2020 — about eight months after Newsom had appointed Podesta to the insurance board for workers’ compensation — Politico reported on a new “influence superteam” of Democratic political consultants forming in California.

The project, it said, would be called the Collaborative. Among its “architects” were Williamson and Campbell, as well as Jim DeBoo, another former Newsom chief of staff. Its managing director, the outlet reported, would be Podesta.

Among its enlisted consultants, it said, would be Sean Clegg of Bearstar Strategies, another senior advisor to Newsom, and Shannon Murphy, of M Strategic Communications, who has ties to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

DeBoo, Clegg and Murphy have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

“Bearstar participated in a joint marketing press release with the Collaborative and worked on one campaign with the Collaborative’s members in 2022. Bearstar and its partners had no interest, stake or other involvement with this entity,” David Beltran, a representative of Bearstar, said in a statement Thursday.

Murphy also released a statement about the enterprise: “Five years ago, our firm participated in a joint-marketing effort. We had zero ownership or role in the business entity that was created and had no knowledge of its finances or operations until yesterday’s news stories.”

DeBoo did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Members of the Collaborative advise some of the largest companies in not just the country, but the world.

The Collaborative’s website was recently scaled down to a simple landing page, but it previously touted itself there as “the hub for the most talented public affairs, campaign, crisis management, communications and lobbying firms in California,” providing clients “the ability to choose one or several firms that work together — rather than compete — to provide their clients with the best possible outcomes.”

The website led with what it called a proverb: “If you call one wolf, you invite the pack.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Lawyers for two of President Trump’s foes who have been charged by the Justice Department asked a judge on Thursday to dismiss the cases against them, saying the prosecutor who secured the indictments was illegally installed in the role.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie didn’t immediately rule from the bench but said she expects to decide by Thanksgiving on challenges to Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The requests are part of multiprong efforts by former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James to get their cases dismissed before trial.

At issue during Thursday’s arguments are the complex constitutional and statutory rules governing the appointment of the nation’s U.S. attorneys, who function as top federal prosecutors in Justice Department offices across the country.

The role is typically filled by lawyers who have been nominated by a president and confirmed by the Senate. Attorneys general do have the authority to get around that process by naming an interim U.S. attorney who can serve for 120 days, but lawyers for Comey and James note that once that period expires, the law gives federal judges of that district exclusive say over who can fill the vacancy.

But that’s not what happened in this instance.

After then-interim U.S. attorney Erik Siebert resigned in September while facing Trump administration pressure to bring charges against Comey and James, Attorney General Pam Bondi, at Trump’s public urging, installed Halligan to the role.

Siebert had been appointed by Bondi in January to serve as interim U.S. attorney. Trump in May announced his intention to nominate him and judges in the Eastern District unanimously agreed after his 120-day period expired that he should be retained in the role. But after the Trump administration effectively pushed him out in September, the Justice Department again opted to make an interim appointment in place of the courts, something defense lawyers say it was not empowered under the law to do.

Prosecutors in the cases say that the law does not explicitly prevent successive appointments of interim U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department and that, even if Halligan’s appointment is deemed invalid, the proper fix is not the dismissal of the indictment.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of making a false statement and obstructing Congress, and James has pleaded not guilty to mortgage fraud allegations. Their lawyers have separately argued that the prosecutions are improperly vindictive and motivated by the president’s personal animus toward their clients, and should therefore be dismissed.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

Justice Minister German Galushchenko allegedly took part in the scheme involving state nuclear power firm Energoatom.

Ukraine has suspended Justice Minister German Galushchenko for his alleged involvement in a corruption scandal involving the state-run nuclear power company, Energoatom, during his tenure as the country’s energy minister.

Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced on Wednesday that Galushchenko had been suspended from his duties, which will be carried out by Deputy Justice Minister for European Integration Lyudmyla Sugak.

Galushchenko, who served as energy minister for four years before taking over the justice portfolio in July, is accused of profiting from a scheme that laundered money from Energoatom.

Ukraine’s Pravda news outlet reported that anticorruption authorities raided Galushchenko’s offices on Monday.

‘I will defend myself in court’

In a statement, Galushchenko said he had spoken with the prime minister and agreed his suspension is appropriate while he defends his case.

“A political decision must be made, and only then can all the details be sorted out,” said Galushchenko. “I believe that suspension for the duration of the investigation is a civilised and correct scenario. I will defend myself in court and prove my position.”

According to Ukraine’s Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), the alleged $100m scheme was orchestrated by businessman Timur Mindich, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

SAPO’s investigators say Galushchenko helped Mindich manage illicit financial flows in the energy sector, while contractors working with Energoatom were forced to pay bribes of 10 to 15 percent to avoid losing contracts or facing payment delays.

Accusations of kickbacks in the energy sector are particularly sensitive in Ukraine, much of which is facing lengthy daily blackouts as it fends off massive Russian attacks on its infrastructure.

The scandal also highlights a potential challenge to Ukraine’s European Union membership bid, for which eradicating corruption remains a key condition.

Addressing the country on Monday, Zelenskyy urged full cooperation with the anticorruption inquiry and said anyone implicated should be held to account.

Zelenskyy’s comments come just months after he was forced to reverse plans to curb the independence of the country’s key anticorruption watchdogs – SAPO and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine – following widespread protests.

In a world where 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt interest than on health and education combined, the global financial system isn’t just flawed, it’s fundamentally unjust. This alarming reality formed the core of our conversation with Bodo Ellmers, Managing Director of Global Policy Forum Europe, following the recent UNCTAD 16 conference in Geneva. Against the backdrop of widening inequality and escalating debt distress across the Global South, Ellmers—a veteran policy expert with over two decades in the field—offered a stark diagnosis of the systemic failures in our international financial architecture and charted a path toward meaningful reform.

The Double Squeeze: How Debt Worsens Inequality

For Ellmers, the debt crisis represents a double-edged sword cutting through global development. “It squeezes fiscal space,” he explains, “constraining governments’ ability to finance public services and development.” This creates a vicious cycle where indebted nations must choose between servicing external debts and investing in their people’s well-being.

The impact manifests in two dimensions: nationally, through reduced spending on social protection, education, and healthcare; and internationally, as debt service payments flow from poor countries to rich creditors, effectively widening the gap between Global North and South.

An Architecture of Imbalance

When asked about characterizations of the international financial architecture as “neo-colonial,” Ellmers focuses on the concrete imbalances. The IMF and World Bank operate on a “one dollar, one vote” system that gives wealthy nations disproportionate power, with the US holding veto rights. Meanwhile, crucial financial regulation bodies like the OECD and Financial Stability Board exclude smaller developing countries entirely, despite setting rules with global impact.

The reform path remains blocked, Ellmers notes, because any meaningful redistribution of voting power would reduce US influence below its veto threshold. This impasse has forced regions to develop alternatives, from China’s new development banks to Africa’s proposed stability mechanism. Yet these solutions come with their own challenges, potentially creating new dependencies even as they offer welcome alternatives to traditional donors.

The Missing Piece: A Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism

Perhaps the most glaring gap in the current system, according to Ellmers, is the absence of a fair sovereign debt restructuring process. Unlike corporate insolvency, where independent courts balance interests, indebted nations must negotiate from weakness with diverse creditors.

Ellmers advocates for a system that would prioritize human rights, ensuring that “a state needs to have the financial capacity to fulfill its human rights obligations towards citizens. This money cannot be touched by creditors.” This approach would fundamentally reorient debt negotiations from purely financial calculations to human-centered outcomes.

Climate Finance or Climate Debt?

The conversation turned to climate finance, where Ellmers describes a “scandal” in the making. Wealthy, high-polluting nations continue to provide climate finance primarily as loans rather than grants, pushing vulnerable countries deeper into debt while addressing climate challenges they did little to create.

While mechanisms like Special Drawing Rights offer temporary relief, Ellmers sees them as treating symptoms rather than root causes. The deeper issue remains the voluntary nature of climate finance commitments and the reluctance of wealthy nations to provide adequate grant-based funding.

A Path Forward: Protest and Policy

For activists and social movements seeking change, Ellmers emphasizes the need for dual strategies. The successful Jubilee campaign of the 1990s combined technical advocacy with mass mobilization, creating pressure that neither approach could achieve alone. This combination remains essential today, expert analysis must meet street-level mobilization to drive meaningful reform.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Sovereignty: The Unfinished Fight for Debt Justice

As Ellmers soberly concludes, “debt kills the SDGs.” With 3.4 billion people affected by this crisis, the need for structural reform transcends economic policy, it becomes a moral imperative for global justice and human dignity. The insights from our conversation paint an unambiguous picture: the current international financial architecture perpetuates inequality, undermines development, and fails to address interconnected crises from debt to climate change.

Yet within this challenging landscape, Ellmers’ analysis also reveals pathways for change. From institutional reforms that rebalance power toward Global South nations, to innovative mechanisms that protect human rights in debt restructuring, to the powerful synergy between grassroots mobilization and technical advocacy, the tools for transformation exist. What’s needed now is the political will to implement them.

Ellmers’ analysis leaves us with a crucial takeaway: the power to change this system lies in a combination of technical precision and unrelenting public pressure. The solutions—from a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism that protects human rights to shifting climate finance from loans to grants—are within reach. What has been missing is the political will to implement them. That will must be forged, and it must be forged now. The future of global justice, and the lives of billions, depend on it.

Arrival of US aircraft carrier off Latin America fuels speculation that US could try to overthrow Venezuelan government.

The Venezuelan government has said it is preparing its armed forces in the event of an invasion or military attack by the United States.

A statement shared by Minister of People’s Power for Defence Vladimir Padrino on Tuesday said that the preparations include the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine and missile forces”, as well as the participation of police, militias and citizens’ units.

The announcement comes as the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the region fuels speculation of possible military action aimed at collapsing the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime US rival.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated since the return of US President Donald Trump for a second term in January.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon confirmed that the Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group — which includes the world’s largest aircraft carrier — had arrived in the Caribbean Sea, bearing at least 4,000 sailors as well as “tactical aircraft”.

In recent weeks, the US government has also surged troops to areas near the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago, for training exercises and other operations.

The Trump administration has framed such deployments as necessary “to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland”. Trump officials have also accused Maduro of masterminding the activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang with a relatively modest presence in the US.

But Maduro and his allies have accused the US of “imperialistic” aims.

Questions remain, however, about whether Venezuela is equipped to fend off any US military advances.

Experts say the Maduro government has sought to project an image of military preparedness in the face of a large buildup of US forces in the Caribbean, but it could face difficulties from a lack of personnel and up-to-date equipment.

While the government has used possible US intervention to rally support, Maduro is also struggling with widespread discontent at home and growing diplomatic isolation following a contested election in 2024, marred by allegations of widespread fraud and a crackdown on protesters.

The military buildup in the Caribbean region began after the start of a series of US military strikes on September 2.

The US has carried out at least 19 air strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing approximately 75 people.

Trump has suggested that land strikes “are going to be next”. But when asked in late October whether he was considering attacks within Venezuela, Trump replied, “No”.

Legal experts say that a military attack on Venezuela would likely violate international law, and recent polling from the research firm YouGov suggests that about 47 percent of people in the US would oppose land attacks on Venezuelan territory. About 19 percent, meanwhile, say they would support such attacks.

While Venezuela’s armed forces have expressed support for Maduro and said they would resist a US attack, the Reuters news agency has reported that the government has struggled to provide members of the armed forces with adequate food and supplies.

The use of additional paramilitary and police forces could represent an effort to plug the holes in Venezuela’s lacklustre military capacity. Reuters reported that a government memo includes plans for small units at about 280 locations, where they could use sabotage and guerrilla tactics for “prolonged resistance” against any potential US incursion.

Nov. 10 (UPI) — The nation’s high court will decide if mail-in ballots need to be submitted by Election Day in a ruling that could affect the 2026 midterm election.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to weigh in on whether individual states can accept mail-in ballots sent on Election Day, in a bid by Mississippi GOP leaders to overturn a similar state law.

“The stakes are high: ballots cast by — but received after — Election Day can swing close races and change the course of the country,” Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, wrote in court documents.

Mississippi election law permits mail-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted.

Around 16 states currently count ballots received after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The practice has been targeted by the Republican National Committee. A Mississippi court backed state Republicans in the belief that state statutes preempt federal law.

In addition, Mississippi’s Libertarian Party also joined the lawsuit in opposition to the state’s current practice.

Each state manages its own election process. But federal law states election day is the first Tuesday in November.

Republicans claim that states accepting ballots after Election Day is a contravention of federal law.

“It should await a case where the lower court answers the question presented incorrectly, should one ever arise,” the RNC stated in a court filing.

U.S. President Donald Trump has flip-flopped on the issue of mail-in ballots for years, most recently in opposition as Republicans seek to expand and maintain power ahead of next year’s election, including efforts at mid-cycle redistricting after sweeping nationwide defeats for the GOP in state and local races on Nov. 4.

Meanwhile, oral arguments in the case are expected next year.

A decision could arrive as early as summer 2026, ahead of November’s mid-term elections.

The Los Angeles Police Department took more than a year to begin fully disclosing domestic abuse allegations against officers after the state passed a law that mandates reporting and can trigger permanent bans from police work in California.

The revelation came out through testimony at an administrative hearing last month for a rookie LAPD officer who was fired after the department alleged she committed time card fraud and physically assaulted her former romantic partner, a fellow cop.

A sergeant from the LAPD’s serious misconduct unit testified in a proceeding against Tawny Ramirez, according to Ramirez’s attorney and evidence from the closed-door hearing reviewed by The Times. The sergeant said the department did not start reporting certain spousal abuse cases to the state until after Ramirez was terminated in early February 2024. That is more than a year after rules took effect requiring the LAPD and other police agencies to promptly report officers accused of “serious misconduct” to the state’s police accreditation body, which grants authorization to work in law enforcement.

Senate Bill 2, passed in 2021, made domestic violence one of the nine categories of “serious misconduct” — including excessive force, dishonesty, sexual assault and acts of bias on the basis of factors including race, sexual orientation and gender — that police agencies are obligated to report to the state’s Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training, or POST.

The LAPD sergeant testified that the reporting practices were based on guidance from POST’s former compliance director, who said at a training session that agencies did not have to “report first-time misdemeanor domestic violence,” according to Ramirez’s attorney Nicole Castronovo and the hearing evidence reviewed by The Times.

Ramirez appealed the basis for her firing and has maintained she did not commit any misconduct. She denied allegations she abused her former partner.

LAPD officials believed the partial POST reporting went “against best practices” and tried to get the directive in writing, the sergeant testified, but still went along with what the official advised, according to Castronovo and the hearing evidence.

When the department sought further clarification from the POST compliance director’s successor, officials were informed that nearly all domestic-related incidents must be reported, Castronovo said.

She said she tried to press the LAPD about how many of these cases may have gone unreported, but the department said it didn’t know.

When SB 2 took effect in January 2023, police agencies were supposed to start disclosing “serious misconduct” to POST within 10 days of learning of credible allegations.

The sergeant who testified declined comment and directed questions to the department’s press office, which in a statement said that at the time SB 2 was being rolled out the LAPD “consulted” with POST “to determine which misconduct types required reporting.”

“The Department was advised that first-time, non-aggravated domestic battery did not meet the reporting threshold,” the statement read. “The Department followed this guidance, reporting only those cases with aggravating factors. In 2024, the Department adopted a new standard of reporting all allegations of domestic battery, regardless of severity.”

Ramirez’s lawyer said the testimony raises questions about the LAPD’s compliance with the law — and whether it has gone back to report other officers’ past offenses.

“It’s very scary to think that that crime wouldn’t be reported,” Castronovo said.

The LAPD accused Ramirez of assaulting her ex, Jorge Alvarado, in May 2023 based on a texted photo he provided that showed yellowish bruising on his arm from where she had squeezed it, according to the hearing evidence. Ramirez maintains Alvarado was bruised during consensual sex and argued at her at an administrative hearing that the department was unwilling to consider emails, text messages and other evidence she tried to provide that cast doubt on her accuser’s account.

The couple started dating in 2022 while both were at the Police Academy, according to Ramirez. She claims she tried to end the relationship after a few months when Alvarado turned overbearing and possessive. A colleague from Topanga Division helped her fill out an application for a temporary restraining order, Ramirez said.

A judge denied the stay away order on the grounds that Ramirez wasn’t in imminent danger, and Alvarado did not face any charges.

Alvarado did not respond to a request for comment sent to his department email.

According to hearing evidence, Alvarado first disclosed the alleged abuse by Ramirez during an interview with LAPD Internal Affairs in January 2024. Ramirez was fired less than a month later — weeks shy of completing her 18-month probationary period — after the department alleged that she lied about her reason for taking time off from work.

Meagan Poulos, a spokesperson for POST, said she wasn’t familiar with Ramirez’s case but if anything, the state agency deals with police departments “over-reporting” misconduct. Poulos said data on serious misconduct reports from the LAPD were not immediately available for review.

She added that reporting is not mandatory for spousal abuse cases that are quickly deemed unfounded or that don’t prompt an Internal Affairs investigation, and suggested LAPD officials may have “misconstrued” that to mean they didn’t have to report any such cases.

“I don’t know if that’s the case in this particular case, but I can say that’s not something that POST would advise any agency to not do,” she said.

According to Poulos and data from the agency, in 2023 there were 250-plus law enforcement agencies — the vast majority of which have fewer than 50 officers — that didn’t report a single case of serious misconduct. She said the agency regularly sends out reminders about their obligations under SB 2.

Larger agencies like the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have their own coordinators or standalone units charged with referring qualifying cases to state authorities for consideration. In a brief statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it has been its “practice since the inception of SB 2 to report all allegations of acts that violate the law.”

POST revoked 57 officers’ certification this year, compared to 84 last year. Another 43 officers voluntarily surrendered their certifications, while 77 had theirs at least temporarily suspended.

A POST notification doesn’t automatically result in an officer losing his or her policing certificate. Cases are reviewed by a disciplinary board comprised of civilians with a professional or personal background related to police accountability. That board convenes every few months to review POST’s investigation of misconduct allegations and recommend whether the commission should seek decertification.

Ramirez told The Times the LAPD initially said domestic violence had nothing to do with her firing. She says she was unfairly accused of violating department policy during a 2023 incident in Canoga Park in which she and another officer used force while trying to take a man into custody. It was only later that the photos of Alvarado’s bruises were used against her, Ramirez said, along with an allegation of time card fraud — which she also denies.

The LAPD said Ramirez lied and told her supervisor she needed time off to take care her of her ailing brother when she actually went to apply for a job at the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Ramirez said she was a caregiver for her brother — who has since died — and that she was applying to the Beverly Hills job in an attempt to get away from Alvarado.

Alvarado was placed on administrative leave after Ramirez reported him but has since completed his probationary period and been elevated to the rank of Police Officer II.

A decision from the LAPD disciplinary review process on whether Ramirez can be fired remains pending. She thinks it’s unfair her ex has been allowed to return to work while she’s stuck in limbo.

“Here I am still trying to get my job back and he’s a happy officer, enjoying his benefits, while I’m living this nightmare,” she said.

Times staff writer Connor Sheets and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Drew Brees is in at Fox Sports.

Mark Sanchez is out.

The network announced Friday that Brees, the MVP of Super Bowl XLIV, has been hired as an NFL game analyst. He will join play-by-play announcer Adam Amin in the booth starting Nov. 16.

Amin had previously been paired with Sanchez, who is facing a felony battery charge after a physical altercation with a 69-year-old truck driver in Indianapolis last month. Sanchez, who was stabbed in the abdomen during the incident, has not been on the air since then, and a Fox Sports spokesperson told The Times on Friday that he “is no longer with the network.”

“There will be no further comment at this time,” the spokesperson added.

Sanchez has been charged with a level five felony of battery involving serious bodily injury as well as two misdemeanors — unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication — after an Oct. 4 scuffle with Indiana resident Perry Tole.

Sanchez was in Indianapolis that weekend to cover the Colts’ game against the Las Vegas Raiders. According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Sanchez threw Tole toward a wall and also onto the ground during the altercation, while Tole sprayed Sanchez with pepper spray and eventually stabbed him.

Tole spent two days in the hospital after suffering a deep laceration on his left cheek that his attorney said affected his ability to speak. On Oct. 6, Tole filed a civil lawsuit against Sanchez, alleging he had suffered “severe permanent disfigurement, loss of function, other physical injuries, emotional distress, and other damages” as a result of the 38-year-old former NFL player’s actions.

Fox Corp. was named as a co-defendant in the case.

Sanchez remained in the hospital for a week after the incident. He was excused from attending an Oct. 22 pre-trial conference for his criminal case, as his attorney said he was still recovering from his injuries. The trial is set to begin Dec. 11.

With Brees, Fox has replaced Sanchez with one of the NFL’s all-time greats at quarterback. Brees played for the San Diego Chargers and New Orleans Saints during his 20 years in the NFL and is second behind Tom Brady in many of the league’s passing records, including touchdowns and yards. In his first year of eligibility, he is among the 52 modern-era players under consideration for the 2026 Pro Football Hall of Fame class.

“Drew is one of the best to ever play the game, and we couldn’t be more excited to have his prolific credentials and unique insights as part of our coverage on Sundays,” Brad Zager, president of Production and Operations at Fox Sports, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to welcome him to the Fox Sports family.”

Upon retiring in 2020, Brees called games on NBC for one season. More recently, he has appeared on in-studio shows on various networks and is slated to be part of Netflix’s coverage of Christmas Day games for the second year.

“I appreciate the opportunity Fox has given me in the booth and with their team,” Brees said in a statement. “I hope my passion for this game is reflected in the knowledge and insights I provide to the fans each Sunday.”

The DOJ argued that the federal judge did not have the authority to make the decision.

A United States judge in Texas has approved the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss a criminal case against Boeing despite his objections to the decision.

On Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor of the US District Court in Fort Worth dismissed the case, which will allow the plane maker to avoid prosecution over charges related to two deadly 737 MAX crashes: the 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia and the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash.

O’Connor said he disagreed with the Justice Department’s argument that ending the case served the public interest, noting that he lacked the authority to overrule it.

The government argued Boeing has improved, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is providing enhanced oversight. Boeing and the government argued O’Connor had no choice but to dismiss the case.

He said the deal with the aerospace giant “fails to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public”.

In September, O’Connor held a three-hour hearing to consider objections to the deal, questioning the government’s decision to drop a requirement that Boeing face oversight from an independent monitor for three years and instead hire a compliance consultant.

O’Connor said the government’s position is “Boeing committed crimes sufficient to justify prosecution, failed to remedy its fraudulent behaviour on its own during the [deferred prosecution agreement], which justified a guilty plea and the imposition of an independent monitor, but now Boeing will remedy that dangerous culture by retaining a consultant of its own choosing”.

The DOJ first criminally charged Boeing for the crashes in January 2021, but also agreed to deferred prosecution in the case.

The plane maker was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the US. Courts found that Boeing deceived the FAA about what is called the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system, which affects flight control systems on the aircraft.

“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception,” acting Assistant Attorney General David P Burns of the DOJ’s criminal division said in a statement at the time.

O’Connor said in 2023 that “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history”.

Under the non-prosecution deal, Boeing agreed to pay an additional $444.5m into a crash victims’ fund to be divided evenly per victim of the two fatal 737 MAX crashes, on top of a new $243.6m fine and more than $455m to strengthen the company’s compliance, safety, and quality programmes.

On Wall Street, Boeing’s stock was up by 0.2 percent as of 11am in New York (16:00 GMT).

NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Thursday gave new life to President Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction, ordering a lower court to reconsider its decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court.

A three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court, where he can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

But, the appeals court judges said, they “express no view” on how Hellerstein should rule.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump’s May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

In the later ruling, at issue in Thursday’s decision, Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers had failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

Hellerstein’s ruling, which echoed his previous denial, “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into one that relates to official acts, the appeals court panel said.

The three judges said Hellerstein should closely review evidence that Trump claims relate to official acts.

If Hellerstein finds the prosecution relied on evidence of official acts, the judges said, he should weigh whether Trump can argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties, whether Trump “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

Ruling came after oral arguments in June

Judges Susan L. Carney, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez made their ruling after hearing arguments in June, when they spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Carney and Lohier were nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama. Pérez was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

“President Trump continues to win in his fight against Radical Democrat Lawfare,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be immediately overturned and dismissed.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim, said he did nothing wrong and has asked a state appellate court to overturn the conviction.

It was the only one of the Republican’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump team cites Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

In trying to move the hush money case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers argued that federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks that Trump wrote while he was president.

Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wall, argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He also said they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under that ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall told the three-judge panel in June. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

In addition to reining in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts, the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, called the president “a class of one,” telling the judges that “everything about this cries out for federal court.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment. Exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Hellerstein concluded that Trump hadn’t shown “good cause” to request a move to federal court as such a late stage. But the three-judge panel on Thursday said it “cannot be confident” that the judge “adequately considered issues” relevant to making that decision.

Wall, addressing the delay at oral arguments, said Trump’s team did not immediately seek to move the case to federal court because the defense was trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.