(WASHINGTON) — A suburban Chicago man was federally charged for allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump on social media, according to court records unsealed on Monday.
Trent Schneider, 57, of Winthrop Harbor, was charged via criminal complaint with making a threat in interstate commerce to injure a person, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
Following his arrest Monday morning, a federal judge in Chicago ordered that he remain detained in federal custody, prosecutors said. Schneider is next scheduled to appear in court for a detention hearing on Thursday.
According to the complaint, in a “selfie-style video” posted to Instagram on Oct. 16, Schneider allegedly said, “I’m going to get some guns. I know where I can get a lot of f—— guns and I am going to take care of business myself.”
“I’m tired of all you f—— frauds. People need to f—— die and people are going to die. F— all of you, especially you, Trump. You should be executed,” he allegedly said in the video, according to the complaint.
The video also allegedly included a caption that stated, in part, “THIS IS NOT A THREAT!!! AFTER LOSING EVERYTHING and My House Auction date is 11.04.2025 @realDonaldTrump SHOULD BE EXECUTED!!!”
Schneider allegedly posted the same video and caption approximately 18 times between Oct. 16 and Oct. 21, according to the complaint.
A “concerned citizen” in Florida who viewed the video on Oct. 16 reported it to law enforcement, according to the complaint.
Schneider faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison if convicted, the DOJ said.
Attorney information was not immediately available.
(NEW YORK) — Eyes are on New York City as Election Day arrives, marking the final opportunity for voters to weigh in on the high-stakes mayoral race.
While New Yorkers are focused on solving key issues of affordability and public safety, the implications of this race could stretch beyond the Big Apple.
Along with gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, this local off-year election has garnered national attention and is considered representative of political headwinds ahead of the 2026 midterms. Particularly in New York City, one of the most high-profile races to watch on Election Day, candidates are zeroed in on navigating the impacts of President Donald Trump’s second term.
State assemblyman and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani has remained the front-runner since his upset victory in the June primary. The 34-year-old democratic socialist is running on a progressive economic platform with a remarkable social media charm, though he has faced questions from mayoral opponents and others on the feasibility and effectiveness of his policies, in addition to backlash for comments about Israel and his stance toward police.
Though Mamdani has scored endorsements of notable Democratic leaders, his candidacy has shed light on how the Democratic Party has struggled to balance its progressive and moderate sides.
If elected, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor. His identity has been a topic of scrutiny throughout the course of the campaign, with Mamdani accusing Independent candidate former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as well as Vice President JD Vance, of engaging in Islamophobic attacks.
Trump has called Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and threatened to withhold federal funding to New York City if he wins. Though, his dislike for Cuomo has been evident, the president declared his preference for Cuomo over the other candidates in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night.
The president endorsed Cuomo on Monday in a social media post. “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job,” Trump wrote.
Cuomo, 67, has attempted a political comeback following his 2021 resignation from New York’s governorship amid sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct allegations — allegations he has denied and charges dropped. Cuomo has also faced backlash for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic during his tenure as governor.
After losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June, he attempted his return once more — this time as an Independent candidate. Backed by multiple billionaire donors, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cuomo touts his experience and ability to work with Trump as cornerstones of his campaign.
While Mamdani has consistently held a healthy lead over Cuomo, a Quinnipiac poll published Wednesday shows polls beginning to tighten between the two.
Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, 71, who ran an unsuccessful campaign against current Mayor Eric Adams in 2021, is keen on improving public safety — a goal that has been top-of-mind ever since he founded The Guardian Angels in the 1970s, a nonprofit crime prevention organization.
In addition to garnering criticism from Trump and consistently facing low polling numbers, Sliwa has faced numerous calls to exit the race — which he has refused to do.
Adams, who suspended his re-election campaign in September, remains on the ballot as an Independent due to his late withdrawal. Despite previous harsh words, he endorsed Cuomo last month and campaigned alongside him.
New York City has already seen a massive increase in early voting, with five times as many people voting early in 2025 compared to the 2021 mayoral race, according to the New York City Board of Elections.
Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) – One of 2025’s major elections could have major reverberations for the 2026 midterms.
Californians are voting on a ballot initiative, “Proposition 50,” to determine if the state will adopt a new congressional map that redraws five districts to be more Democratic-leaning, potentially allowing Democrats to flip them in the midterms.
Supporters of Proposition 50 — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former President Barack Obama — have pushed for the new map.
Texas Republicans, encouraged by President Donald Trump, revised their maps in a rare mid-decade redistricting move that could allow Republicans to gain five seats in 2026 — and insulate the GOP from the historic midterm headwinds a president’s party can face.
“We have a chance at least to create a level playing field in the upcoming midterm elections,” Obama said during a recent call with supporters of the campaign to vote “yes”.
Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for Yes on 50, the political committee supported by Newsom, told ABC News that the group has been working with over 230 community organizations on the ground.
National Democrats have largely supported the initiative, hoping it will be the first of other Democratic efforts to push back on Republican-led redistricting in Texas, Missouri, and other states.
But Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California Republican whose district would be reshaped and made significantly more Democratic-leaning, told ABC News partisan gerrymandering is a “plague on democracy,” and has unsuccessfully pushed House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up a bill banning the practice.
“I think it takes power away from voters, undermines the fairness of elections and degrades representative government,” he said.
Spokespeople for two of the political committees opposing Proposition 50, which are supported by megadonor Charles T. Munger Jr. and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, respectively, told ABC News they were focused in the final weeks before the election on reaching persuadable voters and to emphasizing arguments about allowing voters to choose their politicians, not the other way around.
Actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported independent redistricting as governor, has also spoken out against the proposition. He said in September, “If you vote yes on that, you’re going backwards.”
“Prop 50 will have a big impact on the midterms … the U.S. House margin right now is so narrow that every seat in every state could make a difference for which party controls Congress,” Christian Grose, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California, told ABC News.
If the proposition passes, Grose added, a large margin of support could signal to Democratic donors that there’s enthusiasm for the party — and could impact whether other blue or red states decide to redraw their congressional maps as well.
Grose said Democrats are likely more fired up in part because campaigning towards Democratic voters is how to win with ballot propositions in California, Grose said, but also because of what they see as national stakes: “Democrats, maybe nationally, are viewing things as an existential threat; are viewing Trump as an existential threat. So anything that pushes back against Trump, anything that helps Democrats, is resonating.”
(ROME) — A worker who had been trapped for 11 hours in the partial collapse of a medieval tower in the heart of Rome was rescued late Monday, officials said.
The 66-year-old man was the last of several workers saved in the rescue operation that was briefly interrupted by a second collapse of the 95-foot-tall Torre de’ Conti tower, Luca Cari, a spokesperson for the Rome Fire Service, told ABC News.
Cari said the worker was extracted from the rubble and was being taken to a hospital ambulance with a police escort. His condition was not immediately released.
“We have achieved an exceptional feat: the injured man has been extracted, brought to ground level, and is already in the ambulance. We can give the exceptional news that he is alive,” Cari said.
Before being saved, the trapped worker was conscious and communicating with search-and-rescue crews, Cari said. About 140 firefighters responded to the scene, some digging with their bare hands to free the worker.
Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri told reporters on Monday evening, just before the last rescue was made, that doctors had reached the worker and supplied him with oxygen.
No firefighters were injured in the incident, officials said.
The tower is in the historic part of central Rome near the Roman Forum and the Colosseum.
Cari said the emergency unfolded around 11 a.m. local time. At the time of the first collapse, 11 workers from two companies were working on the tower.
“It all happened suddenly,” one of the workers told Italy’s ANSA news agency. “Then I only saw the cloud of dust and the rescuers.”
Cari said the second partial collapse occurred about an hour after the first, while firefighters were attempting to rescue the workers.
At least three other workers were pulled from the rubble, two of them unharmed, officials said. One rescued worker, a 64-year-old man, was taken to a hospital with a head injury, officials said.
At least 31 workers rescued after tunnel collapse in Los Angeles: LAFD The cause of the collapse remains under investigation.
The tower has been closed to the public since 2007, but recently received a large grant from Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan for the renovation, officials said.
The Torre dei Conti tower, which dates back to the 13th century, was built by Pope Innocent III as a residence for his family.
(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is mandating that personnel can no longer engage lawmakers or their staff about most major issues confronting the U.S. military without prior approval — a list that includes recent military strikes in the Caribbean, how the Pentagon buys weapons, and the construction of a U.S. missile shield.
It’s a major shift on how the military interacts with Congress. Congressional staff say they are concerned that Hegseth’s clampdown will hamstring lawmakers’ ability to get even routine information as it oversees the Pentagon’s $1 trillion budget and cobbles together an annual defense policy bill .
Under Hegseth’s new mandate, staff from the various military services and agencies were told they must coordinate first with Hegseth’s central legislative office. Staffers say they worry the result will be that information needed by Congress will wind up bottlenecked, waiting for aides to Hegseth to approve.
The list of restricted topics, reviewed by ABC News, includes acquisition reform, spectrum, critical munitions, budget and reconciliation spending plans, critical minerals, foreign military sales, attempted lethal force on military installations and the national defense strategy. CNN first reported the list on Sunday.
In a post on X, Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon called it an “amateur move.”
“I was a five-time commander & our leadership WANTED us to engage members of Congress,” he said. “We wanted to share what our great airmen were doing. We were proud of our service. The new rules have put a large barrier between the military & Congress. Pentagon says the change is very small. But I already see the impact with military members being afraid to communicate. This is another amateur move.”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told CNN, “the Department intends to improve accuracy and responsiveness in communicating with the Congress to facilitate increased transparency. This review is for processes internal to the Department and does not change how or from whom Congress receives information.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Jake Haro, the father of missing 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to the baby’s murder.
He was also sentenced to over six years in prison for other offenses, to run consecutively.
He is ineligible for probation because he was already on probation for severely abusing another child, the judge said while handing down the sentence on Monday.
His sentence also included more than $20,000 in fines and court fees.
Prior to the sentencing, the defense objected to imposing any court fees or fines, saying Jake Haro is indigent and a public defender client.
In response, the prosecutor said the defendant “deserves no leniency.”
Last month, the 32-year-old father pleaded guilty to all charges, including second-degree murder, assault causing bodily harm to a child resulting in the death of said child and filing a false police report, according to court records.
The father, who previously pleaded not guilty with his wife Rebecca Haro in September, cried in court when he was giving his plea on Oct. 16.
Emmanuel’s mother, 41-year-old Rebecca Haro, pleaded not guilty to an amended complaint in October, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Monday. It remains unclear what is in the complaint, according to Los Angeles ABC station KABC.
The baby’s maternal grandmother, Mary Beushausen, addressed the court during Jake Haro’s sentencing on Monday.
“He destroyed my family,” she told the court. “Everybody in my family, all my children are destroyed by this.”
“He changed my daughter. We don’t know who she is,” she continued. “He kept my daughter away. I don’t know what he did or how he changed my daughter’s life, but she was never that same person after she went to live with him.”
She asked for a lengthy sentence, saying, “I don’t want to give him another chance.”
Officials have not announced whether they have located the baby’s remains.
The 7-month-old was reported missing on Aug. 14 at approximately 7:47 p.m. local time after his mother “reported being attacked outside a retail store on Yucaipa Boulevard,” the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Aug. 15.
When he was reported missing, Emmanuel’s mother told officials that “while she stood outside her vehicle, changing the child’s diaper, she was physically assaulted by an unknown male and rendered unconscious,” authorities said.
Authorities later said the mother was “confronted with inconsistencies in her initial statement,” leading officials to say they were “unable to rule out foul play in the disappearance of Emmanuel.”
Jake and Rebecca Haro were arrested and charged for the child’s murder on Aug. 22, officials said.
In August, officials announced they had a “pretty strong indication” on the location of the child’s remains and said they believed Emmanuel was “severely abused over a period of time.”
Jake Haro was even seen searching a field near the 60 freeway in Moreno Valley in late August with law enforcement, but no remains were apparently found.
“The filing in this case reflects our belief that baby Emmanuel was abused over time and that eventually because of that abuse, he succumbed to those injuries,” Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin said during a press conference in August.
Hestrin said Jake Haro, who he described as an “experienced child abuser,” “should have gone to prison” due to previously abusing another child he had with his ex-wife in 2018, but a judge at the time granted him probation — a ruling Hestrin called an “outrageous error in judgment.” Authorities said the child in that case has been left bedridden.
“If that judge had done his job as he should have done, Emmanuel would be alive today,” Hestrin said in August.
(WASHINGTON) — Back in April, President Donald Trump made his decadeslong view on tariffs the official policy of the United States by imposing sweeping levies on virtually all global trade partners.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether those tariffs are lawful and allowed to stand.
Trump is calling it the “most important” case before the court in its history.
As Supreme Court returns, major tests ahead for Trump’s presidential power In a sign of his personal stake in the issue, Trump had talked about going to watch the arguments himself, which would have likely made him the first sitting U.S. president to do so. But he reversed course on Sunday, saying he didn’t want to cause a distraction by attending.
“No, I don’t think so, because I don’t want to call a lot of attention to me. It’s not about me, it’s about our country,” he said.
“I wanted to go so badly, I just don’t want to do anything to deflect the importance of that decision,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a weekend in Florida.
The president has painted the outcome as existential to the country’s future.
“Everybody uses tariffs on us. If I wasn’t allowed to use tariffs on them, we would be a third rate — we would be a third world nation,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday.
Trump’s yearslong push for tariffs turned reality
When Trump unveiled his tariffs on April 2, a date he dubbed “Liberation Day” for the U.S., he described them as retribution for a grievance he’s held since the 1980s when he was a Manhattan real estate developer.
“I’ve been talking about it for 40 years because I saw what was happening 40 years ago,” Trump said.
“I’d be on a television show, I’d be talking about how we were being ripped off by these countries. I mean, nothing changes very much. The only thing that changed were the countries, but nothing really changes. It’s why it’s such an honor to be finally able to do this,” Trump added.
Trump that day declared trade deficits a national emergency as he hit nearly every country with a baseline 10% tariff rate and tougher, so-called “reciprocal” rates on countries he deemed as the worst trade offenders.
Since then, the administration says it has raked in billions of dollars in revenue and Trump has touted various deals with the United Kingdom, European Union, Japan, South Korea and most recently China.
But the tariff rollout led to economic uncertainty and concerns of price increases for American businesses and consumers. One recent estimate from the Yale Budget Lab said tariffs will cost U.S. households $1,700 per year.
A new poll from ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos found more than 6 in 10 American disapprove of how Trump is handling tariffs and the economy overall.
Tariffs central to economic agenda, but Trump uses them for more
Trump said on “60 Minutes” that he believed the U.S. economy would “go to hell” if the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs, now the cornerstone of his entire economic agenda.
But he has used tariffs for leverage not just in trade negotiations but in a number of foreign policy matters.
Trump said the threat of tariffs helped him bring an end to international conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan and more. He’s used them to pressure Mexico and China into pledging more action to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs. Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil over the country’s prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, a hard-line conservative who was convicted of trying to overthrow democracy.
Most Americans say country is on the wrong track, blame Trump for inflation: Poll Trump relied on the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his tariffs, sidestepping Congress in the process. Trump on Sunday, during his “60 Minutes” interview, bemoaned it would take Congress too long to act if he didn’t have the power to impose tariffs himself.
“You want that power. You want that executive power,” CBS’s Norah O’Donnell asked Trump.
“You need it to ru– to protect our country. This is a national secure — tariffs are national security,” Trump said.
It’s the biggest– I think it’s one of the biggest decisions in the history of the Supreme Court,” he said.
(RICHMOND, Va.) — The Republican candidate has a familiar closing message in the Virginia gubernatorial race.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign spent millions of dollars on ads attacking Democratic nominee and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger for her stance on transgender rights in Virginia schools.
One ad claims Spanberger supports “men in girls’ locker rooms,” and closes with the notion that “Abigail Spanberger is for they/them, not us” — a direct echo of an ad the Trump campaign used against Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
The 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4. The incumbent Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, assumed office in 2022 and is ineligible to run for re-election.
The debate over trans rights also played a role in Youngkin’s 2021 campaign. Youngkin has rolled back accommodations for trans students and increased parental notification requirements during his time in office.
Nicole Neily, president and founder of the nonprofit Defending Education, said that the focus on this issue in Virginia began with Youngkin’s race, which he won by championing parental rights in Virginia schools.
Virginia GOP governor candidate called Trump a ‘liability’ ahead of 2024 “This is an issue that has been on the radar of parents across Virginia,” Neily told ABC News. However, she added that in this particular race, she “can’t see this flipping the election by any stretch.”
Throughout the race, Earle-Sears has continued the Youngkin administration’s focus on the issue, she told ABC News in a statement.
“We see it’s about $30 million worth of attack ads against me related to trans youth,” the Democrat told Katie Couric in an interview last week. “There’s a real effort to engage in some level of fearmongering.”
Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
“I do find it really objectionable that there would be kids who turn on the television and as in an effort to attack me, see images of themselves sort of reflected as a villain,” Spanberger added. “I really do believe that a lot of these choices, whether it’s sports participation or bathroom usage, needs to be made at the very local level with parents and teachers and administrators and not necessarily dictated — certainly not by the federal government — or the state government.”
In a recent ad her campaign released that appeared to be in response to the Earle-Sears team’s ones, Spanberger spoke to this directly.
“I believe we need to get politics out of our schools and trust parents and local communities,” she said.
Spanberger has maintained her lead against Earle-Sears, as Virginians cite issues like inflation and threats to democracy as some of their biggest concerns in the election, according to a recent poll from Christopher Newport University.
Furthermore, Virginia is home to over 300,000 federal workers, who have likely been affected by the actions taken by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and the current government shutdown.
Virginia-based Republican strategist Tucker Martin believes that beyond Earle-Sears’ closing strategy, the current political environment in Virginia meant that her campaign for governor was “uphill from the start.”
“Any Republican who is going to be the Republican nominee for governor in this cycle — with Trump back in the White House in a state that he’s lost three straight times by significant margins — was going to be in big trouble,” Martin told ABC News.
Could the federal layoffs impact the Virginia governor race? Martin doesn’t think Earle-Sears’ focus on trans rights has resonated “at all” among voters.
“Transgender issues just aren’t top of mind for Virginians right now,” he said.
“What works well in Florida or Wisconsin may not work well in Virginia or New Jersey,” Martin added, invoking another hotly contested gubernatorial race this year. However, Martin said that it could prove to be a “powerful issue” in “competitive congressional races.”
With the 2026 midterms fast-approaching, and Republicans seeking to maintain their control of both chambers of Congress and Democrats hoping to flip some seats, the political salience of culture war debates like this one is something that both parties will be paying attention to.
“Republicans have given in to the most extreme fringes of their party by abandoning pocketbook issues in favor of an anti-freedom agenda that is obsessed with letting politicians make decisions that should be left to parents and doctors,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton told ABC News in a statement.
“Rather than getting involved in personal matters, House Republicans should perhaps spend their time expanding the middle class, lowering costs, and protecting freedoms,” Shelton’s statement continued. “That’s certainly what House Democrats are focused on — and it’s why we’ll win in 2026.”
Spanberger has been able to avoid addressing the debate head-on in this race, often pointing to her experience investigating child predators as a federal law enforcement officer and her belief that such decisions should be left up to local communities.
According to Martin, this question is something that Democrats like Spanberger will need to shore up their stances on in upcoming elections in other states or districts.
“I wouldn’t say the Spanberger campaign has handled it well, but what they have going for them is it’s just not an issue in Virginia that voters are particularly concerned about,” Martin said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has committed to partially funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program with a $4.65 billion payment — but using emergency funds to pay for reduced SNAP benefits could take “a few weeks to up to several months,” a top USDA official told a federal judge in a sworn court filing Monday.
The disclosure comes after a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay for SNAP amid an ongoing government shutdown by Wednesday. Following the court order on Friday, Trump said it would be his “honor” to fund the food assistance program.
In addition to the delay, the Trump administration also said it was $4 billion short of the expected $8 billion cost to fund SNAP for the month of November, in part because they are declining to tap an additional bucket of emergency funds held by the USDA.
Trump says he has asked court to ‘clarify’ SNAP ruling with funding set to lapse “Defendants have worked diligently to comply with the Court’s order on the short timeline provided by the Court and during a government shutdown,” DOJ lawyers wrote in a filing on Monday.
“I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible,” Trump posted on social media late Friday. “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding.”
The $4.65 billion in funding will cover half of the households relying on the food assistance program, according to a declaration from Patrick Penn, Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services.
That payment will completely expend SNAP’s contingency funding, according to Penn.
“This means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely,” he said.
While the Trump administration could use additional funds from tariff revenue, known as Section 32, Penn said the government declined to do so to save the money for child nutrition programs.
“Amid this no-win quandary and upon further consideration following the Courts’ orders, USDA has determined that creating a shortfall in Child Nutrition Program funds to fund one month of SNAP benefits is an unacceptable risk, even considering the procedural difficulties with delivering a partial November SNAP payment, because shifting $4 billion dollars to America’s SNAP population merely shifts the problem to millions of America’s low income children that receive their meals at school,” Penn said.
Beyond the budget shortfall, Penn warned that distributing the reduced benefits could take weeks or months because of “procedural difficulties.”
“There are procedural difficulties that States will likely experience which would affect November SNAP benefits reaching households in a timely manner and in the correctly reduced amounts,” he wrote. “There are procedural difficulties that States will likely experience which would affect November SNAP benefits reaching households in a timely manner and in the correctly reduced amounts.”
U.S. National Guard in Washington D.C. (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — A federal judge on Sunday extended her order blocking President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Portland, continuing the legal battle over the president’s power to use the military on American cities.
Following a three-day trial last week, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the deployment of troops from any state’s National Guard into Portland through at least Friday.
Judge Immergut concluded that the attempt to send troops into Portland stemmed from exaggerated claims of violence in the city, where isolated protests were already contained by federal and local law enforcement.
“Based on the trial testimony, this Court finds no credible evidence that during the approximately two months before the President’s federalization order, protests grew out of control or involved more than isolated and sporadic instances of violent conduct that resulted in no serious injuries to federal personnel,” she wrote.
Judge Immergut also concluded that the Trump administration likely violated a federal law that allows the takeover of the National Guard in the case of rebellion or invasion, as well as infringed on the state sovereignty of Oregon. The protests in Oregon, Immergut wrote, at most resulted in “sporadic isolated instances of violent behavior toward federal officers and property damage to a single building” and fell short of the standard definition of a “rebellion.”
“Defendants have not, however, proffered any evidence demonstrating that those episodes of violence were perpetrated by an organized group engaged in armed hostilities for the purpose of overtaking an instrumentality of government by unlawful or antidemocratic means,” she wrote.
The trial and decision follow a prolonged legal battle over the use of the National Guard in Portland. After Judge Immergut last month blocked the use of the Oregon National Guard, the Trump administration moved to send in troops from Texas and California.
She similarly blocked those troops from being sent into the city, and the Trump administration then appealed her order.
The Ninth Circuit briefly lifted her decision but agreed to rehear the case en banc, — when the entire court hears the case, rather than just a panel — thereby restoring the block on the deployment.
With both Immergut’s previously issued orders set to expire on Sunday, she issued a preliminary injunction tonight that will expire on Friday, at which time she plans to issue a complete ruling based on the testimony and evidence presented at trial.
