judge

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former senior CIA official accused of stashing more than $40 million worth of gold bars from the federal government at his Virginia home was ordered to remain jailed until his trial after a hearing Friday where a defense attorney accused prosecutors of smearing the official with “sensational,” irrelevant allegations.

The defendant, David J. Rush, has both the means and motive to flee while the case against him is pending, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled, citing Rush’s professional experience.

“He’s in a different position than most people to flee and avoid detection by law enforcement,” Fitzpatrick said.

Rush is charged with fraudulently claiming tens of thousands of dollars in compensation for military leave after he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 2015. He was arrested last month after investigators searched his home and seized more than 300 gold bars, roughly $2 million in U.S. currency and about 35 luxury watches, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Rush’s attorney, Jessica Carmichael, noted that Rush isn’t charged with any crimes related to the discovery of the gold bars, which she referred to as “basically a non-issue” and “nothing more than a sensational tidbit.” She said Rush properly obtained the gold bars and kept them locked in a safe in his basement.

“Mr. Rush never claimed they were his,” she said.

Between last November and March, Rush requested and received a “significant quantity” of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for “work-related expenses,” according to the FBI affidavit. Justice Department prosecutor Gavin Tisdale said Rush wasn’t supposed to have the gold bars at his home.

“That’s the issue — his skirting of rules and regulations,” he said.

Tisdale briefly summarized the case against Rush in open court after a portion of the hearing was sealed from the public. The evidence against Rush “grows stronger by the day,” Tisdale told the magistrate judge.

“Mr. Rush simply cannot be trusted to abide by this court’s conditions,” he said.

Rush enlisted in the Navy in 1997 and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserves as a lieutenant in 2015, according to the affidavit.

Authorities claim Rush lied about his education and military background on job applications, falsely claiming to be a former Navy pilot who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Clemson University in South Carolina and a master’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Investigators determined that he didn’t serve as a Navy pilot and didn’t attend either school.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

June 5 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday canceled a batch of President Donald Trump‘s immigration policies, forcing the administration to begin processing immigration and asylum applications.

The decision from a judge in Rhode Island said Trump’s immigration policies enacted last fall had left immigrants in the United States in “indeterminate legal limbo” because of “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”

The 135-page decision from Judge John J. McConnell Jr. said the decision to stop processing immigration applications from people from 39 countries “placed the lives of countless individuals on hold — solely by virtue of their countries of birth.”

The policies in question include a global pause on asylum applications filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a pause on decisions on immigration applications of people from the 39 countries in a travel ban, which prevented them from getting permanent residency status, citizenship and more.

The administration announced the changes after an Afghan man allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., in November. Rahmanullah Lakanwal pleaded not guilty.

“USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth,” McConnell wrote.

“The court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to ‘follow the law’ and ‘do things the right way,'” he wrote. “This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that.”

Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit that helped represent the immigration groups and unions behind the lawsuit, told The New York Times that it celebrates the ruling.

“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” organization President Skye Perryman said. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers and communities across the country.”

Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, also celebrated the ruling.

“For months, we have heard from Afghan allies whose citizenship ceremonies were canceled, work permits expired while waiting for decisions, green card applications stopped moving and families were left in uncertainty despite doing everything the right way,” The Hill reported VanDiver said in a statement.

“Today’s ruling is a significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them, only to see their cases frozen indefinitely.”

MILWAUKEE — A federal judge on Wednesday considered whether to throw out a jury’s guilty verdict against former Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan, who was convicted of felony obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal officers.

The case was an early test of how the courts would respond to President Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Dugan had been scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday, but U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman postponed the proceedings indefinitely to instead hear arguments about whether to overturn her conviction.

Adelman did not rule from the bench and did not indicate when he might issue a decision. Dugan and attorneys for both sides left the courtroom without commenting to reporters.

Former judge’s attorney points to a Virginia case

Dugan’s attorney Steven Biskupic argued that her conviction was invalid and should be overturned. He said that was necessary because a federal appeals court in April overturned a key Virginia immigration case that the judge and prosecutors had cited in the Dugan case.

Biskupic argued that based on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturning that ruling, Dugan was improperly convicted, procedurally, under a certain federal law.

“Our primary argument is this was an invalid theory of conviction,” Biskupic said.

In the Virginia case, an immigrant who was in the country illegally was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and later escaped. He was recaptured and indicted on a charge of obstructing a pending immigration proceeding.

The federal appeals court found that the ICE action did not constitute a “pending proceeding,” as is required under the federal obstruction law.

Dugan’s attorneys argue that she should not have been charged because there was no “pending proceeding” against the immigrant in her courtroom being sought by ICE agents, only a warrant filed for his arrest. The filing of a warrant does not constitute a “proceeding” under the law, Biskupic argued.

Prosecutors countered that the facts in the Virginia case are different and don’t apply to Dugan’s. They also argued that other cases support Dugan’s conviction.

“The court should stick with its ruling,” said Richard Frohling, acting U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Wisconsin.

In response to a question from the judge, he contended that the appeals court was wrong to overturn the Virginia case. The judge also quizzed Frohling on what constitutes a proceeding under the law and how long it lasts.

“It could be a couple minutes, it could be a couple years,” Frohling said. “It all depends on the context.”

Dugan’s sentencing was postponed so the court can hear new arguments

Dugan, 67, faces up to five years in prison after a jury convicted her on Dec. 19. But it is unlikely that Dugan would be sentenced to prison. Federal sentencing guidelines generally call for probation for defendants like her who have no criminal history and are convicted of a nonviolent crime.

She resigned from her position as a Milwaukee County circuit judge two weeks after her conviction amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers. She had been a judge for nine years.

Dugan was present for Wednesday’s arguments but did not speak.

The Trump administration brought the case against Dugan as the president pressed ahead with his sweeping immigration crackdown. Trump’s administration and his allies branded Dugan as an activist judge, while Dugan’s attorneys said she was being unfairly targeted and argued, unsuccessfully, that she was immune from being charged because she was a judge.

Dugan’s case marked the first time that a state judge in Wisconsin went to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents. She was acquitted of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor.

Dugan helped an immigrant wanted by ICE agents

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge’s office because she told them their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest Flores-Ruiz.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday night that Alabama Republican leaders may redraw their congressional voting districts to oust a Black Democrat and elect a white Republican.

The court’s conservatives, who ruled for Louisiana Republicans in a redistricting dispute, extended that decision to Alabama. The three liberals dissented.

The decision clears the way for the governor and state lawmakers to redraw their congressional voting map with six districts that favor Republicans and one that favors a Democrat.

“Weeks ago, I warned that vacating the District Court’s injunction in these cases would ‘unleash chaos and … confuse voters,’ ” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent. “Yet just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos. Because I choose to defend the rule of law and the right of all Alabamians to participate equally in democracy, I respectfully dissent.”

The justices granted an emergency appeal that was backed by the Trump administration and set aside the decision of a three-judge panel in Alabama.

The court in a brief opinion said the three judges should not have blocked Alabama’s new map.

“While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, states are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests,” the court said.

Alabama’s emergency appeal went to Justice Clarence Thomas, who referred it to the full court.

Those three judges, two of them Trump appointees, ruled that Alabama’s state lawmakers discriminated against Black voters, who made up a near majority in the center of the state.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court agreed.

In a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices upheld the creation of a second district in the center of the state where Black voters had a near majority.

The result then was an Alabama state voting map that favored five Republicans and two Democrats for the House of Representatives.

But last month, in the wake of the Louisiana decision, Alabama’s lawmakers went back to court, arguing that the state may return to the voting map with only a single Black majority district.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Alabama’s Atty. Gen. Steven Marshall argued that the high court’s decision in favor of Louisiana “vindicates Alabama position on the lawfulness” of its earlier voting map. He said the state should not be penalized for “refusing to intentionally discriminate” to favor Black voters.

The court’s decision has cleared the way for Republican-led states in the South to flip congressional districts in Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida and now Alabama.

WASHINGTON — David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the U.S. Capitol with a mob of President Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8-billion fund for people claiming to be victims of a “weaponized” government.

He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.

“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”

Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Some were convicted of sedition, and many attacked police officers while trying to overturn Trump’s election loss. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776-billion settlement fund designed to compensate the president’s allies who claim they were politically prosecuted.

A bipartisan backlash to the fund and a legal roadblock have not dimmed the celebratory response from Jan. 6 rioters clamoring for a share of the taxpayer money. Some are staking claims even though the government has not established an application process and a judge has frozen the fund’s formation, at least temporarily.

Seeking payouts

The fund’s critics see it as another vehicle for Trump and his allies to whitewash the events of Jan. 6, retroactively justify the mob’s assault on a pillar of American democracy and reward some of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Jason Riddle, a military veteran from New Hampshire who was sentenced to 90 days behind bars after pleading guilty to riot charges, publicly rejected a pardon from Trump. Likewise, he said it would be “ridiculous” for him or any other Jan. 6 rioter to get government compensation.

“I’d love money, but I can’t accept that. That would bother me for the rest of my life,” he said. “We weren’t innocently persecuted just because of who we are or who we vote for. We were persecuted for committing criminal behavior in the Capitol of the United States.”

Plenty of other “J6ers” do not share Riddle’s reluctance.

A Florida man who posed for photos with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stolen lectern argued on social media that he deserves to be compensated for the cost of his infamy. A rioter from New Jersey described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer hailed the fund as “good news not just for J6ers but all victims of weaponization.” A Texas man who received a seven-year prison sentence for storming the Capitol with a metal tomahawk celebrated the fund as “payback” for “victims of Biden’s tyranny,” referring to President Biden.

Oregon resident Pamela Hemphill, sentenced to 60 days in jail for her conviction, rejected a pardon from Trump but has drafted a written claim for compensation from the fund. Unlike scores of rioters who claim to be victims of a government weaponized by Democrats, Hemphill blames Trump for her legal troubles. Her claims letter says she is seeking $5 million in compensation.

“I wouldn’t have been through all of this if Trump hadn’t lied about the election being stolen,” she said during a telephone interview. “It’s a direct result of his lies that I was even there that day.”

Legal and political challenges

It is an open question whether anyone convicted of a Capitol riot-related crime could be eligible for payments from a fund created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche has not ruled out that possibility. Blanche said there are no limits on who can apply, but he noted that the fund’s five commissioners — all yet to be named — will decide who deserves to be compensated and why, based on factors such as “what the person did, his sentence, how much time he was in jail.”

“That’s up to the commissioners,” Blanche told the Associated Press on Thursday when asked about his position on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants should be eligible for payments.

“You have to define something and then stick to it. That’s something I’ve been hesitant to try to do, because it’s very fact-intensive,” Blanche said. ”Me sitting here and talking in hypotheticals is something that I don’t think is fair to the process.”

It is unclear whether Congress would block payments to Jan. 6 defendants. Senate Republicans who are angry about the settlement have said they want to place parameters on the fund as part of a Department of Homeland Security spending bill. They abruptly left town this month after a tense meeting with Blanche and will return Monday with the situation unresolved.

A federal judge in Virginia has frozen the fund’s establishment and temporarily blocked any processing or paying of claims. The judge issued that ruling Friday in one of at least three lawsuits challenging the fund.

Brendan Ballou, a former prosecutor who tried several Jan. 6 cases before leaving the Department of Justice last year, sued on behalf of two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from the mob. Ballou views the fund’s creation as part of a broader Trump campaign to undermine democratic institutions and rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

“And if the president is successful in that effort, if he’s able to get people to either forget or condone that day, he knows that he can get people to accept any attack on democracy,” Ballou said.

‘I want vengeance’

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump issued mass pardons and ordered the dismissal of all pending Jan. 6 cases upon his return to the White House last year. Trump also freed far-right extremist group members who were imprisoned for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden.

The self-described “J6 community” isn’t the only pro-Trump constituency angling for cuts of the money after being charged with or convicted of crimes.

Meshawn Maddock, who was charged as being a fake elector for Trump in Michigan before a judge dismissed the case last year, said she and her husband, state Rep. Matt Maddock, “absolutely” plan on making a claim. She believes the fund’s use of taxpayer money is justified because it “paid for the prosecution and investigation of the years that I was being hunted down.”

“I want vengeance and I want retribution,” Maddock said.

Trump’s campaign to recast the violence of Jan. 6 as a peaceful protest seems to have emboldened many convicted rioters.

Johnston’s eagerness to help other Capitol rioters with claims contrasts with his remorse he expressed at his sentencing in 2022. He apologized for his “terrible lapse in judgment” before a judge sentenced him to three weeks in jail and three months of home detention. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge.

“It was a dumb, dumb thing to do,” Johnston told the judge. “I am 100% responsible for what I did that day.”

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Jamie Stengle, Mary Claire Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

May 29 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday said President Donald Trump‘s name must be removed from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in a ruling that also blocked plans to shutter the facility for two years for renovations.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper for the District of Columbia handed down the decisions halting Trump’s plans to impose sweeping changes at the historic venue.

The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted in December to add Trump’s name to the building. The decision came less than a year after Trump dismissed the entire board and named new board members, who in turn elected him chairman.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, sued in response to the name change. Meanwhile, a coalition launched a separate lawsuit in March asking the court to stop the administration from shuttering the facility for two years and carrying out its quarter-billion-dollar reconstruction project.

Trump said the decision to close the facility came after a yearlong review in consultation with contractors, musical experts, arts institutions, and advisers and consultants. He had initially considered a partial project that would permit shows to continue, but decided the best option for the venue was a temporary closure.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio member of the board who sued to have access about the details of renovations, said she believes Trump wants to shutter the Kennedy Center in response to dozens of individuals and cultural organizations who have canceled appearances there in response to Trump trying to rename the center after himself. Beatty said the documents she received about the renovations were “inadequate.”

She said “the documents prove that there is absolutely no basis to shutter this precious living memorial and beloved institution,” she said in a statement. “It certainly looks like President Trump is shutting down the center because he is embarrassed that ticket sales are down and artists are fleeing since his illegal renaming.”

Beatty’s lawyers said she was concerned Trump might use his hand-selected board to push through wholesale changes at the Kennedy Center to design a facility more to his liking. In October, Trump had the East Wing of the White House demolished to make room for a $250 million ballroom.

In a post on Truth Social in March, Trump shared renderings of what he expected the center to look like after the renovations. He said he’s not planning to rip out the facade.

A Washington Post analysis of the renderings show very few changes to the exterior of the building, including altered cornices, updated roof and some windows, painted columns, new signage and landscaping changes.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said Friday the institution is “confident that on appeal the court will uphold the Board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center.” She said the decision would be reviewed “carefully.”

“Though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Daravi said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”

Cooper held hearings in late April for parallel lawsuits challenging the project. One was filed by a group of cultural and historic preservation organizations. The other was brought Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who serves as an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. He ruled in favor of Beatty’s request but rejected the other challenge.

Justice Department attorneys said renovation plans for the building are limited in scope and well within the board’s authority to make without needing outside approvals.

The plaintiffs worry the president and his board allies will flout preservation rules designed to maintain the building’s historic fabric. In earlier statements in court hearings, attorneys for Beatty and the preservation groups raised doubts about the limited scope of the project, pointing to Trump’s statements that he would “fully expose” the building’s steel skeleton. Beatty has said she was “very fearful that we’ll see what happened with the East Wing and what happened with the Rose Garden” if the center is closed and the renovations allowed unsupervised, referring to major changes the president has made at the White House.

Trump, a Republican, has taken a keen interest in the Kennedy Center’s operations since he returned to White House last year. He installed a handpicked board that named him chairman. His name was added to the facade of a building that is considered a living monument to President John F. Kennedy.

The Kennedy Center has kept up performances ahead of the closure, though at a much slower pace than in previous years. Trump attended the premiere of the musical “Chicago” in March and other shows, including “Moulin Rouge” are slated for June.

Bill Maher, the comedian who has had an up and down relationship with Trump, is expected to be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on June 28, an event that was anticipated to be one of the final big moments at the Kennedy Center before the closure.

Cooper was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Obama.

Kunzelman and Sloan write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Trump’s administration from paying any claims through a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for the Republican president’s allies who believe they were victims of a weaponized government.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Va., also barred the government from moving forward with the fund’s creation while litigation is pending to challenge it.

The judge, who was nominated to the bench by President Clinton, a Democrat, scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend the order blocking payouts from an “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The government created the fund to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

The White House declined to comment on the judge’s ruling and referred all questions to the Justice Department, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The fund has generated a fierce backlash since it was announced last week, with even Republicans pressing acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche over the eligibility considerations and the possibility that even violent rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would be free to seek compensation.

The Justice Department hasn’t formed the five-member commission that will decide on payout criteria, so there has been no money paid out yet or claims accepted.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward are seeking a court order halting the fund’s implementation and preventing the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it. The federal suit claims there is no legal basis or accountability behind the fund.

The Virginia lawsuit’s plaintiffs include a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest.

“The unlawfulness that has imbued the Anti-Weaponization Fund from its inception requires that it be wholly dismantled,” the suit says.

At least two other lawsuits, both filed separately in Washington, also are challenging the fund’s creation. A lawsuit filed by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington refers to the fund as “a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption.” Two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters sued last week.

During a congressional hearing, Blanche wouldn’t rule out the possibility that rioters who assaulted police on Jan. 6 could be eligible for fund payouts.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump handed out mass pardons, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of every pending Jan. 6 criminal case last year.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Darlene Superville, Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Just one of the nine Supreme Court justices thought it was appropriate for Roger Goodell — whose primary job as NFL commissioner is to protect the league — to decide whether the NFL’s hiring practices are still racist.

And it happens to be the same justice whose close friend is an NFL owner.

In fact, the friendship between Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill dates back decades, to high school. So when President Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the highest court in the land, Bidwill used the team’s official website to advocate for his confirmation. Not sure how the “stick to sports” crowd feels about it, considering how they react when players express opinions, but it felt like an overreach to me.

Obviously when a decision related to NFL owners came before the court, Kavanaugh should have recused himself. But by now we’re used to justices ignoring their own ethics rules. What I find most disturbing in this instance is Kavanaugh’s dissent.

Here’s how the hiring discrimination case came to be: Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick texted the wrong Brian with congratulations for getting the New York Giants’ head coaching job, according to a lawsuit filed by former Dolphins head coach and former Patriots assistant coach Brian Flores, who is Black. In the 2022 suit, Flores said the Giants interviewed him for their vacant head coaching job under disingenuous circumstances. How can we tell? Because Belichick’s congratulations came three days before Flores’ interview with the Giants. The team had apparently already decided to hire Brian Daboll, who is white.

The NFL has spent the last three-plus years attempting to settle the dispute through NFL-controlled arbitration and fought to keep it out of court. The league lifted its appeal to the Supreme Court after failing to get Goodell in position to handle it via the lower courts.

In addition to the damning text exchange, Flores also has history on his side.

During one 60-season stretch, the NFL had no Black head coaches. To address the glaring discrepancy, the league established the “Rooney rule” in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least two minority candidates for head coach and other senior management vacancies.

Prior to that, most teams interviewed only white men.

The results have been mixed.

Yes, more minority candidates get interviewed now — perhaps after a white man has quietly been chosen for the job, but still … they get interviewed.

And yes, Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin, both of whom are Black, not only got hired but also led their franchises to Super Bowl victories after the rule was put into place.

Still, two decades into the Rooney-rule era, roughly a third of the league’s owners had never hired a minority to lead their team. This includes the century-old New York Giants, who after firing Daboll at the end of the season, hired another white man to take his place. This is the backdrop of the discrimination lawsuit filed by Flores.

And still Kavanaugh felt this case could be handled internally by the organization that allowed it to happen.

Even Clarence Thomas, a judge known for ruling against anything that helps Black people, thought the NFL should have to defend itself in court.

Consider this: The year before Flores filed his suit, the NFL settled a different discrimination lawsuit for $1 billion. That case arose because for decades, to help determine the payout from a concussion settlement between retired players and the league, the NFL used “race norming” — a methodology that assumes Black players are less intelligent than white players, making it more difficult for Black men to prove brain damage than white men. In a league that is roughly 70% nonwhite, the racist practice saved the billionaire owners millions.

Or how about this: After the Supreme Court ruled that Duke Power Co. used a controversial cognitive test to prevent Black employees from getting higher-paying jobs back in the 1970s, the NFL began using it. The league kept it in place until 2022.

And still Kavanaugh felt the league should handle Flores’ case.

I’m not sure what factors the justice was considering before his dissent, but it could not have been league history.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

A federal judge has declined to halt President Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Republican Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented.

Nichols’ ruling leaves the door open for further challenges when the Trump administration moves to implement the president’s directive. A separate lawsuit seeking to block the executive order is underway in Boston. No matter how rapidly the administration acts, no voting changes are expected during primary elections, which continue into next month.

“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote. “Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.”

The Trump administration has yet to formally issue lists of eligible voters, and those who filed the initial request for a temporary halt said they’d be back if the administration moves in that direction.

“We are ready to resume the fight if and when the administration takes those next steps,” said Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the organizations that sought the stay from Nichols.

Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos, and the postal union has objected to the idea of mail carriers policing ballots.

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.

Democrats and civil rights groups argued it was urgent that Nichols issue a restraining order in the midst of primary season and with states already gearing up for the fall midterm elections.

This was Trump’s second executive order seeking to overhaul elections and voting. His initial election executive order, issued just months after he took office in his second term, has been blocked by multiplefederal judges. That order sought to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

SAN FRANCISCO — There are no immigrants waiting for rulings anymore at San Francisco’s main immigration court, no lawyers making arguments.

The court, which had 21 judges when President Trump was sworn in last year, had only two left when it closed May 1. The rest had been fired, retired or resigned amid a White House purge of federal immigration judges.

The closing is one more reflection of the turmoil that has upended the immigration court system as the administration looks for ways to churn through its massive backlog of 3.8 million asylum cases and deport as many people as possible.

Asylum denial rates have soared as the administration has fired almost 100 judges deemed to be too liberal, and approved using hundreds of military lawyers to replace them. Immigrants have been arrested when they arrive at courthouses or government offices for scheduled appearances.

But amid the nationwide upheaval, San Francisco is the first major city to be left without a primary immigration court, leaving chaos and dysfunction in a region long known for its friendliness to asylum seekers. The two remaining judges will work from another federal building in the city but will be part of an immigration court across the bay.

That reputation, court insiders say, might have led to its downfall.

“It was a vibrant legal scene and so I think if you were looking to target a court you would have to look at what San Francisco stands for,” said Jeremiah Johnson, an immigration judge in the city until he was fired in November. He is now executive vice president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges.

Most of the court’s 117,000 immigration cases have been moved to a courthouse in Concord, a city about 30 miles away that opened two years ago to help with San Francisco’s backlog of cases. But turmoil has also reached that city. A courthouse that had 11 judges at the start of 2025 is down to five after a series of firings. It had a caseload of 60,000 cases even before the San Francisco cases were shifted over.

San Francisco’s immigration court, which had the third-highest number of asylum cases in the nation, was long considered one of the most favorable to people seeking asylum. From 2019 to 2024, almost 75% of petitioners received some form of relief, compared with 43% nationwide, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit data research center based at Syracuse University.

That’s partly because San Francisco, with its vast network of pro-immigrant organizations and pro bono or low-cost legal services, had one of the country’s highest rates of legal representation for immigrants.

The Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Department of Justice branch that oversees immigration courts, announced in March that it would close the San Francisco courthouse in 2027 as a cost-saving measure and move its cases to Concord. But the end came early after nearly all the San Francisco judges left or were fired. The Executive Office provided no detailed explanation for the changes, saying in a statement only that it had decided not to renew its lease for the court, and doesn’t comment on personnel matters.

Tight security in Concord courts

Security is tight at the Concord courthouse, perhaps because of the new influx of cases. Armed security guards ask every person if they are carrying weapons or explosives, and they watch as each person turns off their cellphone. Even coffee is not allowed in. Only water is acceptable, and then only if it’s in a transparent bottle.

Judah Lakin, an immigration attorney based in Oakland who also teaches at UC Berkeley School of Law, said the closure of the San Francisco court has made cases more time-consuming since it’s harder for his clients, who often travel from hours away, to reach Concord on public transportation.

One recent 10-minute hearing in Concord took him more than two hours of travel, he said.

But beyond logistics, Lakin said the chaos in immigration courts under the Trump administration has created a fraught court atmosphere. Mass firings have led to last-minute hearing cancellations, cases have been reset with little notice, and clients are often left in prolonged legal limbo, leaving them vulnerable to deportation.

One of his clients, he said, was provisionally granted asylum by a judge, who was then fired before signing the decision. The case was transferred to a second judge, who was also fired. Now on their third judge, his client is still waiting.

“The ground is constantly shifting underneath your feet, whether it’s judges being fired and hearings getting canceled, whether it’s your clients getting arrested, whether it’s getting denials on things that used to be standard and routine,” Lakin said.

“I think that’s on purpose. That’s by design. It’s part of the strategy,” he added.

‘Heartbreaking’

San Francisco’s immigration court was one of the first in the nation to hire judges with non-prosecutorial backgrounds, with many having previous experience working with immigrants at nonprofits or defending them in court.

To see the court close is “heartbreaking,” said Dana Leigh Marks, a former San Francisco immigration judge who retired in 2021 after 35 years on the bench and who was among the first judges in the nation to be hired from private practice.

She sees the Trump administration’s decision to close the largest immigration court in Northern California as part of an effort to undermine due process and eventually dismantle the path to asylum.

“It’s all a part of big ways and little ways that the Trump administration is trying to get noncitizens out of the country,” she said.

Johnson, the fired San Francisco judge, was appointed during the first Trump administration. He believes he was targeted because he granted asylum in 89% of the cases he heard.

“You don’t fire judges if you disagree with the way they’re handling a case; that’s not how courts work. If you disagree, you appeal that decision,” he said.

Johnson, who is the executive vice president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, defended his judicial record, pointing out that over eight years, only about 10 of his cases were appealed by the Department of Homeland Security, and very few were sent back for further hearings by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Unlike federal courts, where there are strict rules of procedure and judges have lifetime tenure, the Justice Department runs immigration courts, and the attorney general can fire the judges with fewer constraints.

There were 754 immigration judges across the country at the start of Trump’s second term. Now, there are about 600, including some temporary judges, according to data collected by the judges’ union. Widespread courthouse arrests of immigrants have caused hundreds of people not to even show up for hearings, leading to deportation orders in absentia.

Nidaa Pervaiz came to the Concord court on a recent day to represent a client from Nepal. She prefers the new courthouse in some ways, since it’s closer to her home.

But, she said, she and her clients are already feeling the impact of the changes. Fewer judges leads to fewer hearings. That means more delays for her clients, whose paperwork can expire even before they can appear before a judge.

“Their whole lives are at stake, and they are coming to make a plea for their future” she said.

Rodriguez writes for the Associated Press.

Sometimes it seems as though the only thing that stands between a functioning democracy and a full-on Trump autocracy is a thin, black-robed line.

Although the Supreme Court, in general, and conservative appellate courts, in particular, have bowed and granted President Trump permission to do pretty much anything he wants, they haven’t thoroughly capitulated to his endless grasping for ever more power. (The way invertebrate congressional Republicans have.)

At the lower-court level, judges have repeatedly ruled in ways intended to check Trump, most notably when it comes to violating civil and constitutional rights in pursuit of his indiscriminate immigration dragnet.

The tendency to slow-walk his administration’s response to those rulings — and ignore others that Trump thinks he can safely snub — only contribute to the perception of presidential lawlessness and a sense that our judicial system is being strained to something approaching a breaking point.

Go ahead, if you’d like, and dismiss those concerns as just so much overwrought hand-wringing, or the mindless anti-Trump blathering of your friendly political columnist. A new survey of legal experts — including federal judges, top-tier lawyers and scores of professors from some of the country’s leading law schools — finds widespread concern about the brittle state of our legal system.

And it’s not just the fears of a lot of shaggy-thinking liberals.

“The nation is strong as is its commitment to the rule of law,” said one appellate judge, a Republican appointee. “The current president presents the greatest threat in decades.”

The survey was conducted by Bright Line Watch, a nonpartisan academic group that monitors the health and resilience of American democracy, in conjunction with the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA’s School of Law.

Conducted between mid-February and early March, the poll anonymously surveyed 21 federal judges, 113 lawyers, 193 law professors, 652 political scientists and a nationally representative sample of 2,750 Americans.

What leapt out to UCLA’s Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, was that “across the ideological spectrum and across judges, lawyers and law professors, there was considerable agreement that the rule of law in the U.S. is under tremendous stress.” That consensus, he said, suggests “a real risk to democracy.”

Most legal experts agreed that Trump is using executive power excessively, with a majority doubting the conservative-leaning Supreme Court would handle cases involving the Trump administration impartially. The experts also expressed concern about politicized law enforcement — Trump seeking to persecute his perceived enemies — executive branch overreach, and the failure of Congress or the Supreme Court to do more to rein in the rogue president.

Eight in 10 of those surveyed said federal officials fail to comply with court orders somewhat or very often, and nearly 9 in 10 said political appointees in Trump’s Justice Department mislead federal judges somewhat or very often.

Talk about contempt of court — not to mention our vital system of checks and balances.

There was, unsurprisingly, a split among conservatives and liberals who took part in the survey. (The study defined legal conservatives as those saying the Supreme Court should base rulings on its understanding of what the Constitution meant as originally written. Liberals, who made up most of the respondents, were defined as those saying the court should base its rulings on what the Constitution means in current times.)

Conservatives, for instance, were more likely than liberals to see former President Biden as a greater threat to the rule of law than Trump. Liberals were more likely than conservatives to see evidence of Trump politicizing the Justice Department.

There were also differences between legal experts — those most intimately involved in the judicial system — and the public at large. The experts were more concerned about Trump’s excesses and threats to the rule of law, which, Hasen said, stands to reason.

The legal system is not something most people encounter daily in the same way they do, say, gasoline prices or the cost of groceries. “Yet,” Hasen said, “it’s one of these background things that really matters.”

Why?

Hasen put it this way: “Imagine that a person had a dispute with their neighbor and it ended up in small claims court before a judge and the judge made the decision not based on the merits of the case but based on whether he was friends with one of the parties, or didn’t like people who were similar to one of the parties.”

Now imagine that kind of corrupted, perverted system of justice writ large.

If, for instance, “people know that the government can successfully seek retribution from people who criticize it, people will be less likely to criticize the government,” Hasen said, leaving the country worse off by muzzling those who would hold their elected leaders to account.

Or if, say, rioters overran the U.S. Capitol and tried to steal an election and, instead of being punished, received cash payouts from the federal government, what incentive would there be to follow the law?

Happily — and who couldn’t use a bit of good cheer right about now — all is not lost.

People “can demand that their elected representatives take steps to assure that the rule of law will be followed,” Hasen said, and can insist “that the government [not] play favorites or seek retribution against perceived enemies.”

That’s the power people have, come election time. That’s why voting matters.

There are lots of things riding on the outcome in November, not least the sanctity and integrity of our legal system.

Bear that in mind when you cast your ballot.

NASHVILLE — A federal judge on Friday dismissed a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, finding that the Justice Department’s pursuit of criminal charges was designed to punish him for challenging his mistaken deportation to El Salvador last year.

The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes. The Trump administration touted the charges against Abrego Garcia last year at a press conference in which then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi declared, “This is what American justice looks like.”

“The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, in Nashville, said in his ruling granting Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for “selective or vindictive prosecution.” Without Abrego Garcia’s “successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution.”

Abrego Garcia’s deportation became an embarrassment for Trump officials when they were ordered to return him to the U.S. In his motion to dismiss, Abrego Garcia claimed that the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated that the prosecution was vindictive.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department,” his criminal defense attorneys said in a statement after Friday’s ruling. “We are so pleased that he is a free man.”

The Justice Department vowed to appeal, calling the judge’s order “wrong and dangerous.”

Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a rarely met standard that usually requires evidence like a prosecutor admitting that charges were filed in retaliation against someone. But the judge did find there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness” — including the timing of the indictment, statements made by then-U.S. Deputy Aty. Gen. Todd Blanche, and the sustained oversight of the case by other top Justice Department officials — that the case against Abrego Garcia was thoroughly tainted.

The government’s own explanations weren’t convincing, Crenshaw wrote.

Abrego Garcia was charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling, with prosecutors claiming that he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

In the Friday ruling, Crenshaw wrote that the timing of the charges was central to the presumption of vindictiveness. Homeland Security had been aware of the traffic stop for two years and had closed the case against Abrego Garcia when it deported him. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he should be brought back to the U.S., they reopened the case. While the government bore the responsibility to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness, prosecutors did not call as a witness the person who reopened the case, to explain why. Instead they offered only “secondhand testimony.”

In a statement released by the group We are CASA, which has been supporting Abrego Garcia and his family, he thanked God for the dismissal of the criminal charges.

“Justice is a big word and an even bigger promise to fulfill; and I am grateful that today, justice has taken a step forward,” he said.

Abrego Garcia’s deportation violated a 2019 immigration court order granting him protection from deportation to his home country, after the judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. The 2019 order allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia cannot remain in the U.S. They have vowed to deport him to a third country, most recently Liberia.

Loller writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after a federal appeals court on Friday declined to reconsider a decision that put the government a step closer to deporting him, the pro-Palestinian activist’s lawyers said.

Judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia voted 6-5 against having the court’s full complement of judges review the ruling. In January, a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel found that a federal judge in New Jersey who had sided with Khalil and ordered his release last year from immigration detention didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is involved in representing Khalil, said his lawyers will ask the 3rd Circuit for an order preventing the decision from taking effect — and barring Khalil from being detained or deported — while it asks the Supreme Court to take up the case.

An appeal to the high court is expected in the coming months, possibly in late summer.

“Today’s decision is not the final word, and we still strongly believe in our arguments going forward,” ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman said in a statement.

In its January ruling, the 3rd Circuit found that Khalil’s lawsuit challenging his detention and U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz’s subsequent rulings in the case were premature because federal law requires that such challenges first move through the separate immigration court system. That system is part of the Justice Department, not the judicial branch.

The decision didn’t decide the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional.

Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, who had voted for the 3rd Circuit to review the decision, wrote in a dissent that the court was “abdicating our duty to meaningfully review Khalil’s constitutional claims. The Judicial Branch, she wrote, cannot fulfill its role as a check on the other branches of government, “if we write ourselves out of relevance and leave the Executive Branch to check itself.”

Khalil, 31, has also appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, where he was detained, after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld his removal order.

Through his lawyers, Khalil argued that the immigration judge who issued the order failed to consider relevant evidence and wrongly upheld a charge that he had misrepresented information on his application for legal permanent resident status. That charge, Khalil’s lawyers said, was brought in retaliation for his protest activity.

The immigration judge suggested Khalil could be deported to Algeria, where he maintains citizenship through a distant relative, or Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian family. Khalil’s lawyers have said he would face mortal danger if forced to return to either country.

An outspoken leader of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia, Khalil was arrested in March 2025. He then spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his child.

Federal officials have accused Khalil of leading activities “aligned to Hamas,” though they have not presented evidence to support the claim and have not accused him of criminal conduct. They also accused Khalil of failing to disclose information on his green card application.

Khalil has dismissed the allegations as “baseless and ridiculous,” framing his arrest and detention as a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

The government justified the arrest under a seldom-used statute that allows for the expulsion of noncitizens whose beliefs are deemed to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. In June 2025, Farbiarz ruled that justification would likely be declared unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released.

President Trump’s administration appealed that ruling, arguing the deportation decision should fall to an immigration judge, rather than a federal court. The 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 in the administration’s favor.

Judge Emil Bove, who was involved in investigating student protesters while a top Justice Department official, did not participate in the 3rd Circuit vote on whether to review the decision. He later issued an order denying a request by Khalil’s lawyers that he step aside from the matter, calling it moot.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

Judge says the human smuggling probe was reopened after the Salvadoran national filed his lawsuit against his deportation.

A United States judge has dismissed an indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia after finding that he would not have been prosecuted if he had not challenged his deportation.

On Friday, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw said the Department of Justice only reopened its human smuggling probe stemming from a 2022 traffic stop after Salvadoran national Abrego Garcia filed his lawsuit.

“The court does not reach its conclusion lightly,” Crenshaw wrote.

“The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not have brought this prosecution.”

Last year, Abrego Garcia became a symbol for President Donald Trump’s drive to clamp down on illegal migration and was sent to a mega prison in El Salvador despite a prior court banning him from being returned there due to a risk of persecution.

While the Trump administration brought Abrego Garcia back to the US in June of the same year, his return came only after prosecutors had secured a criminal indictment charging him with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling.

Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to the claim and argued that he was being prosecuted in retaliation for suing the government to be returned to the US from El Salvador.

In the ruling to dismiss the indictment, Crenshaw wrote that the timing of the charges was central to the “presumption of vindictiveness”.

With Homeland Security already aware of the traffic stop two years ago and having closed the case against Abrego Garcia when it deported him, the case was only reopened once the US Supreme Court had ruled that he be returned from El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia’s deportation had violated a 2019 immigration court order that granted him protection against being returned to his home country after a judge found that he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family.

Despite his return to the US and his family, Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia cannot remain in the country and have pledged to deport him again to a third country, a country where the person does not have any ties.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s sweeping demands for confidential transgender patient information from Rhode Island’s largest hospital that provides gender-affirming care to minors.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy’s Wednesday ruling is the latest setback for the U.S. Department of Justice, where at least seven other federal courts have agreed to quash or limit the expansive civil subpoenas sent to more than 20 doctors and hospitals last summer.

McElroy’s decision also echoed similar concerns raised by judges surrounding the expansive scope of the subpoenas, describing the Justice Department as having “immense prosecutorial authority and discretion” but no longer trustworthy it will enforce its power fairly and honestly.

“DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case,” McElroy wrote.

A Justice Department spokesperson said Thursday that it would appeal and continue with its investigations.

“The Rhode Island court’s attack on the professionalism and integrity of DOJ attorneys is outrageous and unjustified,” the department said.

According to the subpoenas, the Justice Department had demanded Rhode Island Hospital hand over the birth dates, Social Security numbers and addresses of every patient who received transgender care over the past five years. It also included instructions to provide all documents detailing adverse side effects in minor patients who received gender-related care, assessments that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy, as well as patient intake forms and guardian authorization.

The Justice Department has repeatedly argued that the information sought in the subpoenas is needed to investigate possible fraud or unlawful off-label promotion of drugs. Most recently during a hearing in Rhode Island, the DOJ said that the investigation was taking place in the Northern District of Texas, where the court’s chief judge ordered Rhode Island Hospital to comply with the subpoena before McElroy’s decision voided the subpoena.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Brantley Mayers told McElroy during the hearing that the Justice Department is investigating potential “misbranding” of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, such as puberty blockers for young people. While off-label prescribing is legal, Mayers said that the DOJ is concerned that pharmaceutical companies are providing “financial incentives” to Rhode Island doctors to prescribe the drugs.

The subpoenas were crucial in getting the names of children and their families so the Justice Department could interview them.

McElroy rejected that argument.

“The administration has publicly characterized gender-affirming care for minors as abuse, directed the DOJ to bring its practice to an end, and celebrated when hospitals curtailed such programs as a result of this subpoena campaign,” McElroy wrote.

The Rhode Island decision is the latest development in the fight over transgender youth health records. Earlier this week, 11 families filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the Justice Department from obtaining the documents. The lawsuit, filed in Maryland’s federal court, is backed by families with transgender children who have received care from hospitals across the U.S.

And separately, a New York hospital announced that it received a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Texas seeking information about children who received gender-affirming care and the medical providers who administered it.

NYU Langone is the first hospital system to publicly acknowledge receiving a subpoena for such records as part of a federal criminal investigation. But the institution said in its statement Tuesday it was one of several that received a subpoena out of the Northern District of Texas on May 7. It said it was deciding on how to respond.

“The government cannot use its subpoena power to intimidate families out of seeking lawful medical care. To trans and gender-diverse children and their families, we want you to know that you are valued, you are not alone,” Kevin Love Hubbard, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee of Rhode Island, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement.

Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person’s gender identity, including when it’s different from the sex they were assigned at birth. It may include counseling, medications that block puberty, hormone therapy to produce physical changes or surgeries to transform chests and genitals, although those are rare for minors.

Most major medical groups say access to the treatment is important for those with gender dysphoria and see gender as existing along a spectrum.

At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care for minors, while several others have adopted laws or policies protecting access to transgender healthcare.

Kruesi writes for the Associated Press.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring a Colombian woman back to the U.S. from Congo, after she was deported to the African nation that had refused to accept her.

The deportation of Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata “was likely illegal,” U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled Wednesday.

Zapata, 55, who has diabetes and a thyroid condition, “has been sent to a country that refused to accept her because they cannot provide sufficient medical care,” the ruling said. “As a result, she faces a daily risk of medical complications, up to and including death.”

Black spots began to grow on Zapata’s back and foot while she was in detention, her skin started to peel and her nails blackened, according to a declaration that Zapata submitted in court, and which was provided to the AP by her lawyer.

“She’s not doing well and does worry that she’s going to die,” her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, said.

Zapata entered the U.S. from Mexico in August 2024 and was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Since being deported, she has lived in a hotel in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. The hotel gates are locked, O’Neal said. Zapata and other deportees are rarely allowed out, and only with supervision, she said.

Zapata was among thousands of immigrants living legally in the U.S., waiting for rulings on asylum claims, when they were suddenly issued deportation decrees that ordered them expelled to countries where most had no connections.

More than 15,000 third-country deportation orders were issued in the White House push for ever more immigrant expulsions, advocacy groups say, though only a fraction of the orders have been carried out.

Few details are known about the agreements to accept these deportees, though the U.S. has signed them with a range of countries, including Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda, Cameroon and Congo. Advocacy groups estimate only a couple of hundred third-country deportations, at most, have been carried out.

Galofaro writes for the Associated Press.

US sanctions imposed on UN expert Francesca Albanese by the Trump administration have been temporarily ⁠blocked by a judge.

A federal judge has temporarily ⁠blocked United States sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territory.

UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in July 2025 after she publicly criticised Washington’s policy on Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

Albanese’s husband and daughter filed a lawsuit in February against the Trump administration over the sanctions. It argued that the sanctions were an effort to punish Albanese for bringing attention to Israel’s rights abuses against Palestinians.

In his court order on Wednesday, US ⁠District Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the sanctions.

He found that the Trump administration sought to regulate ‌her speech because of the “idea or message expressed”.

“Albanese has done nothing more than speak,” judge Leon wrote in his memorandum opinion. “It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions – they are nothing more than her opinion.”

Albanese, who said the US sanctions were “calculated to weaken my mission” when they were first imposed, celebrated the ruling on social media.

“Thanks to my daughter and my husband for stepping up to defend me, and everyone who has helped so far,” Albanese said in a statement on X.

“Together we are One.”

Since 2022, Albanese, a legal scholar, has served as the special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, where she monitors human rights abuses against Palestinians. The UN Human Rights Council selected her for the position.

The Trump administration sanctioned her last July, calling her “unfit” for her role and accusing her of “biased and malicious activities” against the US and its ally, Israel. Albanese had also recommended that the International Criminal Court (ICC) pursue war crimes prosecutions against Israeli and US nationals.

The sanctions barred the Italian lawyer and human rights expert from entering the US, using US banks and payment systems, and prevented anyone else in the US from doing business with her.

Albanese’s husband and her daughter, a US citizen, claimed in the lawsuit that the US ⁠sanctions were “effectively debanking her and making it nearly impossible to meet the needs of her daily life”.