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U.S. government attorneys on Tuesday told a federal judge the Department of Homeland Security still intends to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, despite a new agreement with Costa Rica to accept deportees who cannot legally be returned to their home countries.

The Salvadoran national’s case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by Homeland Security officials.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, of Maryland, previously barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting him or detaining him. She has written that the agency has no viable plan to actually deport Abrego Garcia, referring in February to “one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.”

Abrego Garcia has argued that if he is going to be deported, it should be to Costa Rica, which previously agreed to accept him. But Todd Lyons, the acting head of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, said in a March memo that deporting Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States.” Abrego Garcia should be sent to Liberia because the U.S. has spent government resources and political capital negotiating with the West African nation to accept third-country nationals, Lyons wrote.

At a Tuesday hearing in Xinis’ court, Ernesto Molina, director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation, suggested that Abrego Garcia could “remove himself” to Costa Rica.

Xinis pointed out that the Justice Department is prosecuting him in Tennessee on human smuggling charges. She called it a “fantasy” to say that he can remove himself anywhere while the criminal case is pending. Xinis set a schedule for a briefing on the matter and scheduled a new hearing for April 28.

Abrego Garcia, 30, has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger there from a gang that had threatened his family. By mistake, he was deported there anyway last year.

Facing public pressure and a court order, President Trump’s administration brought him back in June, but only after securing an indictment charging him with human smuggling in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to dismiss that case.

Loller writes for the Associated Press.

April 8 (UPI) — Republican Clay Fuller has claimed victory in Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s former House seat as Democrat Chris Taylor won a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.

The two contests were closely watched Tuesday as voters in Georgia and Wisconsin cast ballots in races Democrats hoped would help them regain ground ahead of November’s midterms.

Fuller, a district attorney in northwest Georgia, had secured President Donald Trump‘s endorsement and ran on a platform supporting many of the president’s key priorities: an America First economy, mass deportations, conservatism founded on Christianity and being tough on crime.

The District 14 runoff between Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris was held after neither candidate won a majority in the March 10 special election, when Fuller trailed Harris by about 2 points.

During his victory speech Tuesday night, the former U.S. Air Force lieutenant thanked Trump for elevating his campaign with his endorsement.

“So much of what the story has been when this race started and so much of what you’re going to hear from the fake news media is that President Trump doesn’t mean anything to Georgia 14 anymore,” he told supporters.

“Well, you can see with the results on March 10 and you can see the results of what we’re seeing here today that President Trump is the most critical factor in our election, and he has made sure that we were going to win. He made sure that he was the ultimate trump card.”

With all 10 localities reporting late Tuesday, Fuller had secured about 72,304 votes for nearly 56% of the vote share compared to Harris’ 57,000 votes for 44.1%, according to unofficial results from the office of Georgia’s secretary of state.

The district is solidly Republican, with Greene winning District 14 with about 64.4% of the vote in 2024, the same year Trump carried the state.

Harris framed Tuesday’s election loss as a victory in the fight against Trump during his speech Tuesday night, noting that he had cut the GOP margin in the district to far fewer votes than the more than 108,000-vote margin Greene had won by in 2024.

“Donald Trump came right here to Rome, Ga., and didn’t do a damn thing,” he told supporters.

“We have absolutely no fear because we have Democrats, independents and, yes, Republicans voting for us because they are ready for change.”

The District 14 seat became available after Greene, a firebrand politician and former staunch Trump supporter, resigned in November as she sparred with the president, whom she accuses of distancing himself from his America First policies.

Harris had campaigned on supporting farmers, protecting SNAP benefits, defending Medicaid and Medicare, cutting the cost of living and fixing the U.S. immigration system.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the U.S.-based pro-Israel lobby, congratulated Fuller on his victory.

“Fuller replaces Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose tenure was marked by repeated efforts to undermine the U.S.-Israel relationship and disparage millions of pro-Israel Americans engaged in the democratic process,” AIPAC said in a statement.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, also congratulated Fuller.

“I was proud to have appointed Clay as District Attorney and even more proud to now see him take that same fighting spirit to Congress,” Kemp said online.

“Keep Chopping, Clay!”

In Wisconsin, Taylor, a Democrat-backed appeals judge, claimed victory in a seat on the state’s Supreme Court left vacant by retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley.

“Tonight, the people of Wisconsin stood up for our rights and freedoms, our democracy, our elections and a strong state Supreme Court that will protect the independence of our beloved state,” she said in her victory speech Tuesday night in Madison, Wis.

“Once again, Wisconsin showed the entire nation that we believe that the people should be at the center of government and the priority of our judiciary — not the billionaires, not the most powerful and privileged, but the people.”

With Taylor’s victory over Maria Lazar, a Republican-backed appeals judge, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court tilts even more heavily to the left, now with a 5-2 liberal majority.

During her speech, Taylor said Lazar had called her to concede the race.

Lazar confirmed the phone call in her own speech before supporters in Pewaukee on Tuesday night.

“I think that this race was run so that people in this state from now on will know that judicial races are not political races, and the next race and the next race and the next race we will keep fighting to put judges — good, talented judges with experience — on the bench and we will not take that status quo,” she said.

Justices serve a 10-year term on the bench, with no term limits.

Voters on Tuesday cast ballots to fill a state Supreme Court seat left vacant by retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley.

Last year, Democrat-endorsed Susan Crawford was elected to the court despite Elon Musk pouring millions into the race.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate and State Rep. Francesca Hong congratulated Taylor on her victory.

“Wisconsinites voted for a Supreme Court that will protect their rights and freedoms,” she said on social media.

“This shows voters are ready for leadership that represents our state motto — Forward.”

House Democrats and a panel of elections experts expressed unwavering confidence in state voting systems and dismissed Trump administration claims of widespread fraud and other vulnerabilities during a special “shadow hearing” in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

They accused President Trump and his Republican allies of pushing sweeping federal reforms — including stricter voter ID laws and new restrictions on voting by mail — that would disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans, especially low-income, rural and elderly voters, as well as voters of color and those with disabilities.

“They are taking us backward, and not to a good place,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who helped lead the hearing at the Daniel K. Inouye National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Little Tokyo.

They also stressed that they and their allies were working hard to prevent such backsliding.

“While Republicans are expecting Democrats to just sit idly by as they attempt to steal yet another election, Democrats are getting out in the community, raising the alarm bells about the GOP’s efforts to rig these elections and fighting back in the courts, in Congress and in our communities,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), chair of the Democratic Caucus. “We won’t let Republicans get away with their anti-democratic and un-American schemes.”

Such “shadow hearings” allow Democrats to highlight issues their majority-Republican counterparts won’t schedule for formal hearings in Washington. This week’s discussions — a second is scheduled Thursday in San Francisco — follow others in California in recent months, including on Trump’s immigration raids.

Pelosi, the former House speaker, led the hearing alongside Aguilar and Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which has oversight of elections. Joining them were fellow Democratic Reps. Nanette Barragán of San Pedro, Judy Chu of Monterey Park, Gil Cisneros of Covina, Laura Friedman of Glendale, Luz Rivas of North Hollywood, Linda Sánchez of Whittier, Norma Torres of Pomona and Maxine Waters of L.A.

Pelosi noted the setting on the grounds of the Japanese American National Museum, where Japanese Americans were detained before being unconstitutionally stripped of their belongings and taken to internment camps during World War II.

“To be here on a day when the president of the United States has talked about destroying the civilization of a country is so appalling. It’s so appalling, and I don’t think we can ignore comments like that, especially in a setting like this,” Pelosi said.

She also said that securing the nation’s elections against Trump’s threats and getting out the Democratic vote was the surest way of restoring order to U.S. relations abroad — and far more likely than getting Trump’s Cabinet to remove him from office by invoking the 25th Amendment.

“We have to make sure that the mentality that would obliterate a civilization, undermine a democracy by fighting free and fair elections, just cannot prevail,” she said.

The hearings were designed to challenge a narrative Trump has pushed for years — that U.S. elections are badly compromised by widespread fraud, that mail ballots such as those used in California are a particularly large source of abuse, and that noncitizens are voting in large numbers — none of which he has supported with evidence.

Trump tried unsuccessfully to challenge his 2020 loss to Joe Biden using similar arguments. When he returned to the White House, he immediately directed his administration to pursue the claims anew, including under executive orders he issued asserting new and sweeping federal authority over elections, which by law are controlled by the states.

The Justice Department in September sued California and other states for their voter rolls, which courts rejected. The FBI in January raided and seized 2020 election records from an elections office in Fulton County, Ga., where Trump rejected 2020 results. Trump in February said Republicans “ought to nationalize the voting.” Last week, he issued an executive order purporting to give federal agencies control over ballot processing by the U.S. Postal Service, which followed a previous order seeking to place new federal requirements on voter identification and proof of citizenship.

Trump has said his efforts are “common sense” steps average Americans support to secure elections against noncitizens voting and other threats.

Experts who provided testimony at Tuesday’s hearing roundly rejected that argument, saying the measures address problems that don’t existand are more geared toward securing wins for Republicans than ensuring election safety.

Jenny Farrell, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, said that Americans are “more likely to be struck by lightning” than to commit voter fraud, and that many recent proposals framed around election integrity are really designed to narrow access to voting for certain groups. She also said California’s elections are particularly strong.

“We’re like the Dodgers of elections,” she said.

Darius Kemp, executive director of Common Cause California, said the state’s elections “are safe and secure,” and the Trump administration is threatening democratic participation in novel and alarming ways that his organization is watching carefully.

Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor, said Trump is trying to project power over elections “that he simply does not have,” and if local and state officials, the courts and pro-democracy groups stand their ground, he will fail.

“If we keep calm and carry on, we can make our voices heard loud and clear,” he said.

Hector Villagra, vice president of policy advocacy and community education at MALDEF, or the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said “the evidence could not be more clear — noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare,” and Trump’s proposals would simply “raise the cost of lawful voting” for groups already underrepresented at the polls.

“The question is not whether we can verify eligibility. We already do that,” he said. “The question is whether we will impose new barriers that will prevent eligible citizens from participating at all.”

Sonni Waknin, senior staff attorney at the UCLA Voting Rights Project, said “democracy is under attack” across the nation, and that the photo identification requirement Trump and other Republicans are pushing would disenfranchise a million eligible voters in California alone.

When Cisneros asked about what could be done to prepare for the inevitable claims of fraud from Trump and other Republicans after the midterms, Levitt said that such claims must be called out for what they are.

“We call those lies, because they are lies,” he said.

When Waters asked the experts about the effect of federal immigration agents being deployed to polling places, as some in Trump’s orbit have suggested, Villagra said damage was already being done just from the rumors of such action — whether agents show up or not.

“It’s the threat that’s really what’s powerful here,” he said, as people — especially Latino voters — are already intimidated, and leaders should do more to reassure voters and offer alternatives to showing up to polls, such as voting by mail.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Environmental groups on Tuesday asked a federal appellate court panel to drop its temporary halt of a lower court’s order instructing state officials to close an immigration detention center in the heart of the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The Everglades facility remains open, still holding detainees, because the appellate court in early September relied on arguments by Florida and the Trump administration that the state had not yet applied for federal reimbursement, and therefore wasn’t required to follow federal environmental law. State officials opened the detention center last summer to support President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Questions by the three appellate judges during oral arguments in a Miami courtroom focused on how much control the federal government had over the state-built facility and under what circumstances an environmental review was required to be in compliance with federal law. The judges did not indicate when they would rule.

Jesse Panuccio, an attorney for the Florida Department of Emergency Management, told the judges federal funding and federal control of the facility were the two criteria for determining if the federal environmental law would apply and the federal agencies had no control over the state-run detention center.

Florida was notified in late September that FEMA had approved $608 million in federal funding to support the center’s construction and operation.

“You need both,” Panuccio said. “Even with funding, I don’t think that would follow because they don’t have federal control.”

An attorney for the environmental groups said the law requiring a review applied to the facility because the Department of Homeland Security had authorized the funding and immigration was a responsibility of the federal government, not the state.

“What is different about this property is that immigration is constitutionally a federal function,” said Paul Schwiep,” an attorney representing the Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity. “The state has no role.”

The federal district judge in Miami in mid-August ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact according to federal law. That judge concluded that a reimbursement decision already had been made. The appellate court halted the order on an appeal.

The environmental lawsuit was one of three federal court challenges to the Everglades facility since it opened. In the others, a detainee said Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state had no authority to operate the center under federal law. The challenge ended after the immigrant detainee who filed the lawsuit agreed to be removed from the United States.

In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Fort Myers, Fla., ruled the Everglades facility must provide detainees there with better access to their attorneys, as well as confidential, unmonitored, unrecorded outgoing legal calls.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

MADISON, Wis. — Democrats hoped to increase liberal control of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin on Tuesday in an election that has focused largely on abortion rights as cases affecting congressional redistricting, union rights and other hot button issues also await in the perennial battleground state.

This year’s Supreme Court election stands in stark contrast to the swing state’s previous two, where national spending records were set in battles over majority control. Spending and national attention is down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake.

Democrats are looking to tighten their control of the court just months before a November election in which they seek to keep the governor’s office and flip the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. Democrats aspire to undo a host of Republican-enacted laws that made Wisconsin a focal point for the nation’s conservative movement in the 2010s.

In Tuesday’s Supreme Court race, Democratic-backed Chris Taylor, a former state lawmaker who also worked for Planned Parenthood, faces Republican-supported Maria Lazar. Both Taylor and Lazar are state Appeals Court judges.

Liberals would increase their majority on the court to 5-2 from 4-3 with a Taylor win. That would lock in the liberal majority until at least 2030.

Liberals took control of the state’s top court in 2023, ending 15 years under a conservative majority. They held onto their majority with last year’s victory in a race that drew involvement from President Trump and billionaires George Soros and Elon Musk, who personally handed out $1 million checks to voters in the state.

Liberals argued that democracy was at stake in the 2025 election, noting that when the court was controlled by conservative justices in 2020 it came just one vote shy of siding with Trump in his attempt to invalidate enough votes to overturn his loss in that year’s presidential election.

Since liberals took control, the court has reversed several election-related rulings, including one that overturned a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes, and it is poised to once again be in the spotlight around the 2028 presidential election.

Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but support for candidates breaks down mostly along partisan lines.

Taylor has focused much of her campaign on abortion rights, with one TV ad saying that “abortion is on the ballot.” In another ad, she criticized Lazar for calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 “very wise.”

Lazar, who was supported by anti-abortion groups in her run for the appeals court, tried to brand Taylor as nothing more than a politician who will push a partisan agenda on the court.

They sparred over each other’s partisanship during the campaign’s sole debate last week.

Lazar accused Taylor of being a “radical, extreme legislator” and a “judicial activist.” Taylor said that Lazar would bring “an extreme, right-wing political agenda to the bench.”

Lazar has had a much harder time getting her message out. Taylor had a large fundraising advantage and spent about nine times as much as Lazar on television ads, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The liberal-controlled court has already struck down a state law banning abortion and ordered new legislative maps, fueling Democrats’ hopes of capturing a majority this November.

Taylor has been a judge since 2020 and before that she spent 10 years as a Democrat representing the liberal capital city of Madison in the state Assembly.

Lazar, a judge since 2015, previously worked four years under a Republican attorney general in the state Department of Justice. In that role, she defended a law enacted under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional, a decision expected to ultimately land before the state Supreme Court.

Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.

Democrats are optimistic given the past two Supreme Court elections, which saw candidates they backed winning by double digits.

The seat is open due to the retirement of a conservative justice. Another conservative justice is retiring next year, giving liberals a chance to take 6-1 control of the court if they win on Tuesday.

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Trump, on Monday won a Supreme Court order that is expected to lead to the dismissal of his criminal conviction for refusing to testify to Congress.

Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

The move frees a trial judge to act on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “in the interests of justice.”

The dismissal would be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court in Washington had upheld the conviction.

The justices also issued a similar order in the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump last year.

Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion in 2022. The high court order allows a lower court to consider dismissing his indictment.

The Justice Department brought the case against Bannon during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, but it changed course after Trump took office again last year.

Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the Capitol riot.

Bannon separately has pleaded guilty in a New York state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Court action.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump spent much of last week railing against the courts. The courts, in turn, spent it ruling against him.

While Trump made history as the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court, where he stared down justices as they questioned his bid to end birthright citizenship, quieter courtrooms across the country were challenging his agenda.

The challenges came in on immigration, on his White House ballroom project, on his own liability in the run-up to Jan. 6.

“Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!” he wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

By Friday, judges had served him loss after loss, each finding the administration had taken executive authority too far, too fast.

Immigration rulings

On immigration, the keystone of Trump’s policy platform, he faced a number of setbacks.

On Monday, a federal judge in California took a step that would allow a class-action lawsuit against the administration’s handling of certain asylum claims. The case concerns thousands of asylum seekers who had made appointments with immigration officials by using a Biden administration phone app called CBP One.

In many cases, migrants from around the world had waited months in Mexico for their turn to speak with border agents after securing appointments through the app.

Those appointments were suddenly canceled after Trump took office. The judge certified those asylum seekers as a class that can challenge the administration’s action in court.

In a similar case, a federal judge in Boston ruled Tuesday that the administration had unlawfully terminated the temporary legal status of as many as 900,000 immigrants who entered the country after using the phone app. Tens of thousands of those told by the administration to leave the U.S. “immediately” have since left or been deported.

The judge ordered the administration to reinstate the legal status and work authorization of those remaining.

“Today’s ruling is a clear rejection of an administration that has tried to erase lawful status for hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a button,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a legal organization that represented the migrants.

Sanctuary laws

Also Tuesday, a federal judge threw out a Justice Department lawsuit that accused Denver and Colorado of interfering with immigration enforcement and claimed that the city and state’s “sanctuary” laws violated the Constitution.

The ruling found that the federal government had not shown it could override state and local decisions about how to use their own resources. The Constitution, the judge said, does not let Washington commandeer local governments.

“Colorado gets to make a choice: How will our law enforcement operate in Colorado. The federal government, they don’t get to make that choice for us,” Colorado Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser said.

Birthright citizenship

The next day, the Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of Trump’s claim that birthright citizenship doesn’t apply to babies born in the U.S. to parents who are here unlawfully or temporarily.

Conservative and liberal judges alike questioned the arguments of Solicitor Gen. John Sauer, who represented the administration, saying he relied on “some pretty obscure sources,” including precedents that dated back to Roman law.

Trump, sitting feet from the proceedings, left the Supreme Court building halfway through.

“We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!” he wrote shortly after departing.

Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University professor who studies immigration enforcement, wrote on Substack after the Supreme Court hearing that, on immigration policy, there is always a gap between what an administration says it will do and what the government can actually deliver. That gap, he argued, is particularly evident in the second Trump administration.

“The White House has built its political identity around the promise of mass deportation, and the rhetoric has been relentless: record arrests, expanded detention, military flights, the spectacle of enforcement as governance,” Kocher wrote.

“But over the past several days,” he added, “developments from multiple fronts suggests that the operational foundations of the mass deportation campaign are more fragile than the administration would like anyone to believe.”

Defying judicial orders

In some cases, the Trump administration has been undeterred by judicial orders to stop certain practices. In a March ruling unsealed Thursday, a federal judge found that Border Patrol agents had continued making illegal arrests in California’s Central Valley without reasonable suspicion.

The government’s explanations for the arrests, wrote Judge Jennifer Thurston in Fresno, “rely on unsupported assumptions, hunches and generalizations about the relationship between a person’s apparent status as a day laborer and their immigration status.”

White House ballroom

Trump had kicked the week off March 29 by touting his 90,000-square-foot ballroom project, showing designs to reporters on Air Force One.

“I think it’ll be the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world,” he said. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ordered a temporary halt to construction.

Leon stated that the president is the “steward” of the White House, not its “owner,” and ruled that he cannot proceed with such a massive structural change without express authorization from Congress.

In response, Trump raged on Truth Social: “In the Ballroom case, the Judge said we have to get Congressional approval. He is WRONG! Congressional approval has never been given on anything, in these circumstances, big or small, having to do with construction at the White House.”

His administration filed a motion Friday to block the judge’s ruling.

Jan 6. liability

On the same day, a judge ruled that Trump remains personally liable in a civil lawsuit tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, allowing those claims to move forward.

It is among the most consequential legal threats he faces.

Trump entered the presidency on the heels of a major Supreme Court win that found former presidents have criminal and civil immunity for official acts during their term.

But Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta deemed Trump’s Jan. 6 speech — in which he directed supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” — was a political act, not a presidential one, and therefore not shielded by immunity.

“President Trump has not shown that the speech reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties. The content of the ellipse speech confirms that it is not covered by official-acts immunity,” Mehta wrote.

The week ended with yet another setback for Trump when a federal judge on Friday blocked the administration from forcing universities to submit extensive data on applicants and students to prove they don’t illegally consider race in admissions.

Reading the losses

For Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA who has tracked the administration’s legal battles closely, the losing streak had a clear through line.

“It was an awful week for Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s not that the courts are anti-Trump. In fact, he wins a lot. It’s really that he takes such an aggressive approach to policy making that he runs afoul of existing precedents.”

Taken together, last week’s rulings signaled that the courts are insisting that the president is as accountable for his actions as anyone, and that states have constitutional powers he alone cannot override.

“The Trump administration’s recent court losses illustrate that there is still much that the other branches of government can do — in connection with civil society — to uphold the rule of law and mitigate the harms of the administration’s destructive agenda,” said Monika Langarica, deputy legal director at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

“They are one more reminder,” she added, “that the administration will not always have the last word with respect to its unlawful and unconstitutional actions.”

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. fell ill at an event in Philadelphia last month and was treated for dehydration before returning home to suburban Washington, the court’s spokeswoman said Friday.

Alito’s illness did not require an overnight hospital stay and he was back on the bench the following Monday, spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said in a statement.

Alito was an active questioner during arguments that day in an important case about mailed ballots and participated in all the court’s hearings over the ensuing two weeks.

Alito, who turned 76 on Wednesday, is the second-oldest member of the court, after 77-year-old Justice Clarence Thomas.

The episode was first reported by CNN, which also said the treatment was administered at a Philadelphia hospital. The court did not say where Alito had been taken.

The incident is the latest example of the justices’ reticence to discuss their health, at least until the news somehow leaks.

In 2020, the court confirmed that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had spent a night in the hospital after a fall that required stitches in his forehead, only after the Washington Post reported it first.

Alito was driven by his security detail from Washington to what CNN said was a dinner following a Federalist Society panel that looked at his 20 years on the court.

When he didn’t feel well in the evening, “he agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home” to northern Virginia, McCabe said. He was given fluids for dehydration, she said.

While the justice has not said anything about retirement, speculation has swirled that Alito might soon step down, which would give President Trump the chance to appoint a fourth justice, after the three who were confirmed during his first term.

While Alito is young by Supreme Court standards, he might not want to stay around and gamble on the possibility of Democrats flipping the Senate in the November elections and seeing a Democrat capture the White House two years later.

Retiring in the summer would allow Trump to name a similarly conservative but much younger replacement who would almost certainly win confirmation from the Republican-led Senate.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is arguing that a judge’s order to halt construction of a $400-million ballroom creates a security risk for President Trump as it asks a federal appeals court to pause the ruling.

In a motion filed Friday, National Park Service lawyers say that the federal judge’s order to suspend construction of the East Wing ballroom is “threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the President and his family, and the President’s staff.”

“Time is of the essence!” the lawyers write, citing materials that will be installed to make a “heavily fortified” facility. The ballroom construction also includes bomb shelters, military installations and a medical facility, according to the filing. The ballroom is part of Trump’s plans to remake public buildings and institutions in Washington during his remaining years in office.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington on Tuesday ordered the temporary pause of the construction project that has included demolishing the East Wing of the White House. He concluded that unless Congress approves the project, the preservationist group suing to stop it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims because “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”

The White House is owned by the federal government, not the president. Even the website of the National Park Service, which filed the motion, makes clear that “the White House is owned by the American people.”

The judge suspended enforcement of his order for 14 days, acknowledging that the administration would appeal his decision.

Leon’s ruling and the appeal come the same week a key agency tasked with approving construction on federal property in the Washington region gave final approval to the project.

In his ruling, Leon, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, suspended enforcement of his order, recognizing that “halting an ongoing construction project may raise logistical issues.”

Leon also addressed national security in his ruling, saying that he reviewed information that the government privately submitted to him and concluded that halting construction wouldn’t jeopardize national security. He exempted any construction work that is necessary for the safety and security of the White House from the scope of the injunction.

Trump lashed out at the ruling, while noting that it would allow work on underground bunkers and other security measures around the White House grounds to continue — even though those will be paid for by taxpayers. Trump has pledged that he, along with private donors, will cover the costs for the ballroom itself.

But the National Park Service argues in its motion that the president has “complete authority to renovate the White House” and the current state of the grounds, which is an open construction site, make it harder to protect the White House.

“Canvas tents, which are necessary without a ballroom, are significantly more vulnerable to missiles, drones, and other threats than a hardened national security facility,” the motion says.

The Trump administration is asking the appeals court to make a decision on its request by Friday. It also asked that the 14-day suspension of Leon’s order be extended by two weeks so the case can be taken to the Supreme Court.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

April 3 (UPI) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a Philadelphia hospital after a Federalist Society dinner in his honor last month, the court confirmed Friday.

Alito “felt ill during an event in Philadelphia” on March 20, a Supreme Court spokesperson said in a statement to the media.

“Out of an abundance of caution, he agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home,” spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said. “After that examination and the administration of fluids for dehydration, he returned home that night, as previously planned. Justice Alito was thoroughly checked by his own physician, and he returned to work the following Monday for oral argument.”

Alito, 76, is the court’s second-oldest justice. He was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005.

Sources told ABC News that those who saw him at the event said he looked tired and was not as engaging as usual. They said he stayed seated when people came by to greet him during the dinner.

The dinner capped off a daylong symposium by the society titled, “An Examination of the Jurisprudence of Samuel Alito,” which featured several of his former law clerks, law professors and attorneys who practice before the court. It was at the University of Pennsylvania law school.

Alito was not there during the day, as he was driving from Washington. The court was in session to hand down opinions, but Alito was on the road.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Governors in Florida and Mississippi signed into law measures that require officials to verify the citizenship of voters, just as similar legislation being pushed by President Trump has stalled in Congress.

The law signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was immediately challenged in court by civil rights organizations that said it will make it harder for Floridians to vote.

The citizenship provision of the law goes into effect Jan. 1. It requires voters to provide a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate as proof of citizenship if their eligibility to vote is challenged by government officials through cross-referencing voter registration applications with motor vehicle records.

“Many eligible voters do not have these documents and cannot obtain them for a variety of reasons — including because they were born without a birth certificate in the segregated South, because their documents were destroyed in a hurricane, or because they cannot afford the hundreds of dollars it costs to replace them,” the civil rights groups said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in South Florida.

The voting legislation being pushed aggressively by Trump in Congress would mandate that people provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, such as a U.S. passport, citizen naturalization certificate or a combination of a birth certificate and government-issued photo identification. It passed the House but was stalled in the Senate before lawmakers took a spring recess.

Under the Florida law, credit cards, student IDs and retirement community identifications can no longer be used as IDs when voting, and the citizenship status of a driver must be reflected on driver’s licenses starting in July 2027.

DeSantis said the law improves the security and transparency of Florida’s election system.

“In Florida, we will always stand up for election integrity,” the Republican governor said.

The new Mississippi law signed Wednesday requires local officials registering people to vote to run additional citizenship checks if applicants don’t have or can’t provide driver’s license numbers on their voter application. The law, which takes effect July 1, also requires the secretary of state to run annual checks of the voter rolls against an online database from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to flag any potential noncitizens who could be asked to provide proof of their eligibility.

“This is another win for election integrity in Mississippi [and America],” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a social media post. “We will continue to do everything in our power to make it infinitely harder — with a goal to make it impossible — to cheat in our elections!”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has said that the law could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who don’t have a passport, lack a birth certificate or whose last names don’t match their birth certificates because of name changes due to marriage.

Four Republican-led states — Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Utah — have enacted laws this year to strengthen proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters. In Michigan, supporters of voter citizenship documentation have submitted 750,000 petition signatures in a bid to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

The Republican-led Kansas Legislature also has passed legislation, though it still must go before the Democratic governor. Gov. Laura Kelly has until next week to decide whether she’ll sign the bill and hasn’t said publicly what she will do, though she has regularly vetoed past GOP-election bills. Supporters would need a two-thirds majority to override a veto — and thanks to Republican dissenters, the bill appeared to be a few votes short of that in the House.

Any efforts in Kansas to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote are shadowed by one of the state’s biggest political fiascos in recent memory — a requirement imposed in 2013 that people registering to vote in the state for the first time provide documentation of their U.S. citizenship.

That law ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote, or 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press. AP writers David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Mo., and John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The score wasn’t the only thing that made this the Lakers’ worst loss of the season.

Even more concerning than the Lakers’ 139-96 blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday was superstar guard Luka Doncic’s health after the 27-year-old hobbled off the court with a left hamstring injury in the third quarter.

Doncic attempted to drive into the lane at the 7:39 mark of the third quarter but pulled up suddenly in the midrange. He stopped as the ball bounced out of bounds. He grabbed at the back of his left leg and hobbled to the baseline, where he lowered himself to the court, rolled over to his back and covered his face. Concerned teammates surrounded him. Coach JJ Redick offered a hand to pull him off the court.

Doncic, who was just named Western Conference player of the month after scoring 600 points in March, was limited to 12 points, seven assists and six turnovers before the injury. It was the second Lakers injury scare in a game that was supposed to be a marquee matchup between the hottest teams in the league.

Austin Reaves was hobbling through the first quarter, grabbing at his left lower back at nearly every sudden movement. He appeared to get hurt while chasing down a loose ball with 6:23 remaining.

The Lakers had eight turnovers in the first quarter. Lu Dort had two steals and hit all four of his three-pointers as the Thunder were seven for 11 from three-point range. Reaves, who returned from the locker room with 9:40 left in the second quarter, was the only Laker player with multiple made field goals in the first quarter.

He had two.

Former clerk Tina Peters has become a cause celebre for the election denial movement and President Donald Trump.

An appeals court in the state of Colorado has ordered the resentencing of Tina Peters, a former county clerk convicted of involvement in an election meddling scheme in the United States.

The court overturned Peters’s nine-year prison sentence on Thursday, but not her conviction for helping to tamper with voting machines after the 2020 presidential race.

Her case has become a cause celebre for President Donald Trump and the election denial movement, after it emerged that she was seeking evidence to support Trump’s false claim that his 2020 loss was due to massive fraud.

In Thursday’s decision, the three-judge appeals panel ruled that a lower court had considered Peters’s personal beliefs when deciding upon a punishment, thereby rendering the sentence improper.

“The trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing,” the appeals court wrote.

The panel cited comments from Judge Matthew Barrett, who blasted Peters as a “charlatan” promoting “snake oil” claims.

“Her offence was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud,” the appeals court said. “It was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.”

Peters was convicted in August 2024 for helping someone from outside the government gain access to the Mesa County election system and make copies.

That person was affiliated with efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss, and the copies they obtained were then shared on social media.

False claims that the 2020 election was marred by massive fraud have been a persistent fixation for Trump and his allies, even after his successful re-election in 2024.

Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his 2020 defeat were the subject of a 2023 criminal indictment brought by former special counsel Jack Smith.

He alleged that Trump led a criminal conspiracy to undermine the election process and rally supporters to overturn the results. Those charges, however, were ultimately dropped when Trump took office again in 2025, as the US Justice Department has a policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.

Since his inauguration, Trump has continued to push the claims he won the 2020 race. He has also used his allegations of fraud to demand greater control over the country’s election infrastructure in advance of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

In December, the president pardoned Peters, even though she was not in federal custody, and the presidential power of pardon does not extend to state crimes.

The appeals court panel confirmed on Thursday that Trump’s pardon had no impact on state offences.

“We have found no instance where the presidential pardon power has been stretched in such a way as to invade an individual state’s sovereignty,” the panel said.

State Governor Jared Polis suggested last month that he could consider clemency for Peters.

DENVER — A Colorado appeals court ruled Thursday that a former county clerk convicted in a scheme that sought to prove fraud in the 2020 presidential election should be resentenced because a judge wrongly punished her for statements protected as free speech.

Tina Peters is serving a nine-year prison term after being convicted of state crimes for sneaking in an outside computer expert to make a copy of her county’s election computer system during a software update in 2021. A photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were later posted on social media and a conservative website.

Calls for Peters’ release have become a cause celebre in the election conspiracy movement. President Trump has sought unsuccessfully to pardon Peters and pressured Colorado to set her free.

Judges on the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld her conviction in a 74-page ruling that rejected the notion that Trump has authority to pardon her state crimes. But they said a lower court judge should not have considered Peters’ continued promotion of election fraud conspiracies when he sentenced her in 2024.

One of Tina Peters’ lawyers, John Case, said the court’s ruling affirmed the importance of free speech.

“Tina Peters was punished for words that she used to criticize our insecure and illegal voting system,” Case said. “The decision affirms that people are free to speak what they believe in Colorado as well as the rest of the United States of America.”

Case said he would likely ask at resentencing for Peters to receive the approximately 540 days she’s served already. That would allow her to be freed.

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who has been considering granting clemency to Peters, praised the court’s decision for rejecting Trump’s pardon but upholding her free speech rights.

“This case has been very challenging and a true test of our resolve as a state to have a fair judicial system, not just for people we agree with but a fair system for Coloradans that we vehemently disagree with,” Polis said in statement.

Peters was the former clerk in Mesa County, in the far western part of Colorado, and convicted by jurors in the Republican stronghold that has supported Trump.

She was unapologetic when she was sentenced by Judge Matthew Barrett and insisted that she tried to unearth what she believed was fraud for the greater good. He ripped into her, calling her a “charlatan” who had used her position to “peddle snake oil.”

The appeals court found that Barrett violated her rights to free speech by punishing Peters for persistently alleging fraud in the 2020 election. They noted that because Peters is no longer serving as an election clerk, she can no longer engage in the conduct that led to her conviction.

“The trial court obviously erred by imposing sentence at least partially based on Peters’ protected speech,” Judge Ted Tow wrote in Thursday’s ruling.

The court sent Peters’ case back to a lower court for a judge to issue a new sentence.

Trump has threatened to take “harsh measures” against Colorado unless the state releases Peters. In February, Trump said Colorado was “suffering a big price” for refusing to release her.

Colorado Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser, a Democrat who is running for governor, has accused the Trump administration of waging a revenge campaign by choking off funds and ending federal programs over the state’s refusal to free Peters.

Weiser said in response to the ruling that the original sentence had been “fair and appropriate.”

“Whatever happens with her sentence, Tina Peters will always be a convicted felon who violated her duty as Mesa County clerk, put other lives at risk, and threatened our democracy. Nothing will remove that stain,” Weiser said in a statement.

The Justice Department inserted itself into Peters’ bid to be released while her state appeal was considered. The federal Bureau of Prisons also tried to get Peters moved to a federal prison. After both efforts failed, Trump in December announced a pardon for Peters.

However, the appeals court judges said they could find no prior example of a president pardoning someone for a state crime. And they rejected her attorney’s claims that Peters actions had been carried out while “defending a federal interest.”

“We have found no instance where the presidential pardon power has been stretched in such a way as to invade an individual state’s sovereignty,” they said, adding that the president’s pardon has “no impact” on the state’s case against Peters.

The Associated Press left messages with the White House for comment.

She was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state.

Peters’ lawyers didn’t deny that she used the security badge of a local man she pretended to hire to allow an associate of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to make a copy of the Dominion Voting Systems election computer server during an annual software update in 2021.

But they said she only wanted to preserve election data and find out whether any outside actor had accessed the system while ballots were being counted. They said she didn’t want the information made public.

Slevin and Brown write for the Associated Press.

April 2 (UPI) — A Colorado appeals court on Thursday threw out the sentence of Tina Peters, a former elections clerk, who was convicted in an election data case.

Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison in August 2024 on seven of the 10 counts for which she was charged.

She allowed an unauthorized person to make copies of voting machine hard drives that included classified information. The data from those drives was then leaked online by conspiracy theorists who falsely said it proved President Donald Trump correct in his assertion that the 2020 election was “stolen.”

Trump later pardoned Peters, but Colorado officials said he has no power to do so because she was convicted by the state. He has since pressured Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to pardon her.

The judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that District Judge Matthew Barrett wrongfully used Peters’ beliefs and promotion of election fraud conspiracy theories in his sentencing.

“We reverse her sentence because it was based in part on improper consideration of her exercise of her right to free speech,” the court wrote, sending her case back to the trial judge. Now Barrett must re-sentence Peters without using her beliefs to make the decision, the appeals judges said.

At the sentencing, Barrett said Peters had no remorse and called her a “charlatan” who abused her position to “peddle snake oil.”

“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could,” The Hill reported Barrett said. “You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen.”

In its decision, the appeals court said her beliefs shouldn’t color the sentencing.

“Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud. Indeed, under these circumstances, just as her purported beliefs underlying her motive for her actions were not relevant to her defense, the trial court should not have considered those beliefs relevant when imposing sentence.”

The appeals court did not overturn Peters’ conviction and formally said Trump doesn’t have the power to pardon a person for state law offenses.

“The crux of Peters’ argument is that the phrase ‘Offences against the United States’ includes an offense against any of the states in the union,” the court wrote. “We join what appears to us to be every other appellate court that has addressed the issue and reject such an expansive reading of the phrase.”

Peters served as a clerk in Mesa County, Colo., whose county seat is Grand Junction, in western Colorado.

She was convicted on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state.

A recent California appellate court ruling will give civilian oversight groups the authority to subpoena the law enforcement agencies they are tasked with monitoring, a decision hailed by local advocates as a step toward greater transparency by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

In a unanimous opinion issued Thursday, justices from the state’s first appellate district found that an oversight body in Sonoma County is legally authorized to subpoena the county sheriff’s office while probing whistleblower inquiries. The justices also directed the law enforcement agency to comply with the watchdog’s requests for records.

The Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach sued the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office in 2024 over refusals to comply with a whistleblower complaint subpoena. A lower court initially ruled in favor of the Sheriff’s Office, but the appellate judges reversed that decision.

Hans Johnson, chair of the Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Commission, called the ruling a “big win” for law enforcement transparency.

“This is one of the most significant court rulings in recent CA history about oversight,” he said in a message to The Times. “It strengthens the powers of Civilian Oversight boards and Inspectors General and upholds our subpoena authority while also showcasing the strong public interest in robust, effective oversight of sheriffs, their departments, and their operations.”

The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that it is “discussing with County Counsel to determine the appropriate path for implementing any lawful authority granted to the Civilian Oversight Commission.”

Angelenos who have long sought records related to alleged misconduct by sheriff’s deputies also cheered the court’s decision.

Vanessa Perez’s son Joseph was badly beaten by deputies in the San Gabriel Valley six years ago. She has been fighting ever since for more clarity about what happened.

Perez said she hopes Thursday’s ruling will result in “some type of justice, some type of fairness” for her son and others who have been stymied by the Sheriff’s Department in efforts to obtain information.

“Hopefully we’ll have effective oversight at the end of this, someone other than LASD looking at Joseph’s case,” Perez said in a phone interview Monday. “Not one deputy, not one sheriff, nobody has ever brought to light what they did to Joseph.”

She has been vocal in her criticism of the agency and the fact that it has only released redacted versions of its “use of force” report from the July 2020 incident involving her son.

Perez’s case is one of several in which the Civilian Oversight Commission has tried unsuccessfully to pry records out of the Sheriff’s Department. Two other cases involved Emmett Brock, a trans man beaten by a deputy in a convenience store parking lot in 2023, and Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old fatally shot in 2020.

The commission subpoenaed unredacted files in the cases in Feburary 2025, but the county counsel’s office has argued they should remain confidential.

“L.A. County voters overwhelmingly approved Measure R in March 2020 to grant the Commission subpoena powers,” the Civilian Oversight Commission wrote in a statement. “However, six years later, it is not yet fully in effect.”

The county counsel’s office said in a statement that it “does not question the Civilian Oversight Commission’s power to issue subpoenas.”

But, it said, court decisions, the county’s Employee Relations Commission and the law “require that the County … meet and confer with labor partners about the impacts before documents are shared. Those discussions are underway.”

Hilda Eke, executive director of the L.A.-based advocacy organization Dignity and Power Now, said in a statement that the ruling is a positive development in the ongoing battle for more transparency.

“It affirms what our communities have always known: You cannot investigate injustice without the power to uncover the truth,” Eke said.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is not immune from civil claims that he incited a mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a federal judge has ruled in one of the last unresolved legal cases stemming from the riot.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Tuesday that Trump’s remarks at his “Stop the Steal” rally, held on the Ellipse near the White House shortly before the siege began, “plausibly” were inciting words that are not protected by the 1st Amendment right to free speech.

The Republican president is not shielded from liability for much of his Jan. 6 conduct, including that speech and many of his social media posts that day, according to the judge. But Mehta said Trump cannot be held liable for his official acts that day, including his Rose Garden remarks during the riot and his interactions with Justice Department officials.

“President Trump has not shown that the Speech reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties,” Mehta wrote. “The content of the Ellipse Speech confirms that it is not covered by official-acts immunity.”

Not the first court ruling on presidential immunity

The decision is not the court’s first ruling that Trump can be held liable for the violence at the Capitol and it is unlikely to be the last given the near-certainty of an appeal. But the 79-page ruling sets the stage for a possible civil trial in the same courthouse where Trump was charged with crimes for his Jan. 6 conduct, before his 2024 election ended the prosecution.

Mehta previously refused to dismiss the claims against Trump in a February 2022 ruling that Trump was not entitled to presidential immunity from the claims brought by Democratic members of Congress and law enforcement officers who guarded the Capitol on Jan. 6. In that decision, Mehta also concluded that Trump’s words during his rally speech plausibly amounted to incitement and were not protected by the 1st Amendment.

The case returned to Mehta after an appeals court ruling upheld his 2022 decision. He said Tuesday’s ruling on immunity falls under a more “rigorous” legal standard at this later stage in the litigation.

Mehta, who was nominated by Democratic President Obama, said his latest decision is not a “final pronouncement on immunity for any particular act.”

“President Trump remains free to reassert official-acts immunity as a defense at trial. But the burden will remain his and will be subject to a higher standard of proof,” the judge wrote.

Official capacity vs. office-seeker

Trump spoke to a crowd of his supporters at the rally before the mob’s attack disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over Trump. Trump closed out his speech by saying, “We fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 meets the threshold for presidential immunity.

The plaintiffs contended that Trump cannot prove he was acting entirely in his official capacity rather than as an office-seeking private individual. They also said the Supreme Court has held that office-seeking conduct falls outside the scope of presidential immunity.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who at that time led the House Homeland Security Committee, sued Trump, Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups over the Jan. 6 riot. Other Democratic members of Congress later joined the litigation, which was consolidated with the officers’ claims.

‘Victory for the rule of law’

The civil claims survived Trump’s sweeping act of clemency on the first day of his second term, when he pardoned, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of all 1,500-plus criminal cases stemming from the Capitol siege. More than 100 police officers were injured while defending the Capitol from rioters.

The plaintiffs’ legal team includes attorneys from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Damon Hewitt, the group’s president and executive director, praised the ruling as a “monumental victory for the rule of law, affirming that no one, including the president of the United States, is above it.”

“The court rightly recognizes that President Trump’s actions leading to the January 6 insurrection fell outside the scope of presidential duties,” Hewitt said in a statement. “This ruling is an important step toward accountability for the violent attack on the Capitol and our democracy.”

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — Inside the Supreme Court, as justices heard oral arguments in the case over birthright citizenship, President Trump became the first sitting president to attend such a proceeding.

Outside the court, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark — the San Francisco man whose landmark Supreme Court case affirmed birthright citizenship in 1898 — addressed a crowd of hundreds of people.

“Wong Kim Ark’s victory ensured that people like me and millions of others would be recognized as fully American, not outsiders in the country of our birth,” said Norman Wong. “This case transformed the 14th Amendment from words on paper into living promise. Today, that promise is still being tested.”

Surrounded by protesters in favor of birthright citizenship was a lone counter-protester. The woman, who wore a red baseball cap and a sweatshirt stating “Chicago flips red,” yelled into a megaphone as speakers addressed the crowd.

“Freedmen stand with Donald Trump,” she said as the Rev. William Barber II spoke. “America first. Americans first.”

The Rev. William Barber II speaks during a rally on protecting birthright citizenship outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

(Al Drago / Getty Images)

Undaunted, Barber noted that the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, makes clear that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen.

“The 14th Amendment protects babies from a caste system,” Barber said. “They didn’t allow evil in 1868, and we’re not going to allow evil in 2026.”

“Stop lying, pastor,” the woman taunted him.

After Barber finished his remarks, the woman was drowned out by Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” playing over the speakers.

Inside the building, justices heard arguments over a Trump executive order which aimed to end birthright citizenship. The administration has argued that children born of parents who are in the country illegally or temporary visas should be denied citizenship.

A man from Cameroon said he chose to speak out because he doesn’t want future generations to become stateless and feel what he has felt. The man said he had been authorized to work in the United States Temporary Protected Status until the Trump administration terminated it last year.

“I know what it feels like to have your sense of belonging taken from you overnight,” he said.

Nancy Jeannechild, 69, traveled from Baltimore with a handwritten sign asking the justices to “Do your job.” She said Trump has amassed too much power and that the Supreme Court hasn’t stood up to him enough.

“This is another opportunity for them to do the right thing, and I hope that they will,” she said. “Just because Trump doesn’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not what’s in the Constitution.”

Araceli Hernandez, 29, attended the rally with her 1-year-old son. She said she immigrated from Honduras five years ago and that her son being born here means he has better opportunities to study, access to healthcare and a safe environment to live in.

“We came to represent the children who are not yet born because they also have a right to have a better future in this country,” she said.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said he was confident birthright citizenship would prevail because the Constitution is clear. The fight is personal, he said, as the a proud American and son of immigrants.

“The moment I was born on U.S. soil I was born a citizen, and I’ll be damned if Donald Trump tries to take that away from me,” he said. “What’s on the line isn’t just a question about citizenship — it is about upholding the Constitution, respecting the rule of law and keeping the promise that the 14th Amendment has held for more than 150 years.”

After the arguments wrapped up, Cecilia Wang, who led the defense of birthright citizenship for the American Civil Liberties Union, addressed the crowd. She said she was confident that the Trump administration would lose the case.

“Whether you’re an indigenous American, whether you are descended from African Americans who were enslaved and free, whether you are the descendant of someone who came on the Mayflower or someone who arrived just before your birth, we all are Americans alike,” she said. “That is the principle that we stood up for together, all of us, in the Supreme Court of the United States today.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically change the criteria to get tens of millions of dollars in funding to aid homeless people was unlawful.

Several nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year accusing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of changing the rules for receiving $75 million to build housing for homeless families and individuals. The plaintiffs accused the Trump administration of issuing a new Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, for the Continuum of Care program to better align with its social policies.

U.S District Judge Mary McElroy, nominated by President Trump, said the department’s “slapdash imposition of political whims” was unlawful and she ordered it to scrap the new policy.

“Once again, this Court is faced with a case in which an executive agency has made a last-minute decision to make major, disruptive changes to grants within its purview, all for the express purpose of accomplishing the current administration’s policy objectives,” McElroy said in her ruling that the NOFO violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

A spokesperson for HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Advocates for plaintiffs welcomed the ruling.

“For more than three decades, the federal government has supported housing providers and communities through HUD’s programs to help people experiencing homelessness move into stable housing,” Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We are pleased that the court has stopped the Trump-Vance administration from holding life-saving funding hostage to a political agenda.”

Ann Oliva, chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the ruling was “a victory for people across this nation who have overcome homelessness and stabilized in HUD’s permanent housing programs.”

“Today’s news reinforces a fundamental truth: that the work to end homelessness is not partisan, and never should be interfered with for political means,” Oliva said in a statement.

Plaintiffs argued the Trump administration was aiming to upend polices in place for decades to satisfy its political considerations, including whether jurisdictions “support sanctuary protections, harm reduction practices, or inclusive policies for transgender people.”

The Alliance and the Women’s Development Corporation argued that HUD lacked the authority to make the changes, adding that the new award process was “shockingly unlawful” and would “irreparably injure qualified applicants for these funds and the communities they serve.”

In its court filings, HUD argued the new criteria was an effort “to ensure the availability of funding to protect our Nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families from the trauma of homelessness while simultaneously promoting self-sufficiency.”

“Defendants acted reasonably and prudently because the NOFO conditions, focusing on public safety, cooperation with law enforcement and prohibitions on illegal drug use, are sufficiently related to the funding goals of self-sufficiency and reduction of trauma,” HUD wrote.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday became the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court, inserting himself directly into a high-stakes legal battle over one of the most consequential orders of his administration.

Trump arrived at the court Wednesday morning by limousine for arguments over whether the president has the authority to effectively rewrite the Constitution by ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily.

In the run-up to Wednesday’s arguments, Trump suggested that Supreme Court justices appointed by Republicans who have ruled against his agenda are “so stupid.”

“Some people would call it stupidity; some people will call it disloyal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

“Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

The unprecedented appearance highlights how high Trump believes the stakes are, according to Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA.

“It’s not clear why Trump is attending,” Winkler said. “Maybe he is just interested in the unusual drama of a Supreme Court argument. Or perhaps he is trying to intimidate the justices, like the scene in ‘The Godfather Part II’ where the mob boss shows up at a hearing to scare the witness into recanting his testimony.”

Regardless, Trump’s presence probably won’t change any minds on the bench, Winkler said.

The justices prize their independence, including many who share Trump’s judicial philosophy. Still, it will likely change the mood, Winkler said — most hearings are quiet and academic.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is a keystone of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Trump has framed the policy as a necessary step to curb what he describes as abuse of the immigration system.

“Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!”

Every lower court that has considered the issue has found the order illegal and prevented it from taking effect. A definitive ruling by the nation’s highest court is expected by early summer.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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6. Brawler by Lauren Groff (Riverhead Books: $29) A collection of short stories tackling the relentless battle between humanity’s dark and light angels.

7. Judge Stone by James Patterson and Viola Davis (Little, Brown & Co.: $32) The bestselling author and Oscar-winning actor team up for a small-town legal thriller.

8. Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy (Ballantine Books: $30) A teenager embarks on a secret relationship with her teacher.

9. Once and Again by Rebecca Serle (Atria Books: $27) A family of women have an astonishing gift: the ability to redo one moment in their lives.

10. Daughter of Egypt by Marie Benedict (St. Martin’s Press: $29) A young woman in the 1920s unearths the truth about a forgotten pharaoh, rewriting both of their legacies forever.

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Hardcover nonfiction

1. A World Appears by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press: $32) An exploration of consciousness and a meditation on the essence of our humanity.

2. Strangers by Belle Burden (The Dial Press: $30) A woman explores her marriage, its end and the man she thought she knew.

3. The Best Dog in the World by Alice Hoffman (editor) Fourteen authors celebrate the life-changing bond with their canine companions in a collection of essays. (Scribner: $22)

4. Young Man in a Hurry by Gavin Newsom (Penguin Press: $30) The California governor tells his origin story.

5. You with the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate (Little, Brown & Co.: $32) The actor opens up about her tumultuous childhood, her five-decade-long career and the MS diagnosis that upended it all.

6. Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli (Grand Central Publishing: $36) The entertainment legend shares her story.

7. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its values.

8. Lessons From Cats for Surviving Fascism by Stewart Reynolds (Grand Central Publishing: $13) A guide to channeling feline wisdom in the face of authoritarian nonsense.

9. History Matters by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster: $27) A posthumous collection of essays from the Pulitzer-winning historian.

10. Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd (Knopf: $29) A look at the mysteries, frustrations and triumphs of being a writer.

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Paperback fiction

1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine: $22)

2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi (Atria Books: $20)

3. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Ace: $20)

4. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $20)

5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17)

6. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20)

7. Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (Carina Press: $19)

8. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19)

9. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20)

10. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Riverhead Books: $19)

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Paperback nonfiction

1. The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books: $17)

2. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $24)

3. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21)

4. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (Simon & Schuster: $20)

5. All About Love by bell hooks (William Morrow Paperbacks: $17)

6. The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (Crown: $22)

7. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Vintage: $21)

8. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18)

9. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions: $22)

10. When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter (Penguin Books: $22)