Politics

It’s sheer coincidence that I’m writing here on the same subject as my Los Angeles Times colleague Jonah Goldberg’s most recent column: The crying need to amend the Constitution to do something about the much-abused presidential pardon power, the only unchecked power that a president has.

The fact that both Goldberg, a right-of-center commentator, and I, center-left, would near-simultaneously choose to vent on this topic — to call, in effect, for a national uprising against this presidential prerogative despite the evident difficulty of amending the Constitution — is telling: It’s a reflection of Americans’ across-the-spectrum disgust with how modern presidents have perverted it for personal and political benefit, usually on their way out the door. (Goldberg makes the case to get rid of the pardon power altogether. I would give Congress a veto, so presidents still can right actual wrongs of the justice system, as the founders intended.)

Yes, “both sides” are culpable. And yet, Goldberg and I agree, one president has surpassed all others in the shamelessness of his pardons: Donald Trump. In just 10 months he’s built a track record sorrier than that of his first term, which is saying something, and elevated clemency reform to an imperative.

We can’t stop Trump before he pardons again. Nor, probably, would an amendment campaign succeed before (if?) he leaves office in January 2029. But Americans of all political stripes can at least join in getting the process rolling, if only to protect against future presidents’ abuses.

From his first day in office, when Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 rioters who beat cops and stormed the Capitol to overturn his 2020 defeat, already 20 times this year he’s either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of additional scores of undeserving hacks, fellow election deniers, war criminals, donors, investors in Trump businesses and career criminals who just happen to support him. (Recidivism among Trump’s beneficiaries is proving a problem; among the new charges: child sex abuse.)

The clemency actions have come so fast and furious that they hardly register as the scandals that they are, especially as the news about them vies for attention with the many other outrages of Trump’s presidency.

“No MAGA left behind,” Trump pardon attorney “Eagle Ed” Martin brazenly posted in May and again this month in announcing preemptory pardons for former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and more than 75 other Republicans who were part of the fake-elector schemes to reverse Trump’s 2020 losses in battleground states, as well as other efforts after the 2020 election to keep him in power.

Those grants were followed last weekend by mercy for two more MAGA militants: Suzanne Kaye, a Florida woman sentenced to prison for threatening in video posts to “shoot their [expletive] a–” if FBI agents tried to question her about her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Daniel Edwin Wilson of Kentucky, who was among those pardoned for his crimes on Jan. 6 but later sentenced by a Trump-appointed district judge on gun charges related to an illegal cache of weaponry that agents found at his home.

To Trump, absolving his supporters as victims of a supposedly weaponized justice system in effect absolves him as well, and furthers his false narrative — his big lie — that the 2020 election was stolen from him. As Martin, the White House pardon attorney, wrote in this month’s passel of pardons: “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election.” The opposite is true.

Lo, Trump’s mercy knows no bounds — of propriety, that is. The president won’t even rule out a pardon for convicted child-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime procurer for, and participant with, Jeffrey Epstein in the sexploitation of young girls.

Even if Trump’s abuse of the pardon power isn’t unprecedented, its scale and shamelessness is. His Day One mass pardons for Jan. 6 participants set the tone. That action kept his 2024 campaign promise to “free the J-6 hostages,” but it broke an earlier, videotaped vow he’d made on Jan. 7, 2021, when anger at the Capitol attack was near-universal: “To those who broke the law, you will pay.” Hundreds did pay, convicted by juries and judges of both parties and sentenced to up to 22 years in prison. Until Trump got back in power.

Need evidence of how Trump’s pardons corrode the rule of law? Last December, weeks before he returned to the White House, yet another Jan. 6 participant, Philip Sean Grillo, was sentenced. The Reagan-appointed federal judge in the case, Royce Lamberth, admonished: “Nobody is being held hostage. … Every rioter is in the situation he or she is in because he or she broke the law, and for no other reason.” Grillo shouted back, as U.S. marshals led him off: “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways.” He was right, of course.

Then there’s this: In September, after a Republican former Tennessee House speaker and his aide were sentenced in a fraud case, the government’s announcement quoted a senior FBI agent in Nashville calling the punishment “a wake-up call to other public officials who believe there are no consequences for betraying the public trust.” On Nov. 7, Trump pardoned both men.

Trump’s promiscuous use of his power has even spawned a niche business of Trump-connected lawyers peddling their influence to pardon-seekers willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to get out of jail not-so-free.

Consider the case of Changpeng Zhao, billionaire founder of the crypto exchange Binance, who served time in 2023 for facilitating money laundering, including for terrorist groups. Zhao didn’t just hire Trump-friendly lawyers. His company helped secure a $2-billion investment in the Trump family’s crypto startup. Last month, Trump pardoned Zhao. “I heard it was a Biden witch hunt,” he nonchalantly told CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”

Zhao’s success alone should be scandal enough to fuel a campaign to repeal or reform the pardon power. But there is so much more. And we surely haven’t seen the last.

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NEW YORK — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that the city’s current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, has agreed to remain in the post, a major coup for the incoming mayor as he moves to assuage concerns over his past criticism of the police department.

For Mamdani, a democratic socialist who once called to defund the New York Police Department, the appointment seals one of the most consequential decisions of his nascent administration and provides further insight into the progressive’s looming stewardship of City Hall.

“I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City, and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.

Tisch’s decision to remain commissioner could provide comfort to city business leaders and others who worried that Mamdani’s criticism of the department at the height of Black Lives Matter protests would translate into radical changes at the NYPD.

But the official announcement didn’t sit well with some progressives who helped elect the democratic socialist and wanted to see a bigger shake-up atop the nation’s largest police force.

Shared priorities, some disagreement

The appointment marked a budding political alliance between two leaders with starkly different backgrounds and some ideological differences.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who once called for defunding the police, has vowed to remake the department as mayor by shifting some responsibilities from the police to new mental health care teams. Tisch is the heiress to a multibillion-dollar family fortune and is considered a steady, establishment moderate with nearly two decades in public service.

She has been a fierce critic of the state’s bail reform laws, which Mamdani supports, and has called on the city to hire more officers. Mamdani has walked back his previous comments about defunding the police, but said he will keep the department’s headcount even.

In an email to officers Wednesday, Tisch acknowledged the different views she has with Mamdani but said a series of conversations with him had made her “confident” that she can lead the department under his mayoralty.

“In speaking with him, it’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime, and the need to maintain stability and order across the department,” Tisch wrote in the email, which was shared with The Associated Press.

Hours after the announcement, Mamdani and Tisch appeared together at a Manhattan memorial for officers who died in the line of duty. Both declined to answer questions about their past differences, with Tisch saying she wanted to “leave politics out of it today.”

Tisch’s tenure

Tisch was appointed to lead the department last November as current Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s police force were reeling from overlapping scandals.

In September, federal authorities seized phones from Adams and several high-level appointees, including the police commissioner, Edward Caban, who soon resigned. Agents then searched the home of his interim replacement, Thomas Donlon, just a week after he took over.

During her first weeks as commissioner, Tisch reassigned several top officials, including some seen as allies to the mayor. The department’s top uniformed official, a longtime friend of Adams, resigned in December amid harassment allegations.

Her tenure has coincided with a drop in shootings and several categories of major crime, earning praise from the business community and some police reform groups.

A mixed reception

The announcement of Tisch’s appointment drew split reactions among Mamdani’s left-leaning supporters. The Justice Committee, a police reform group, called the move “a rebuff of his promises to New Yorkers and a disturbing endorsement of NYPD’s ongoing violence and corruption.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, offered tepid praise for Tisch, while urging her to “join the Mayor-Elect in seeking to reduce the City’s misplaced demands on police to solve entrenched problems.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a moderate Democrat who endorsed Mamdani, called the appointment “a very good outcome” and said Tisch remaining in the job could help stave off a federal intervention in the city, as Republican President Trump has suggested could occur if Mamdani were elected.

“This is an important step to send a message to the Trump administration that, if you’re coming here on the pretext that we need the National Guard because crime is going up in the city, that is not the story being told here in New York. Not at all,” Hochul said at an unrelated news conference.

Since winning the election, Mamdani has moved to surround himself with a cast of seasoned officials as he prepares to enter City Hall while facing some concern that his limited public experience could create headaches once he assumes control of America’s biggest city.

He tapped a veteran budget official with deep experience in state and city government to be his first deputy mayor, and named a team that includes two former deputy mayors to help guide his transition into City Hall.

Tisch, a Harvard-educated scion of a wealthy New York family, previously led the city’s sanitation department, becoming TikTok famous for declaring “The rats don’t run the city, we do” in 2022.

Her first job in city government was in the NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau. She has helped shape post-9/11 security infrastructure in the city and, as deputy commissioner for information technology, spearheaded the use of body cameras and smartphones.

Izaguirre and Offenhartz write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge said Wednesday he plans to move ahead quickly on a contempt investigation of the Trump administration for failing to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in March.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said a ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave him the authority to proceed with the inquiry, which will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to refer the matter for prosecution. He asked attorneys to identify witnesses and offer plans for how to conduct the probe by Monday and said he’d like to start any hearings on Dec. 1.

The judge has previously warned he could seek to have officials in the administration prosecuted.

On March 15, Boasberg ordered the aircraft carrying accused gang members to return to the U.S., but they landed instead in El Salvador, where the migrants were held at a notorious prison.

“I am authorized to proceed just as I intended to do in April seven months ago,” the judge said during a hearing Wednesday. He added later, “I certainly intend to find out what happened on that day.”

Boasberg said having witnesses testify under oath appeared to be the best way to conduct the contempt probe, but he also suggested the government could provide written declarations to explain who gave orders to “defy” his ruling. He suggested one witness: a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who filed a whistleblower complaint that claims a top official in the department suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.

The Trump administration has denied any violation, saying the judge’s directive to return the planes was made verbally in court but not included in his written order. Justice Department attorney Tiberius Davis told Boasberg the government objected to further contempt proceedings.

Boasberg previously found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court. The ruling marked a dramatic battle between the judicial and executive branches of government, but a divided three-judge appeals court panel later sided with the administration and threw out the finding. The two judges in the majority were appointed by President Trump.

On Friday, a larger panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit said the earlier ruling by their colleagues did not bar Boasberg from moving ahead with his contempt probe. Boasberg’s contempt finding was a “measured and essential response,” Judges Cornelia Pillard, Robert Wilkins and Bradley Garcia wrote.

“Obedience to court orders is vital to the ability of the judiciary to fulfill its constitutionally appointed role,” they wrote. “Judicial orders are not suggestions; they are binding commands that the Executive Branch, no less than any other party, must obey.”

The Trump administration invoked an 18th-century wartime law to send the migrants, whom it accused of membership in a Venezuelan gang, to a mega-prison in El Salvador known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. It argued that American courts could not order them freed.

In June, Boasberg ruled the Trump administration must give some of the migrants a chance to challenge their deportations, saying they hadn’t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they were members of Tren de Aragua.

The judge wrote that “significant evidence” had surfaced indicating that many of the migrants were not connected to the gang “and thus were languishing in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”

More than 200 migrants were later released back to Venezuela in a prisoner swap with the U.S.

Their attorneys want Boasberg to issue another order requiring the administration to explain how it will give at least 137 of the men a chance to challenge their gang designation under the Alien Enemies Act.

The men are in danger in Venezuela and fear talking to attorneys, who have been able to contact about 30 of them, but they “overwhelmingly” want to pursue their cases, Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday.

Davis said it may be hard to take the men into custody again given tensions between the U.S. and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Boasberg did not immediately rule on the matter.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta spent nearly half a million dollars in campaign funds last year on personal attorneys to represent him as he spoke to federal investigators about alleged corruption in Oakland.

Bonta paid about $468,000 to law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati last year from his 2026 reelection campaign, according to campaign finance disclosures filed with the state.

Bonta political consultant Dan Newman said the attorney general was approached by federal investigators because he was viewed as a “possible victim” in the alleged corruption case involving a former Oakland mayor and Bay Area business owners.

Newman said “the sole role was to assist by providing information that would be helpful to the investigation.”

“This was all completed in 2024, over a year ago, and the AG’s involvement is over,” Newman said.

Bonta’s payments to the legal team were first reported by Sacramento’s KCRA-TV.

The U.S. Department of Justice in January charged former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao in an alleged bribery scheme involving local businesspeople David Trung Duong and Andy Hung Duong.

Thao ran for Oakland mayor in 2022 and was recalled from office by city voters in 2024 after growing voter frustration over crime and the city’s budget woes. She was arrested in early 2025 by the FBI.

According to the indictment, Thao, then a mayoral candidate, engaged in a quid pro quo scheme with the Duong brothers in which she promised to take official actions as the mayor to help their recycling and modular homes businesses.

The Duong brothers and Thao have pleaded not guilty.

The San Jose Mercury News reported in January 2025 that campaign finance regulators had also been closely scrutinizing Andy Duong. The Duong family viewed Bonta as a political ally, according to the newspaper.

Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 selected Bonta, then an Assembly member representing the Oakland area, as the attorney general to serve the remaining term of Xavier Becerra, whom President Biden nominated to become the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

Bonta has emerged as a key player in California’s battle against President Trump, filing dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Bonta eventually returned $155,000 in campaign contributions from the Duong family after the federal investigation became public, according to multiple news reports.

Newman, Bonta’s consultant, said that the attorney general was ultimately found not to be a victim in the case. When asked why so much money was spent on attorneys, he said that multiple lawyers worked over a period of several months.

A representative for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on Newman’s assertions.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday night signed into law legislation demanding that the Justice Department release all documents related to its investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

With little fanfare, the president announced the action in a lengthy social media post that attacked Democrats who have been linked to the late financier, a line of attack that he has often deployed while ignoring his and other Republicans’ ties to the scandal.

“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, but I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

Now the focus turns to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, whom the legislation compels to make available “all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” in the Department of Justice’s possession no later than 30 days after the legislation becoming law.

The action on the bill marks a dramatic shift for Trump, who worked for months to thwart release of the Epstein files — until Sunday, when he reversed course under pressure from his party and called on Republican lawmakers to back the measure. Within days, the Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for the bill and sent it to Trump’s desk.

Although Trump has now signed the bill into law, his resistance to releasing the files has led to skepticism among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who question whether the Justice Department may try to conceal information.

“The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said at a news conference Tuesday before the House and Senate passed the bill. Greene was among a small group of GOP defectors who joined Democrats in forcing the legislation to the floor over Trump’s objections.

The legislation prohibits the attorney general from withholding, delaying or redacting the publication of “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Carve-outs in the bill could allow Trump and Bondi to withhold documents that include identifying information of victims or depictions of child sexual abuse materials.

The law also would allow them to conceal information that would “jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.”

Trump directed the Justice Department last week to investigate Epstein’s links with major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former President Clinton.

Bondi abided, and appointed a top federal prosecutor to pursue the investigation with “urgency and integrity.” In July, the Justice Department determined after an extensive review that there was not enough evidence that “could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties” in the Epstein case.

At a news conference Wednesday, Bondi said the department had opened another case into Epstein after “new information” emerged.

Bondi did not say how the new investigation could affect the release of the files.

Asked if the Epstein documents would be released within 30 days, as the law states, Bondi said her department would “follow the law.”

“We will continue to follow the law with maximum transparency while protecting victims,” Bondi said.

SACRAMENTO — California’s budgetary woes are worse than expected, forcing state lawmakers to grapple with a nearly $18 billion shortfall next year, according to a new report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

This figure is $5 billion more than previous estimates in June.

Despite improvements in state revenue, the report said mandatory spending requirements under Proposition 98, which sets minimum annual funding for public schools, and Proposition 2, which specifies reserve deposits and debt payments, almost entirely offset any gains, according to the legislative analysis.

It estimated state costs for Medi-Cal and CalFresh, which provide healthcare and food assistance to Californians in need, were also $1.3 billion more than anticipated due to federal cuts from the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed in July, the report stated.

While enthusiasm for artificial intelligence companies has pushed the stock market to record highs, increasing state tax revenue, the report warned the boost likely won’t last.

“With so much exuberance surrounding AI, it now appears time to take seriously the notion that the stock market has become overheated,” the report states. “History suggests that the stock market is prone to overreact to major technological advances, even if the technology itself turns out to be revolutionary.”

The LAO advised lawmakers to increase revenue and reduce spending.

“While important components of the state economy are sluggish, revenues are not falling, nor are conditions as bad as they would be in an outright recession,” the report states. “This makes solving the budget problem with ongoing solutions all the more important. Continuing to use temporary tools — like budgetary borrowing— would only defer the problem and, ultimately, leave the state ill‑equipped to respond to a recession or downturn in the stock market.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom will unveil his annual budget proposal in January, which will serve as a starting point for legislators as they craft the state spending plan.

Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel said the report underscored the challenging decisions ahead.

“While the Trump Administration continues to pursue destructive policies that will harm California families,” Gabriel said in statement released Wednesday, “the Assembly Budget Committee remains committed to crafting a responsible budget that prioritizes essential services.”

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance, said the LAO report highlighted the challenges lawmakers will face due to “federal uncertainty, market volatility, and continued growth in both cost and caseload for major state programs.”

“In the coming weeks, the Governor will be finalizing his decisions on how he’ll propose to meet the challenges in the coming year,” Palmer said in a statement.

Los Angeles County’s district attorney has opened an investigation into claims of fraud within the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said Wednesday his office has started a wide-ranging probe into claims that plaintiffs made up stories of abuse in order to sue the county, which agreed to the historic $4-billion sex abuse settlement this spring.

The announcement follows Times investigations that found nine people who said they were paid small amounts of cash by recruiters to sue the county for sex abuse in juvenile halls. Four of them said they fabricated the claims.

“They looked at this opportunity to compensate these true victims of sex abuse as an opportunity to personally profit and engage in some of the most greedy and heinous conduct,” Hochman said at a news conference Wednesday morning in the Hall of Justice downtown. “We are going to aggressively go after them.”

All nine plaintiffs had their cases filed by Downtown LA Law Group, a personal injury firm that represents roughly 2,700 people in the county settlement. The firm has denied wrongdoing. The Times could not reach the recruiters who made the alleged payments to plaintiffs for comment.

Hochman indicated his investigation, still in its early stages, showed this was just a small fraction of the “significant number of fraudsters involved in these settlement claims.”

Hochman emphasized the inquiry would focus on those higher up the chain — lawyers, recruiters and medical practitioners who may have submitted fraudulent forms — and not the plaintiffs.

Many of the people The Times spoke with who filed false claims were poor and in unstable housing. They said they desperately needed the cash promised by recruiters, which ranged from $20 to $200. All were flagged down outside county social services offices, where many were on their way to get food assistance and cash aid.

Hochman said any person who contacted his office about filing a fraudulent claim would not have the statements haunt them in a criminal prosecution.

“If you provide us truthful information, complete information, any of the words that you use will not be used against you,” said Hochman, adding the offer did not extend to attorneys or medical professionals. “It’s not something that we offer lightly to anyone.”

Hochman said Downtown LA Law Group was one of the law firms they were focused on, but the probe was not limited to them. He said the investigation would touch anyone who helped fraudulent cases get filed.

“I’m happy to label that entire group as a group of fraudsters conspiring to defraud a settlement where the money should be going to legitimate sex abuse survivors and victims,” he said.

The law group has denied paying plaintiffs and said it only wants “justice for real victims” of sexual abuse. The firm declined to comment further Wednesday.

Shortly after The Times’ investigation, the county supervisors voted to launch their own inquiry into possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in the lawsuits. The county set up a hotline for tips from the public, and moved to ban “predatory solicitation” outside county social services offices.

The supervisors also joined a chorus of voices — including California lawmakers, labor leaders and a powerful attorney trade group — calling for the State Bar to investigate. The State Bar does not comment on potential investigations, but has previously said California law generally prohibits making payments to procure clients, a practice known as capping.

Downtown LA Law Group represents roughly 2,700 people suing the county. Hochman said the firm is one of several he’s focused on.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

A flood of sex abuse claims followed the passage of AB 218, a state law that gave victims of childhood sexual abuse a new window to sue that stretched far beyond the previous statute of limitations. The law, which went into effect in 2020, has led to thousands of lawsuits filed against California school districts, governments and religious institutions.

This spring, the county agreed to pay $4 billion to resolve thousands of claims from victims who said they were abused decades ago in county-run juvenile detention centers and foster homes. In October, the county agreed to a second settlement worth $828 million over another set of similar claims.

Hochman noted the first settlement would have massive financial ramifications for decades for the county, which acts as a social safety net for the region. The county will pay the settlement out over the next five years and has asked most departments to trim their budgets to help pay for it. The district attorney’s budget, Hochman said, had been slashed by $24 million, in part, to help pay for the cases.

“Every penny that a fraudster gets is a penny taken away from a sex abuse victim that validly and legitimately suffered that abuse at the hands of someone [in] Los Angeles County,” said Hochman. “It is not free money.”

BILLINGS, Mont. — President Trump’s administration moved Wednesday to roll back protections for imperiled species and the places they live, reviving a suite of changes to Endangered Species Act regulations during the Republican’s first term that were blocked under former Democratic President Joe Biden.

The changes include the elimination of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s “blanket rule” that automatically protects animals and plants newly classified as threatened. Government agencies instead would have to craft species-specific rules for protections, a potentially lengthy process.

Environmentalists warned the changes could cause years-long delays in efforts to save species such as the monarch butterfly, Florida manatee, California spotted owl and North American wolverine.

“We would have to wait until these poor animals are almost extinct before we can start protecting them. That’s absurd and heartbreaking,” said Stephanie Kurose with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The proposals come as extinctions have accelerated globally because of habitat loss and other pressures. Prior proposals during Trump’s second term would revise the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act and potentially bypass species protections for logging projects in national forests and on public lands.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement that the administration was restoring the Endangered Species Act to its original intent while respecting “the livelihoods of Americans who depend on our land and resources.”

The changes answer long-standing calls for revisions to the 1973 Endangered Species Act from Republicans in Congress and industries including oil and gas, mining and agriculture. Those critics argue the law has been wielded too broadly, to the detriment of economic growth.

Another change proposed Wednesday tasks officials with weighing potential economic impacts when deciding what habitat is crucial to the survival of a species.

“These revisions end years of legal confusion and regulatory overreach, delivering certainty to states, tribes, landowners and businesses while ensuring conservation efforts remain grounded in sound science and common sense,” Burgum said in a statement.

The Interior Department was sued over the blanket protection rule in March, by the Property and Environment Research Center and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The two groups argued the rule was illegal and discouraged states and landowners from assisting in species recovery efforts.

PERC Vice President Jonathan Wood said Wednesday’s proposal was a “necessary course correction” from the Biden administration’s actions.

“This reform acknowledges the blanket rule’s unlawfulness and puts recovery back at the heart of the Endangered Species Act,” Wood said.

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia loves to show off his two corgis, displaying them on his social media accounts, his financial reports and his reelection campaign materials.

Cardboard cutouts of corgis even adorn the entrance to Mejia’s office at City Hall East, making it resemble the dorm room of an especially proud dog parent.

Now, Mejia’s corgis are the subject of a complaint submitted to the city’s Ethics Commission, alleging that the controller has impermissibly blurred the lines between his government communications and his campaign operation.

Former State Sen. Isadore Hall, looking to unseat Mejia in June, conceded in his complaint that the corgi images — especially the one meant to look like Sherlock Holmes, with a pipe and magnifying glass — are “adorable.”

Nevertheless, Hall suggested that the graphics run afoul of a city law barring candidates from using city resources, since the cap-wearing corgi appears both on Mejia’s official city website and on his campaign yard signs.

Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia uses images of corgis, sometimes sporting a pipe and a magnifying glass, on his website, his campaign materials and even the entrance to his office at City Hall East.

(David Zahniser / Los Angeles Times)

“These practices, if substantiated, undermine public confidence in the neutrality of the City Controller’s office and violate clear prohibitions on using public assets for campaign advantage,” Hall said in his complaint.

The complaint, and the focus on the controller’s signature mascots, has sent the race for the city’s top auditor position in an unusual direction. Jane Nguyen, a Mejia campaign spokesperson, pushed back on the idea that the controller failed to comply with city law, while also suggesting that Hall is “jealous of our cute corgi graphics.”

In an email, Nguyen said it’s common for politicians to use similar designs and color schemes in their campaigns and their official government duties. At the same time, she said the “Sherlock corgi” used in city publications is different from the one in Mejia’s reelection campaign.

“He is wearing glasses in one version and is not wearing glasses in the other version,” she said.

David Tristan, executive director of the city’s Ethics Commission, which levies fines when enforcing local campaign finance laws, declined to comment, saying his office “cannot confirm or deny the existence of a complaint or investigation.”

Attorney Jessica Levinson, a former Ethics Commission president, said the agency responds seriously to allegations that city resources have been misused for campaign purposes. Still, she voiced doubts that Hall’s complaint would lead to a meaningful ethics case.

“This is not the type of thing that’s going to topple democracy,” she said. “Even if the allegations are true, I don’t think this weighs particularly heavily on the minds of voters.”

Hall, 53, is basing his complaint on a city law that bars city employees from using city cars, email lists, supplies or other municipal resources for campaign purposes. For example, city employees cannot take part in campaign activities while wearing uniforms with “official city insignia.”

The complaint goes beyond Mejia’s corgis, which are a diminutive herding breed beloved by the late Queen Elizabeth II. Hall also contends that the controller’s campaign logo, font colors and other design elements match the branding on his official city website, making it appear that the city is effectively endorsing his reelection bid.

Nguyen said Mejia’s corgi images and other designs were created as part of his 2022 campaign, without using city resources. She also said that the campaign logo is “far different” from the controller’s city logo, since it contains the word “for.”

Mejia, 35, has proven to be a savvy purveyor of marketing, distributing corgi stickers at community events and sending his staff to City Council meetings in green city controller jackets. He and his team are equally strategic about publicizing data on homelessness spending, legal payouts and other city expenses.

On his campaign website, Mejia described himself as “the father of two corgis, Killa and Kirby. He is known for bringing his dogs to work, walking them down the marble corridors of City Hall. They also showed up this year on an Instagram video where Mejia and his staff performed choreographed moves to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” outside City Hall.

Former state Sen. Isadore Hall has filed an ethics complaint against City Controller Kenneth Mejia, his opponent in the June election.

(Isadore Hall for Controller)

Hall has faced scrutiny over his own election activities.

In 2014, The Times reported that Hall’s Senate committees spent $7,812 on cigars and membership at cigar lounges, $42,000 on airfare and hotels and $11,000 to stay at the Fairmont Hotel in Kihei, Hawaii, during a conference.

Hall defended the expenditures, saying they were for campaign fundraisers, dinners with potential donors and other political activities. He won his Senate race and made an unsuccessful run for Congress two years later.

Nguyen, in her email, pointed out that Hall was also accused of illegally using general election donations to pay for his primary campaign for Congress in 2016. In response to those and other violations, the Federal Election Commission issued a $24,000 penalty to Hall’s campaign.

Hall said earlier this year that he learned from the experience and had held his accountant accountable for the error.

Hall is not the only candidate running against Mejia. On Tuesday, entertainment industry executive Zachary Sokoloff formally launched his own bid for controller, promising to bring a “problem-solving approach to City Hall.” Sokoloff, 36, said he would “lead by listening” and “bring people together to fix what’s broken.”

Rick Taylor, Sokoloff’s campaign strategist, said he views Hall’s ethics complaint as “not relevant” to the upcoming campaign.

“Let’s focus on what the public wants to know,” he said. “They want to know who’s capable and competent and can do the job.”

SACRAMENTO — Current and former members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration were among the dozens of Sacramento insiders who received FBI letters in recent days notifying them that their phone calls, texts or other electronic communications had been intercepted as part of the federal corruption case tied to Dana Williamson and two other longtime Democratic operatives.

The notifications are routine in wiretap investigations once surveillance ends, but the letters set off a wave of panic across California’s political power structure. The letters are signed by Sacramento Field Office Special Agent in Charge Siddhartha Patel and began arriving in mailboxes from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., last week, according to copies of the communications shared with The Times.

The legal notifications, under the terms of the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act, are sent out routinely to people whose private communications have been captured on federal wiretaps.

A Newsom spokesperson said the governor’s office is aware that a limited number of the letters were sent to current and former members of the administration. The spokesperson said that the letters were expected given federal law requires parties to be notified. Newsom’s office said the governor did not receive a letter.

Newsom’s office said the governor is not involved in the case against Williamson. None of the charging documents released in the cases against the three aides mention Newsom.

Copies of the letters, which were provided to The Times by individuals who asked to remain anonymous, indicate the period of time the communications were intercepted ranged from May 2024 to the end of July of 2024.

“This letter does not necessarily mean you were the target of the investigation or that any criminal action will be taken against you,” Patel wrote in the letter. “Rather, the purpose of this letter is to notify you that some of your communications may have been intercepted during the course of the investigation.”

Williamson, known as one of California’s toughest political insiders who previously worked as chief of staff to Newsom, was arrested last week on federal charges that allege she siphoned $225,000 out of 2026 gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra’s dormant state campaign account. She also was accused of spending $1 million on luxury handbags and high-flying travel and illegally declaring them as business expenses on her tax returns.

According to the 23-count indictment, Williamson conspired with Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California attorney general’s office and ex-chief of staff Sean McCluskie, along with lobbyist Greg Campbell to bill Becerra’s dormant campaign account for bogus consulting services.

Williamson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The highly publicized indictment against Williamson was sprinkled with references to her phone calls and text messages, indicating that federal investigators were likely relying on wiretapping. But the letters informing a wide swath of political insiders, from lobbyists to other operatives, is causing widespread anxiety across the Capitol.

The exact number of letters sent by the FBI is unknown, but political insiders say they’ve heard dozens of people have received one.

“It sends a chill up your spine, and everybody is worried,” said Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, who said he did not receive a letter. “They can’t remember what they said to whom, about what. It could be anything. I think most people think this could be the tip of the iceberg. They are very concerned about where all these roads might lead.”

RALEIGH, N.C. — Federal agents have now arrested more than 250 people during a North Carolina immigration crackdown centered around Charlotte, the state’s largest city, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.

The operation that began over the weekend is the latest phase of Republican President Trump’s aggressive mass deportation efforts that have sent the military and immigration agents into Democratic-run cities — from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Immigration officials have blanketed the country since January, pushing detention counts to all-time highs above 60,000. Big cities and small towns across the country are targeted daily amid higher-profile pushes in places such as Portland, Oregon, where more than 560 immigration arrests were made in October. Smaller bursts of enforcement have popped up elsewhere.

The push to carry out arrests in North Carolina expanded to areas around the state capital of Raleigh on Tuesday, spreading fear in at least one immigrant-heavy suburb.

The number of arrests so far during what the government has dubbed “ Operation Charlotte’s Web ” was about double the total announced by DHS officials earlier this week. The department said in a statement that agencies “continue to target some of the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens.”

Their targets include people living in the U.S. without legal permission and those who allegedly have criminal records.

Federal officials have offered few details about those arrested. They’ve also remained quiet about the scope of the enforcement operations across North Carolina and where agents will show up next, keeping communities on edge.

The crackdown in Charlotte has been met with pockets of resistance and protests.

About 100 people gathered outside a Home Depot store in Charlotte on Wednesday, where federal agents have been spotted multiple times since the surge started. Protest organizers briefly went inside the store with orange and white signs that read, “ICE out of Home Depot, Protect our communities.”

Arrests in Charlotte have created a chilling effect in immigrant neighborhoods — school attendance dropped, and small shops and restaurants closed to avoid confrontations between customers and federal agents.

Fear also spread in parts of Cary, a Raleigh suburb where officials say almost 20% of the population was born outside the U.S. At a shopping center home to family-run ethnic restaurants, there was little traffic and an Indian grocery store was mostly empty on Tuesday.

Just days after beginning the crackdown in North Carolina, Border Patrol agents were expected to arrive in New Orleans by the end of the week to start preparing for their next big operation in southeast Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and three people familiar with the operation.

Around 250 federal border agents are set to descend on New Orleans in the coming weeks for a two-month immigration crackdown expected to begin in earnest on Dec. 1.

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander tapped to head the Louisiana sweep, has been on the ground in North Carolina this week, leading the operation there as well. Bovino has become the Trump administration’s leader of the large-scale crackdowns and has drawn criticism over the tactics used to carry out arrests.

DHS has declined to comment on the operation. “For the safety and security of law enforcement, we’re not going to telegraph potential operations,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

Robertson writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Elliot Spagat, Erik Verduzco in Charlotte, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.

The United States Department of Justice has acknowledged that the grand jury reviewing the case against James Comey, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), did not receive a copy of the final indictment against him.

That revelation on Wednesday came as lawyers for Comey sought to have the indictment thrown out of court.

At a 90-minute hearing in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Comey’s lawyers argued that the case should be dismissed outright, not only for the prosecutorial missteps but also due to the interventions of President Donald Trump.

Comey is one of three prominent Trump critics to be indicted between late September and mid-October.

The hearing took place before US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, and Comey’s defence team alleged that Trump was using the legal system as a tool for political retribution.

“This is an extraordinary case and it merits an extraordinary remedy,” defence lawyer Michael Dreeben said, calling the indictment “a blatant use of criminal justice to achieve political ends”.

The Justice Department, represented by prosecutor Tyler Lemons, maintained that the indictment met the legal threshold to be heard at trial.

But Lemons did admit, under questioning, that the grand jury that approved the indictment had not seen its final draft.

When Judge Nachmanoff asked Lemons if the grand jury had never seen the final version, the prosecutor conceded, “That is my understanding.”

It was the latest stumble in the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute Comey for allegedly obstructing a congressional investigation and lying to senators while under oath.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to the two charges, and his defence team has led a multipronged effort to see the case nixed over its multiple irregularities.

Scrutiny over grand jury proceedings

Questions over the indictment — and what the grand jury had or had not seen — had been brewing since last week.

On November 13, US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie raised questions about a span of time when it appeared that there appeared to be “no court reporter present” during the grand jury proceedings.

Then, on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick took the extraordinary step of calling for the grand jury materials to be released to the Comey defence team, citing “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps”.

They included misleading statements from prosecutors, the use of search warrants pertaining to a separate case, and the fact that the grand jury likely did not review the final indictment in full.

Separately, in Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Nachmanoff pressed acting US Attorney Lindsey Halligan about who saw the final indictment.

After repeated questions, she, too, admitted that only the foreperson of the grand jury and a second grand juror were present for the returning of the indictment.

Halligan oversaw the three indictments against the Trump critics: Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

All three have denied wrongdoing, and all three have argued that their prosecution is part of a campaign of political vengeance.

Spotlight on Trump-Comey feud

Wednesday’s hearing focused primarily on establishing that argument, with Comey’s lawyers pointing to statements Trump made pushing for the indictments.

Comey’s defence team pointed to the tense relationship between their client and Trump, stretching back to the president’s decision to fire Comey from his job as FBI director in 2017.

Comey had faced bipartisan criticism for FBI investigations into the 2016 election, which Trump ultimately won.

Trump, for example, accused the ex-FBI leader of going easy on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, calling him a “slime ball”, a “phony” and “a real nut job”.

“FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds,” Trump wrote on social media in May 2017.

Comey, meanwhile, quickly established himself as a prominent critic of the Trump administration.

“I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president,” Comey told ABC News in 2018.

He added that a president must “embody respect” and adhere to basic values like truth-telling. “This president is not able to do that,” Comey said.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Comey’s defence also pointed to the series of events leading up to the former FBI director’s indictment.

Last September, Trump posted on social media a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi, calling Comey and James “guilty as hell” and encouraging her not to “delay any longer” in seeking their indictments.

That message was “effectively an admission that this is a political prosecution”, according to Dreeben, Comey’s lawyer.

Shortly after the message was posted online, Halligan was appointed as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia

She replaced a prosecutor, Erik Siebert, who had reportedly declined to indict Comey and others for lack of evidence. Trump had denounced him as a “woke RINO”, an acronym that stands for “Republican in name only”.

Dreeben argued that switcheroo also signalled Trump’s vindictive intent and his spearheading of the Comey indictment.

But Lemons, representing the Justice Department, told Judge Nachmanoff that Comey “was not indicted at the direction of the president of the United States or any other government official”.

An Indiana lawmaker who has yet to make a decision on whether to back President Trump’s push to have Republicans redraw the state’s congressional boundaries was the victim of a swatting call that brought sheriff’s deputies to his home.

The call, in which someone reported a fake emergency at the Terre Haute home of state Sen. Greg Goode on Sunday, came hours after Trump criticized Indiana lawmakers for not moving forward with the plan and singled out Goode and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray. Trump has been trying to persuade Republican-led states across the country to aggressively redraw their congressional maps to help the GOP hold the U.S. House in next year’s midterm elections.

Deputies were sent to Goode’s home after receiving an email “advising harm had been done to persons inside a home,” according to a statement from the Vigo County Sheriff’s Office.

“All persons were secure, safe, and unharmed. Investigation showed that this was a prank or false email (also known as ‘swatting’),” the statement said. The incident is under investigation.

Goode, a Republican, wrote on social media that the responding deputies were “under the impression of a domestic violence emergency.” He thanked the deputies for acting professionally.

“While this entire incident is unfortunate and reflective of the volatile nature of our current political environment, I give thanks to God that my family and I are ok,” Goode wrote.

Trump singled out Goode and Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray while demanding that Republicans move forward with a redistricting plan for Indiana. Republicans already hold a 7-2 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.

“Because of these two politically correct type ‘gentlemen,’ and a few others, they could be depriving Republicans of a Majority in the House, a VERY BIG DEAL!” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

Bray, the Republican leader of Indiana’s Senate, announced Friday that his chamber will no longer meet to vote on redistricting, citing a lack of support from his members even after pressure from the White House. Vice President JD Vance has visited multiple times to make the case.

Goode, a Republican member of the Senate, has not publicly stated his position on redistricting and says he will not make a decision without seeing a map and legislation introduced for lawmakers’ review.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The goal of swatting is to get authorities, particularly a SWAT team, to respond to an address by making bogus claims of violence happening inside.

Democrats need to gain just three seats to win control of the House next year, leading to Trump’s strong-arming of GOP-controlled states. Legislatures or commissions in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have adopted new maps to boost Republicans’ odds, while California and Virginia are poised to counter Trump’s push and redraw their own maps to benefit Democrats.

Weber writes for the Associated Press.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Justice Department acknowledged in court Wednesday the grand jury that charged former FBI Director James Comey was not presented with a copy of the final indictment, a concession that may further imperil a prosecution already subject to multiple challenges and demands for its dismissal.

The revelation is the latest indication of a troubled presentation of the case to the grand jury by an inexperienced and hastily appointed U.S. attorney named to the job just days earlier by President Trump.

Concerns about the process surfaced earlier in the week when a different judge in the case said there was no record in the transcript he had reviewed of the grand jury reviewing the indictment that was actually presented against Comey.

Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney in charge of the case, said under questioning that only the foreperson of the grand jury and a second grand juror were present for the returning of the indictment.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of making a false statement and obstructing Congress and has denied any wrongdoing.

The Justice Department has denied that the prosecution was vindictive or selective and insists that the allegations support the indictment.

Trump fired Comey as FBI director in May 2017 as Comey was overseeing an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. The two have been publicly at odds ever since, with Trump deriding Comey as “a weak and untruthful slime ball” and calling for his prosecution.

Tucker and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer announced Wednesday that he is running for governor of California, arguing that he is not beholden to special interests and can take on corporations that are making life unaffordable in the state.

“The richest people in America think that they earned everything themselves. Bulls—, man. That’s so ridiculous,” Steyer said in an online video announcing his campaign. “We have a broken government. It’s been bought by corporations and my question is: Who do you think is going to change that? Sacramento politicians are afraid to change up this system. I’m not. They’re going to hate this. Bring it on.”

Protesters hold placards and banners during a rally against Whitehaven Coal in Sydney in 2014. Dozens of protesters and activists gathered downtown to protest against the controversial massive Maules Creek coal mine project in northern New South Wales.

(Saeed Khan / AFP/Getty Images)

Steyer, 68, founded Farallon Capital Management, one of the nation’s largest hedge funds, and left it in 2012 after 26 years. Since his departure, he has become a global environmental activist and a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes.

But the hedge firm’s investments — notably a giant coal mine in Australia that cleared 3,700 acres of koala habitat and a company that runs migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will make him susceptible to political attack by his gubernatorial rivals.

Steyer has expressed regret for his involvement in such projects, saying it was why he left Farallon and started focusing his energy on fighting climate change.

Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer addresses a crowd during a presidential primary election-night party in Columbia, S.C.

(Sean Rayford / Getty Images)

Steyer previously flirted with running for governor and the U.S. Senate but decided against it, instead opting to run for president in 2020. He dropped out after spending nearly $342 million on his campaign, which gained little traction before he ended his run after the South Carolina primary.

Next year’s gubernatorial race is in flux, after former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla decided not to run and Proposition 50, the successful Democratic effort to redraw congressional districts, consumed all of the political oxygen during an off-year election.

Most voters are undecided about who they would like to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run for reelection because of term limits, according to a poll released this month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times. Steyer had the support of 1% of voters in the survey.

In recent years, Steyer has been a longtime benefactor of progressive causes, most recently spending $12 million to support the redistricting ballot measure. But when he was the focus of one of the ads, rumors spiraled that he was considering a run for governor.

In prior California ballot initiatives, Steyer successfully supported efforts to close a corporate tax loophole and to raise tobacco taxes, and fought oil-industry-backed efforts to roll back environmental law.

His campaign platform is to build 1 million homes in four years, lower energy costs by ending monopolies, make preschool and community college free and ban corporate contributions to political action committees in California elections.

Steyer’s brother Jim, the leader of Common Sense Media, and former Biden administration U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy are aiming to put an initiative on next year’s ballot to protect children from social media, specifically the chatbots that have been accused of prompting young people to kill themselves. Newsom recently vetoed a bill aimed at addressing this artificial intelligence issue.

US President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to the White House, declaring the Kingdom a major non-NATO ally and signaling a push to deepen US-Saudi ties. Here’s what we know about what they agreed on.

In the days and weeks after the 2020 election, partisans across the country used lies and deceit to try to defraud the American people and steal the White House.

Although Joe Biden was the clear and unequivocal winner, racking up big margins in the popular vote and electoral college, 84 fake electors signed statements certifying that Donald Trump had carried their seven battleground states.

He did not.

The electoral votes at issue constituted nearly a third of the number needed to win the presidency and would have been more than enough to reverse Biden’s victory, granting Trump a second term against the wishes of most voters.

To some, the attempted election theft is old (and eagerly buried) news.

The events that culminated in the violent assault on the Capitol and attempt to block Biden from taking office occurred half a decade ago, the shovel wielders might say, making them as relevant as those faded social-distancing stickers you still see in some stores. Besides, Trump was given a second turn in the White House by a plurality of voters in 2024.

But it’s only old news if you believe that justice and integrity carry an expiration date, wrongdoing is fine with the passage of enough time and the foundational values of our country and its democracy — starting with fair and honest elections — matter only to the extent they help your political side prevail.

It bears repeating: “What we’re talking about here is an attempt to overturn the outcome of a presidential election,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, who heads the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy think tank at New York University. “If people can engage in that kind of conduct without consequence or accountability, then we have to worry about it happening again.”

Which is why punishment and deterrence are so important.

Last week, the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously reinstated the criminal case against six Republicans who signed certificates falsely claiming Trump had won the state’s electoral votes. Those charged include Nevada’s GOP chairman, Michael McDonald, and the state’s representative on the Republican National Committee, Jim DeGraffenreid.

The ruling focused on a procedural matter: whether the charges should have been brought in Douglas County, where the fake certificates were signed in the state capital — Carson City — or in Clark County, where they were submitted at a courthouse in Las Vegas. A lower court ruled the charges should have been brought in Douglas County and dismissed the case. The high court reversed the decision, allowing the prosecution on forgery charges to proceed.

As well it should. Let a jury decide.

Of course, the Nevada Six and other phony electors are but small fry. The ringleader and attempted-larcenist-in-chief — Donald “Find Me 11,780 Votes” Trump — escaped liability by winning the 2024 election.

This month, he pardoned scores of fake electors and others involved in the attempted election heist — including his bumbling ex-attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani — for any potential federal crimes. The move was purely symbolic; Trump’s pardoning power does not extend to cases brought in state courts.

But it was further evidence of his abundant contempt for the rule of law. (Just hours after taking office, Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 defendants — including some who brutalized cops with pepper spray and wooden and metal poles — who were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.)

Efforts around the country to prosecute even those low-level schemers, cheaters and 2020 election miscreants have produced mixed results.

In Michigan, a judge threw out the criminal case against 15 phony electors, ruling the government failed to present sufficient evidence that they intended to commit fraud.

In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake electors avoided prosecution because their certification came with a caveat. It said the documentation was submitted in the event they were recognized as legitimate electors. The issue was moot once Trump lost his fight to overturn the election, though some in Trump’s orbit hoped the phony certifications would help pressure Pence.

Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, looks askance at many of the cases that prosecutors have brought, suggesting the ballot box — rather than a courtroom — may be the better venue to litigate the matter.

“There’s a fine line between what’s distasteful conduct and what’s criminal conduct,” Muller said. “I don’t have easy answers about which kinds of things should or shouldn’t be prosecuted in a particular moment, except to say if it’s something novel” — like these 2020 cases — “having a pretty iron-clad legal theory is pretty essential if you’re going to be prosecuting people for engaging in this sort of political protest activity.”

Other cases grind on.

Three fake electors are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on forgery charges next month in Wisconsin. Fourteen defendants — including Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — face charges in Georgia. In Arizona, the state attorney general must decide this week whether to move forward with a case against 11 people after a judge tossed out an indictment because of how the case was presented to grand jurors.

Justice in the case of the 2020 election has been far from sure and swift. But that’s no reason to relent.

The penalty for hijacking a plane is a minimum of 20 years in federal prison. That seems excessive for the fake electors.

But dozens of bad actors tried to hijack an election. They shouldn’t be let off scot-free.

Diplomatic dispute deepens between Tokyo and Beijing over Taiwan remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

China will again ban all imports of Japanese seafood as a diplomatic dispute between the two countries escalates, Japanese media report.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency said on Wednesday that the seafood ban follows after China earlier this month lifted import restrictions on Japanese marine products, which were imposed by Beijing in 2023 after the release of treated radioactive water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

Kyodo News, referencing sources with knowledge of the matter, said China has told Japan that the reimposition of the ban was due to the need for further monitoring of the water from Fukushima released into the Pacific Ocean.

But the ban comes amid a deepening crisis in relations between Beijing and Tokyo over remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The premier told parliament on November 7 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan, which threatened Japan’s survival, was one of the few cases that could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Takaichi’s comments were met with a wave of criticism by Chinese officials and state media, prompting Japan to warn its citizens in China to take safety precautions and avoid crowded places.

In a post on X following Takaichi’s comments, the Chinese consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, threatened to “cut off that dirty neck”, apparently referring to the Japanese prime minister. Tokyo said it had summoned the Chinese ambassador over the now-deleted social media post.

Beijing has also advised Chinese citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and demanded that Takaichi retract her remarks, though Tokyo said they were in line with the government’s position.

Seeking to defuse the row, Masaaki Kanai, Japan’s top official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Asia Pacific region, held talks on Tuesday in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Liu Jinsong.

“During the consultations, China once again lodged a strong protest with Japan” over “Takaichi’s erroneous remarks”, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

“Takaichi’s fallacies seriously violate international law and the basic norms governing international relations”, Mao said, adding the Japanese premier’s comments “fundamentally damage the political foundation of China-Japan relations”.

‘Very dissatisfied’

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the visit by Kanai to Beijing was seen as an effort by Tokyo to de-escalate tensions and communicate to China that Japan’s stance on independently-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory, has not changed despite Takaichi’s remarks.

“It seems there were no concrete outcomes, but what we have seen, though, is some footage following the meeting of these two diplomats parting ways, and I think it really speaks for itself. We have very cold body language from both of these diplomats,” Yu said.

“Liu Jinsong had his hands in his pockets, refusing to shake hands with the Japanese senior diplomat,” Yu said, adding that the Chinese official said afterwards that he was “very dissatisfied” with the meeting.

Liu Jinsong, director-general of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, met with Masaaki Kanai, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, on Tuesday.

Following the meeting, Masaaki Kanai has left the Chinese… pic.twitter.com/rdAy2YJruQ

— China News 中国新闻网 (@Echinanews) November 18, 2025

Before the most recent seafood ban, China accounted for more than one-fifth of Japan’s seafood exports, according to official data.

The dispute has also engulfed other areas of China-Japan relations, with China Film News, which is supervised by the state-backed China Film Administration, announcing that the release of two imported Japanese movies would be postponed amid the dispute.

The two movies were originally expected to be released on December 6 and November 22, respectively, according to review site Douban.

Ministers implicated in scandal involving misused and stolen funds earmarked for anti-flooding infrastructure.

Two ministers in Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s cabinet resigned on Tuesday after being implicated in an ongoing investigation into “ghost” infrastructure and billions of dollars of missing government funds, deepening a crisis facing the country’s government over the corruption scandal.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and Department of Budget and Management Secretary Amenah Pangandaman have both stepped down from their posts, presidential palace press officer Claire Castro said on Tuesday.

Castro said the pair chose to resign “after their departments were mentioned in allegations related to the flood control anomaly” and “in recognition of the responsibility to allow the administration to address the matter appropriately,” according to The Philippines Inquirer newspaper.

Bersamin and Pangandaman are the highest-ranking members of the Marcos government to be hit directly by the corruption scandal since it broke in July, according to Aries Arugay, an expert in Philippines politics and a visiting senior fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

Marcos himself has managed to stay above the fray – for now – although Arugay said that could change at any time.

“At the moment, the palace is trying to take the president out of this, and this is why you have the ‘resignations’ of the executive secretary, the budget secretary. They’re the ones accepting command responsibility over this,” he told Al Jazeera.

Arugay said Marcos Jr still has a “comfortable” majority in the legislature because many MPs still prefer him to leadership under Vice President Sara Duterte, but “all bets are off” should more evidence emerge.

Earlier this week, politician Zaldy Co – who is currently not in the Philippines – alleged that Marcos directed him to add $1.7bn to the budget for “dubious public works” while he headed an appropriations committee, according to The South China Morning Post, although the claims have not been verified.

Co was among the first group of officials to be charged this week for their role in the corruption scandal following a months-long investigation, according to The Philippines Inquirer.

The scandal has engulfed the Philippines since Marcos Jr revealed in a speech to Congress earlier this year that billions of dollars of public funds for anti-flooding infrastructure had been siphoned off by private contractors to build substandard infrastructure – and in some cases, none at all.

The Philippines is regularly hit by typhoons and other tropical storms, and flooding remains a perennial and often deadly problem.

The corruption scandal has set off mass protests across the Philippines, including a demonstration on Sunday that drew 500,000 people to Manila.

Nov. 19 (UPI) — The House voted Tuesday against censuring Delegate Stacey Plaskett and removing her from the Intelligence Committee following revelations she texted with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing.

The late night 209-214 vote came hours after the House approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release the files from its investigation into Epstein. Three Republicans joined Democrats voting against the measure. Another three Republicans voted “present.”

Leading up to the vote to release the files, the House Oversight Committee began releasing troves of documents from Epstein’s estate that included his texts and other communications.

Those included copies of texts Epstein had with Plaskett as she was about to question Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, during a 2019 congressional hearing, The New York Times reported.

Republicans seized on the revelation, and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., introduced the censure resolution accusing Plaskett of having “inappropriately coordinated” with Epstein, receiving suggested lines of questioning and congratulations from him. The resolution also would have directed the House Ethics Committee to investigate her ties to Epstein.

Plaskett, a Democrat, represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a delegate. That means that while she may participate in many of the chamber’s functions while representing the territory, she cannot vote on the House floor.

She defended herself in a House floor speech, explaining that Epstein was a constituent she had been in contact with to get information, reported Politico.

“I know how to question individuals. I know how to seek information. I have sought information from confidential informants, from murderers, from other individuals because I want the truth,” she said.

Norman, however, told The Washington Post that it was “beyond comprehension” that Plaskett would work with the disgraced financier on House business.

“The American people expect honesty, the American people expect integrity and judgment from their elected officials,” he said in a floor speech, according to the Post. “They expect members of Congress to conduct themselves with one word — decency — not to seek advice from a predator who exploited minor children.”