A trio of federal judges questioned attorneys for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Republican Party on Wednesday in a legal case that will decide the fate of California’s new voter-approved congressional districts for the 2026 midterm elections.
Attorneys for the California Republican Party and the Trump administration’s Department of Justice during the hearing recapped the argument they made in their legal complaint, accusing Democratic legislators and redistricting experts of racial gerrymandering that illegally favored Latinos.
The state’s legal representatives, meanwhile, argued their primary goal was not racial but political — they worked to weaken Republicans’ voting power in California to offset similar gerrymandering in Texas and other GOP-led states.
But Wednesday was the first time the public got to hear the three federal judges of the Central District of California challenge those narratives as they weigh whether to grant the GOP’s request for a temporary injunction blocking the reconfigured congressional districts approved by voters in November under Proposition 50.
The GOP has repeatedly seized on public comments from Paul Mitchell, a redistricting expert for California’s Democratic-led Legislature who designed the Proposition 50 congressional districts, that “the No. 1 thing” he started thinking about was “drawing a replacement Latino majority/minority district in the middle of Los Angeles.”
On Wednesday, District Court Judge Josephine Staton suggested that GOP attorneys focused too much on the intent of Mitchell and Democratic legislators and not enough on the voters who ultimately approved Proposition 50.
“Why would we not be looking at their intent?” Staton asked Michael Columbo, an attorney for California Republicans. “If the relative intent is the voters, you have nothing.”
Nearly two-thirds of California voters approved the new Proposition 50 congressional district map in a Nov. 4 special election after Newsom pitched the idea as a way to counter partisan gerrymandering after President Trump pressed Texas to redraw maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority.
The stakes for California and the nation are high.
If the new map is used for the 2026 midterms, it could give California Democrats up to five additional U.S. House seats. That could allow them to push back against the gains Republicans make due to redistricting in staunchly GOP states and increase Democrats’ chance of seizing the House and shifting the balance of power in Congress.
A win for Democrats could also boost Newsom’s national clout and help him pitch himself as the nation’s strongest and most effective Trump critic as he enters his final year as California governor and weighs a White House bid.
During closing arguments Wednesday, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the race-based aspect of the redrawn districts started with the drafting of the Assembly bill that led to Proposition 50 being placed on the ballot.
Staton, however, seemed unconvinced.
“These maps have no effect,” she said, “until the voters give them effect.”
The GOP cannot challenge the map on grounds of political gerrymandering: The Supreme Court decided in 2019 that such complaints have no path in federal court. That leaves them focusing on race.
But proving that race predominated over partisanship is a challenge, legal scholars say, and paying attention to race is not, in itself, prohibited under current law. To prove that race was the key motivation, plaintiffs have to show there is another way for map makers to achieve their desired political result without a racial impact.
During the hearing, Staton stressed that the burden was on the challengers of Proposition 50 to prove racial intent.
To that end, the GOP brought to the stand RealClearPolitics elections analyst Sean Trende, who said the new 13th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley had an “appendage” that snaked northward into Stockton. Such contorted offshoots, he said, are “usually indicative of racial gerrymandering.” Trende produced an alternative map of the district that he said retained Democratic representation without being driven by race.
But Staton questioned whether Trende’s map was substantially different from Mitchell’s, noting they both seemed to fall within a similar range of Latino representation.
U.S. District Judge Wesley Hsu lambasted Columbo over what he called the “strawman” attempt to pick out one district, the 13th Congressional District, to make the case that there was a race-conscious effort in the attempt to flip five seats in the Democrats’ favor.
Jennifer Rosenberg, an attorney for the state, also argued that Trende’s analysis was too narrow.
“Dr. Trende failed to conduct a district by district analysis,” Rosenberg said. “And as we can see, he only addressed two tiny portions of District 13 and really only focused on one of the subparts.”
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Lee questioned Rosenberg on how much she believed Mitchell’s public statements about wanting to create a Latino district in Los Angeles influenced his redrawing.
“He was talking to interested groups,” Rosenberg said. “He did not communicate that intent to legislators.”
However, Lee said that Mitchell’s closeness to Democratic interest groups was an important factor. Mitchell “delivered on” the “wants” of the Latino interest groups he interacted with, Lee said, based on his public statements and lack of testimony.
Lee also took issue with Mitchell not testifying at the hearing and the dozens of times he invoked legislative privilege during a deposition ahead of the hearing.
Abha Khanna, who represented the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, argued there was no racial predominance in Mitchell’s statements.
She showed judges the text of Proposition 50, an official voter guide and statements from Newsom, arguing they were overt declarations of partisan intent. She also pointed out instances in which Republican plaintiffs discussed Proposition 50 in exclusively partisan terms.
If the federal judges grant a preliminary injunction, California would be temporarily blocked from using the newly drawn map in the 2026 election. Attorneys for the state would probably appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Just two weeks ago, the nation’s highest court allowed Texas to temporarily keep its newly drawn congressional districts — which also faced complaints of racial gerrymandering — after a federal court blocked the Texas map, finding racial considerations probably made it unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court indicated it viewed the Texas redistricting as motivated primarily by partisan politics. In its ruling, it explicitly drew a connection between Texas and California, noting that several states, including California, have redrawn their congressional map “in ways that are predicted to favor the State’s dominant political party.”
Judge to hold hearing on whether Abrego Garcia is being vindictively prosecuted
A federal judge this week canceled the trial of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration, and scheduled a hearing on whether the prosecution is being vindictive in pursuing a human smuggling case against him.
Abrego Garcia has become a centerpiece of the debate over immigration after the Trump administration deported him in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia has denied the allegations, and argued that prosecutors are vindictively and selectively targeting him. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. wrote in Tuesday’s order that Abrego Garcia had provided enough evidence to hold a hearing on the topic, which Crenshaw scheduled for Jan. 28.
At that hearing, prosecutors will have to explain their reasoning for charging Abrego Garcia, Crenshaw wrote, and if they fail in that, the charges could be dismissed.
When Abrego Garcia was pulled over in 2022, there were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. But Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
A Department of Homeland Security agent previously testified that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration had to work to bring Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, where he was deported.
Years earlier, Abrego Garcia had been granted protection from deportation to his home country after a judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. That order allowed Abrego Garcia, who has an American wife and child, to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision.
The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang. He has denied the accusations and has no criminal record.
Abrego Garcia’s defense attorney and the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bedayn writes for the Associated Press.
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Jack Smith’s attorneys again call for a public hearing
Dec. 19 (UPI) — Attorneys for former special counsel Jack Smith again asked for a public hearing after he testified behind closed doors about his efforts to prosecute President Donald Trump.
The House Judiciary Committee deposed Smith on Wednesday during a closed hearing that lasted for about nine hours, and his attorneys wrote committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Thursday to ask for a public hearing, CBS News reported.
“Mr. Smith welcomed this opportunity and hopes that it will serve to correct the many mischaracterizations about the work of the Special Counsel’s Office,” said Smith’s attorneys, Peter Koski and Lanny Breuer.
“During the investigation of President Trump, Mr. Smith steadfastly followed Justice Department policies, observed all legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law,” they wrote in their joint letter to Jordan.
“He stands by his decisions,” they said, adding that an open hearing would enable the public to hear Smith directly and not through third-party accounts, according to Politico.
Koski and Breuer also asked Jordan and the committee to release a full recording of Smith’s deposition, during which he said evidence showed Trump illegally mishandled classified documents and tried to overturn the 2020 election results.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Smith told the committee that he would charge Trump again based on the same evidence if given the chance to do so.
Jordan and other House Republicans accused Smith of “prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional abuses” while investigating Trump on behalf of the Biden administration.
They claim Smith tried to silence the president by manipulating evidence against him and raiding his Mar-A-Lago estate without cause after other federal prosecutors said there was no justification to do so, Axios reported.
Neither the classified documents case nor the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results case reached the trial stage.
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Jury finds Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal agents
MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction Thursday, marking a victory for President Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.
Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony, and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April. The jury acquitted her on the concealment count, but she still faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction count.
The jury returned the verdicts after deliberating for six hours. Dugan faces up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced, but no date had been set as of late Thursday evening.
The case inflamed tensions over Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his administration branding Dugan an activist judge and Democrats countering that the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation.
Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters. Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, later told reporters that he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same.
U.S. Atty. Brad Schimel denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully. He said courthouse arrests are safer because people are screened for weapons and it isn’t unfair for law enforcement to arrest wanted people in courthouses.
“Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.”
U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche praised the verdict on X, saying nobody is above the law, even judges.
According to court filings that include an FBI affidavit and a federal grand jury indictment, immigration authorities traveled to the Milwaukee County courthouse on April 18 after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.
Dugan learned that agents were in the corridor outside her courtroom waiting for Flores-Ruiz. She left the courtroom to confront them, falsely telling them their administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest him and directing them to go to the chief judge’s office.
While the agents were gone, she addressed Flores-Ruiz’s case off the record, told his attorney that he could attend his next hearing via Zoom and led Flores-Ruiz and the attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.
Prosecutors worked during Dugan’s trial to show that she directed agents to the chief judge’s office to create an opening for Flores-Ruiz to escape.
An FBI agent who led the investigation testified that after agents left the corridor, she immediately moved Flores-Ruiz’s case to the top of her docket, told him that he could appear for his next hearing via Zoom and led him out the private door.
Prosecutors also played audio recordings from her courtroom in which she can be heard telling her court reporter that she’d take “the heat” for leading Flores-Ruiz out the back.
Her attorneys countered that she was trying to follow courthouse protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors and she didn’t intentionally try to obstruct the arrest team.
Richmond writes for the Associated Press.
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Judges quiz California and GOP attorneys in Prop. 50 redistricting case
A trio of federal judges questioned attorneys for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Republican Party on Wednesday in a legal case that will decide the fate of California’s new voter-approved congressional districts for the 2026 midterm elections.
Attorneys for the California Republican Party and the Trump administration’s Department of Justice during the hearing recapped the argument they made in their legal complaint, accusing Democratic legislators and redistricting experts of racial gerrymandering that illegally favored Latinos.
The state’s legal representatives, meanwhile, argued their primary goal was not racial but political — they worked to weaken Republicans’ voting power in California to offset similar gerrymandering in Texas and other GOP-led states.
But Wednesday was the first time the public got to hear the three federal judges of the Central District of California challenge those narratives as they weigh whether to grant the GOP’s request for a temporary injunction blocking the reconfigured congressional districts approved by voters in November under Proposition 50.
The GOP has repeatedly seized on public comments from Paul Mitchell, a redistricting expert for California’s Democratic-led Legislature who designed the Proposition 50 congressional districts, that “the No. 1 thing” he started thinking about was “drawing a replacement Latino majority/minority district in the middle of Los Angeles.”
On Wednesday, District Court Judge Josephine Staton suggested that GOP attorneys focused too much on the intent of Mitchell and Democratic legislators and not enough on the voters who ultimately approved Proposition 50.
“Why would we not be looking at their intent?” Staton asked Michael Columbo, an attorney for California Republicans. “If the relative intent is the voters, you have nothing.”
Nearly two-thirds of California voters approved the new Proposition 50 congressional district map in a Nov. 4 special election after Newsom pitched the idea as a way to counter partisan gerrymandering after President Trump pressed Texas to redraw maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority.
The stakes for California and the nation are high.
If the new map is used for the 2026 midterms, it could give California Democrats up to five additional U.S. House seats. That could allow them to push back against the gains Republicans make due to redistricting in staunchly GOP states and increase Democrats’ chance of seizing the House and shifting the balance of power in Congress.
A win for Democrats could also boost Newsom’s national clout and help him pitch himself as the nation’s strongest and most effective Trump critic as he enters his final year as California governor and weighs a White House bid.
During closing arguments Wednesday, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the race-based aspect of the redrawn districts started with the drafting of the Assembly bill that led to Proposition 50 being placed on the ballot.
Staton, however, seemed unconvinced.
“These maps have no effect,” she said, “until the voters give them effect.”
The GOP cannot challenge the map on grounds of political gerrymandering: The Supreme Court decided in 2019 that such complaints have no path in federal court. That leaves them focusing on race.
But proving that race predominated over partisanship is a challenge, legal scholars say, and paying attention to race is not, in itself, prohibited under current law. To prove that race was the key motivation, plaintiffs have to show there is another way for map makers to achieve their desired political result without a racial impact.
During the hearing, Staton stressed that the burden was on the challengers of Proposition 50 to prove racial intent.
To that end, the GOP brought to the stand RealClearPolitics elections analyst Sean Trende, who said the new 13th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley had an “appendage” that snaked northward into Stockton. Such contorted offshoots, he said, are “usually indicative of racial gerrymandering.” Trende produced an alternative map of the district that he said retained Democratic representation without being driven by race.
But Staton questioned whether Trende’s map was substantially different from Mitchell’s, noting they both seemed to fall within a similar range of Latino representation.
U.S. District Judge Wesley Hsu lambasted Columbo over what he called the “strawman” attempt to pick out one district, the 13th Congressional District, to make the case that there was a race-conscious effort in the attempt to flip five seats in the Democrats’ favor.
Jennifer Rosenberg, an attorney for the state, also argued that Trende’s analysis was too narrow.
“Dr. Trende failed to conduct a district by district analysis,” Rosenberg said. “And as we can see, he only addressed two tiny portions of District 13 and really only focused on one of the subparts.”
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Lee questioned Rosenberg on how much she believed Mitchell’s public statements about wanting to create a Latino district in Los Angeles influenced his redrawing.
“He was talking to interested groups,” Rosenberg said. “He did not communicate that intent to legislators.”
However, Lee said that Mitchell’s closeness to Democratic interest groups was an important factor. Mitchell “delivered on” the “wants” of the Latino interest groups he interacted with, Lee said, based on his public statements and lack of testimony.
Lee also took issue with Mitchell not testifying at the hearing and the dozens of times he invoked legislative privilege during a deposition ahead of the hearing.
Abha Khanna, who represented the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, argued there was no racial predominance in Mitchell’s statements.
She showed judges the text of Proposition 50, an official voter guide and statements from Newsom, arguing they were overt declarations of partisan intent. She also pointed out instances in which Republican plaintiffs discussed Proposition 50 in exclusively partisan terms.
If the federal judges grant a preliminary injunction, California would be temporarily blocked from using the newly drawn map in the 2026 election. Attorneys for the state would probably appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Just two weeks ago, the nation’s highest court allowed Texas to temporarily keep its newly drawn congressional districts — which also faced complaints of racial gerrymandering — after a federal court blocked the Texas map, finding racial considerations probably made it unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court indicated it viewed the Texas redistricting as motivated primarily by partisan politics. In its ruling, it explicitly drew a connection between Texas and California, noting that several states, including California, have redrawn their congressional map “in ways that are predicted to favor the State’s dominant political party.”
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Senators dig into FCC chairman’s role in Jimmy Kimmel controversy
U.S. senators peppered Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr with questions during a wide-ranging hearing exploring media censorship, the FCC’s oversight and Carr’s alleged intimidation tactics during the firestorm over ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s comments earlier this fall.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Wednesday’s hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee following the furor over ABC’s brief suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” amid social media backlash over Kimmel’s remarks in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.
Walt Disney Co. leaders yanked Kimmel off the air Sept. 17, hours after Carr suggested that Disney-owned ABC should punish the late-night comedian for his remarks — or face FCC scrutiny. Soon, two major TV station groups announced that they were pulling Kimmel’s show, although both reinstated the program several days after ABC resumed production.
Progressives were riled by the President Trump-appointed chairman’s seeming willingness to go after broadcasters in an alleged violation of their First Amendment rights. At the time, a few fellow Republicans, including Cruz, blasted Carr for suggesting to ABC: “We can do this the easy way or hard way.”
Cruz, in September, said that Carr’s comments belonged in the mob movie “Goodfellas.”
On Wednesday, Carr said his comments about Kimmel were not intended as threats against Disney or the two ABC-affiliated station groups that preempted Kimmel’s show.
The chairman argued the FCC had statutory authority to make sure that TV stations acted in the public interest, although Carr did not clarify how one jumbled sentence in Kimmel’s Sept. 15 monologue violated the broadcasters’ obligation to serve its communities.
Cruz was conciliatory Wednesday, praising Carr’s work in his first year as FCC chairman. However, Democrats on the panel attempted to pivot much of the three-hour session into a public airing of the Trump administration’s desire to punish broadcasters whom the president doesn’t like — and Carr’s seeming willingness to go along.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Wednesday’s Senate committee hearing.
(Associated Press)
Carr was challenged by numerous Democrats who suggested he was demonstrating fealty to the president rather than running the FCC as an independent licensing body.
Despite the landmark Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC, the agency isn’t exactly independent, Carr and fellow Republican Commissioner Olivia Trusty testified.
The two Republicans said because Trump has the power to hire and fire commissioners, the FCC was more akin to other agencies within the federal government.
“Then is President Trump your boss?” asked Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). The senator then asked Carr whether he remembered his oath of office. Federal officials, including Carr, have sworn to protect the Constitution.
“The American people are your boss,” Kim said. “Have you ever had a conversation with the president or senior administration officials about using the FCC to go after critics?”
Carr declined to answer.
Protesters flocked to Hollywood to protest the preemption of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after ABC briefly pulled the late-night host off air indefinitely over comments he made about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The lone Democrat on the FCC, Anna M. Gomez, was frequently at odds with her fellow commissioners, including during an exploration of whether she felt the FCC was doing Trump’s bidding in its approach to merger approvals.
Trump separately continued his rant on media organizations he doesn’t like, writing in a Truth Social post that NBC News “should be ashamed of themselves in allowing garbage ‘interviews’” of his political rivals, in this case Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).
Trump wrote that NBC and other broadcasters should pay “significant amounts of money for using the very valuable” public airwaves.
Earlier this year, FCC approval of the Larry Ellison family’s takeover of Paramount stalled for months until Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over his grievances with edits of a CBS “60 Minutes” pre-election interview with Kamala Harris.
“Without a doubt, the FCC is leveraging its authority over mergers and enforcement proceedings in order to influence content,” Gomez said.
Parts of the hearing devolved into partisan bickering over whether Democrats or Republicans had a worse track record of trampling on the 1st Amendment. Cruz and other Republicans referenced a 2018 letter, signed by three Democrats on the committee, which asked the FCC to investigate conservative TV station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group.
“Suddenly Democrats have discovered the 1st Amendment,” Cruz said. “Maybe remember it when Democrats are in power. The 1st Amendment is not a one-way license for one team to abuse the power.
“We should respect the free speech of all Americans, regardless of party,” Cruz said.
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Michael Vaughan: Hearing Bondi Beach attacks was terrifying
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has described hearing gunshots during Sunday’s terrorist attack at Bondi Beach as “terrifying”.
Vaughan, who is in Australia commentating on the Ashes, was locked inside a restaurant “a few hundred yards from Bondi” for several hours alongside his wife, sister-in-law, two daughters, and a friend.
The 51-year-old, who is staying in nearby Coogee and had spent the day with his family watching his son’s cricket match, was on his phone outside the restaurant when he heard what he thought was “fireworks” coming from the beach before being told to get inside by a bouncer.
Authorities have confirmed that at least 15 civilians, including one child, have been killed in the attack, which targeted a Hanukkah celebration on the beach held by Sydney’s Jewish community.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Vaughan said: “Yesterday was a surreal day that I don’t really want to go through again.
“I’m deeply saddened by everything that has gone on.
“To be 300 yards away, in a pub locked away, scary times.
“I look at Bondi and Sydney in particular – it’s like my second home. Australia is an amazing country, and it’s probably one of the countries in the whole world where I always say it’s the safest. It’s the safest place.”
Police have confirmed a father and son were the alleged shooters, with the older man killed at the scene and the other in hospital in a critical condition.
Writing in The Telegraph, external, Vaughan added: “Like most people, I have been at home watching terrorist attacks unfold in London, or Manchester, near where I live.
“That all feels very close to home, and is scary. But to be so close that you can hear it happening is terrifying.”
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