Handout photo by Arda Kucukkaya/Turkish Foreign Ministry via Getty Images
(LONDON) — The meeting between the U.S. delegation headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ukraine and Russia are set to take place in Turkey on Friday following a day of confusion on Thursday.
Notably absent from the talks, however, are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is in Albania, and Russian President Putin, who is in Moscow, as delegates from the United States, Ukraine and Turkey meet.
President Trump said this Friday morning in Abu Dhabi that he wants to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “as soon as we can set it up” to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine
“We’re going to do it,” Trump said. “I actually think it’s time for us to do it,” he said.
Trump suggested that “in two or three weeks” the world could be “a much, much safer place.”
“I will tell you that the world is a much safer place right now, and I think in two or three weeks we could have it be a much, much safer place,” Trump said. “We’re going to handle a couple of situations that you have here with some very serious situations. and we’re looking at Gaza, and we’ve got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”
A Ukrainian diplomatic source in Istanbul has told ABC News that “we value President Trump’s genuine effort to end the war and stop the killing. Ukraine itself is the country that wants peace more than anyone else.”
“We’re going to get it done,” Trump said of Ukraine negotiations. “Five thousand young people are being killed every single week on average, and we’re going to get it done.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
Salman Rushdie attends the 75th National Book Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on November 20, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A New Jersey man convicted of attempted murder in the 2022 stabbing attack on author Salman Rushdie, while on stage at a speaking event, is set to be sentenced on Friday.
Hadi Matar likely faces a maximum of 25 years in prison, prosecutors said. He rejected a plea deal ahead of the trial.
His sentencing hearing is set to be held Friday morning in Chautauqua County Court, during which a defense motion to set aside the verdict will also be heard, the court said.
In February, a jury found Matar guilty of second-degree attempted murder in connection with the attack at the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York.
Rushdie was on stage speaking before an audience at the education center on Aug. 12, 2022, when he was stabbed multiple times in the face and neck in the attack, which blinded him in one eye.
Henry Reese, who was moderating the event, was also wounded in the attack. Matar was also found guilty of assault for injuring Reese.
Matar was tackled by bystanders and pinned to the stage following the attack.
The jury reached a verdict within two hours of deliberating.
During the trial, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt played slow-motion video showing Matar emerging from the audience, sprinting toward Rushdie, and launching a violent attack. Schmidt described the stabbing as a deliberate, targeted act, arguing that striking someone 10 to 15 times in the face and neck made death a foreseeable outcome. A trauma surgeon testified that Rushdie would have died without immediate medical intervention.
“No question,” Rushdie told Good Morning America in April 2024 when asked if he thought he was going to die. “I mean, lying there in this lake of blood, which was mine and was expanding, I remember thinking in a completely calm way, Oh yeah, I think I’m dying. And then, fortunately, I was wrong.”
The defense countered that prosecutors failed to prove Matar intended to kill Rushdie and characterized the incident as a chaotic, noisy outburst rather than a calculated murder attempt. Public defender Nathaniel Barone argued Matar was overcharged due to Rushdie’s celebrity, noting he used knives rather than a gun or bomb and that Rushdie’s vital organs were not harmed.
Following the verdict, Schmidt described the prosecution’s case as “lock solid” and described the video evidence as “compelling.”
“I hope that two-and-a-half years later, Mr. Rushdie can get some satisfaction from this, poor Mr. Reese can get some satisfaction from this and everybody else that was there at the institution that risked their lives to jump on stage,” Schmidt told reporters.
Barone, meanwhile, told reporters they were “disappointed” by the verdict.
“What you hope for in any case, regardless, especially in a case like Mr. Matar’s, is that the system works for you,” Barone said.
Both Rushdie and Reese testified during the two-week trial. Matar did not testify and the defense called no witnesses.
The second-degree attempted murder charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, while the assault charge is seven years. Schmidt said following the verdict that he believed the sentences for the two charges would run concurrently, not consecutively, as they were “entwined in a single occurrence.”
“My analysis tells me that — and I always want to be fair here — that really the facts speak to a concurrent disposition,” he said at the time. “I believe even though the cumulative total is 32 years plus five years parole supervision, I think we’re really looking at 25 plus five. That’s what I’ll advocate for. I think that’s appropriate here.”
Matar still faces federal terrorism charges in connection with the attack. He was indicted by a grand jury on three counts, including attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and providing material support to terrorists. The indictment alleges he “knowingly did attempt to provide material support and resources” to Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and “had engaged, and was engaging, in terrorism.”
Matar was also charged with an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries for the attack against Rushdie. The indictment alleges that he “did knowingly attempt to kill, and did knowingly maim, commit an assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and assault with a dangerous weapon.”
(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge overseeing the case of wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia is set to hear arguments Friday over the Trump administration’s recent invocation of the state secrets privilege to shield information about its handling of the matter.
The government’s assertion of privilege was revealed in a court order last week from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in which the judge asked the parties to file briefs about the administration’s “invocations of privilege, principally the state secrets and deliberative process privileges.”
In the brief filed on Monday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys pushed back on the government’s invocation of the rarely used states secret privilege, saying that the government has produced no evidence “showing that it has made the slightest effort to facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from detention in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13. His wife and attorneys deny that he is an MS-13 member.
Judge Xinis ruled last month that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that ruling, “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
Following the government’s inaction, Judge Xinis ordered several government officials to testify under oath through expedited discovery in order to resolve the matter.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argued in Monday’s court filing that the Trump administration “does not come close to making a showing that would disturb the common sense conclusion that there are no genuine state secrets at play here,” saying the administration’s public statements — including in congressional testimony, public interviews and social media posts — demonstrate that “answering the requested discovery would not imperil national security.”
Attorneys for the Department of Justice argued in their own brief that the discovery requests by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys “would damage United States’ foreign relations.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a sealed declaration submitted to the court, affirmed “after actual personal consideration” that “disclosure of such materials reasonably could be expected to cause significant harm to the foreign relation[s] and national security interests of the United States,” DOJ attorneys said.
The Trump administration previously invoked the state secrets privilege in a separate case in March when the government refused to provide a federal judge with information about deportation flights to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
(NEW JERSEY) — New Jersey Transit train engineers have officially commenced their strike, shutting down commuter trains and leaving hundreds of thousands of commuters scrambling to find other modes of transportation.
Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) union had been threatening to go on strike unless NJ Transit officials and the union were able to agree on new contract terms and conditions for the workers who drive the trains.
A deal was close but not reached, according to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, resulting in all New Jersey Transit commuter trains and the MTA Metro-North West of Hudson service to stop running when the strike began at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.
On Thursday, both sides met again for 11th-hour negotiations to avert the strike, in addition to a meeting in Washington, D.C. Monday with the National Mediation Board, but no resolution was reached.
During a press conference late Thursday evening, Murphy and NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri encouraged commuters to work from home on Friday.
“If you can work from home, certainly tomorrow, and you’re out there watching that would be a really good day to do so,” Murphy said.
Kolluri said Thursday evening there was an imminently achievable deal and negotiations weren’t a “lost cause.” They are expected to resume negotiations on Sunday morning, according to Kolluri.
After a New Jersey Transit board meeting on Wednesday, Kolluri told reporters he was “confident and optimistic” about their efforts to avert a strike.
“I am going to stay at the negotiating table as long as it takes,” Kolluri said. “If it takes two to tango, I think if we can all focus on the task at hand, which is to get a fair and affordable agreement, I think we can avert a strike.”
BLET National President Mark Wallace said during a press conference on May 9 that it’s been five years since train engineers working for NJ Transit have received a pay increase.
“Reasonable people would vote for an agreement that is fair,” Wallace said.
Tom Haas, the general chairman for BLET, said during the same news conference that engineers working for NJ Transit earn an average salary of $113,000 a year. If New Jersey Transit CEO Kris Kolluri agrees to an average salary of $170,000 a year for engineer operators, then “we got a deal,” Haas said.
“NJ TRANSIT locomotive engineers already have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000,” according to a statement on the New Jersey Transit website regarding negotiations with the BLET.
During a separate press conference on May 9, Kolluri responded to the union’s arguments, saying Haas previously agreed to a wage increase to $49.82 an hour but then later demanded even higher wages because he thought there was a “better pot at the end of the rainbow.”
“I cannot keep giving money left and right to solve a problem. It all comes down to, who is going to pay for this? Money does not grow on trees,” Kolluri said.
ABC News requests sent to NJ Transit and the BLET for comment regarding Wallace, Haas and Kolluri’s statements concerning pay increase claims did not receive a response.
NJ Transit states that if they were to accept BLET’s terms, it would cost both them and New Jersey taxpayers $1.363 billion between July 2025 and June 2030. Additionally, if BLET chooses to strike, the taxpayer cost of providing a limited alternative service via buses would be $4 million per day, NJ Transit claims.
NJ Transit officials have said the strike would “disrupt the lives of more than 350,000 commuters” and developed a contingency plan that includes adding “very limited capacity to existing New York commuter bus routes in close proximity to rail stations and contracting with private carriers to operate bus service” for commuters that typically rely on the trains.
But even with the expanded bus service, NJ Transit said that it “estimates that it can only carry approximately 20% of current rail customers” because the bus system doesn’t have the capacity to replace commuter rail service.
Xuan Sharon Di, associate professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University, told ABC News before the strike began that it could be a “disaster” for the traffic in Manhattan due to the increased bus and car traffic into the city from commuters unable to take the train. There also will be the added penalty of commuters into Manhattan having to pay recently enacted congestion pricing.
“New Jersey Transit is the backbone for people who live in New Jersey to move around. This is actually shocking to me,” Di told ABC News of the prospect of a strike.
Steven Chien, civil and environmental engineering professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said many of his colleagues use NJ Transit to commute and that a strike will “paralyze vital transportation arteries in our regions.”
(WASHINGTON) — A mega-bill encompassing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda appears to be in jeopardy as several Republican hardliners on Thursday signaled their opposition to advancing the package out of the House Budget Committee later this week.
“I am voting no,” Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said Thursday afternoon, citing concerns about the bill adding to a bloated national debt.
With Republican Rep. Brandon Gill expected to be absent, the GOP can only afford to lose one vote in the House Budget Committee to advance the bill. The committee is slated to convene Friday morning.
Norman, who has had his arm twisted to fall in line on more than one occasion, said fellow Republican Rep. Chip Roy plans to vote no and “thinks” Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia will vote against advancing the bill as well. Oklahoma Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen, a member of the House Budget Committee, appeared skeptical about the bill moving forward.
“We have a duty to know the true cost of this legislation before advancing it. If we are to operate in truth, we must have true numbers — even if that means taking some more time to obtain that truth,” he said on X, echoing similar concerns raised by Roy.
Republicans will “go back to work” if the bill fails out of committee Friday, Norman said.
Should the bill make it out of committee, Speaker Mike Johnson still faces a tough road ahead as the Republican majority can withstand three no votes from within their ranks before losing sufficient support for passage. The effort to pass the Trump-backed bill is another crucial test of Johnson’s speakership as he works to unify his divided conference.
Earlier Thursday, Johnson held a high-stakes meeting to hash out the remaining sticking points related to Medicaid and tax reform — key components of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — that have so far prevented leadership from locking down sufficient support for the bill’s passage.
Johnson told reporters after the meeting that Republicans had “a very thoughtful discussion,” adding that he plans to work through the weekend to come to what’s been an elusive consensus on the SALT caps — the amount of state and local taxes that can be written off on federal tax returns — as moderates draw a red line opposing the proposed $30,000 cap on those deductions.
“I think everyone would agree that it was productive and that we are moving the ball forward,” Johnson said, adding he is striving “to meet the equilibrium point that everyone can be satisfied with.”
On Thursday morning, House Republicans formally unveiled the text of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — a 1,116-page mega-bill.
Johnson said earlier that he’s not budging on the Memorial Day target to dispatch the mega-bill from the House.
Johnson claimed Republicans are aiming to pass the package in a “deficit-neutral way” when pressed if the package will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.
“If you do more on SALT, you have to find more in savings,” he said.
(DADE CITY, Fla) — Florida became the second state in the country after Utah to ban local governments from adding fluoride to their public water systems.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill at Simpson Lakes in Dade City — about 38 miles northeast of Tampa — on Thursday. The law is set to go into effect on July 1.
“We certainly now, in our society in 2025, we have the ability to deliver fluoride through toothpaste and all these other things,” DeSantis said at an event for the signing of the bill. “You don’t gotta force it and take away people’s choices. But the whole crux of the issue is you should be able to make decisions on the basis of informed consent.”
“Forcing this in the water supply is trying to take that away from people who may want to make a different decision rather than to have this in water,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis said the state has received praise from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been critical of fluoride.
Local communities in Florida had moved to stop adding fluoride to the public water supply prior to the statewide bill, with Miami-Dade County commissioners voting in favor 8-2 last month to ban fluoride.
Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez, who sponsored the legislation, referred to fluoride as a “neurotoxin” and said that studies show it “should not be in the water.”
Fluoride is a mineral that naturally occurs in water sources such as lakes and rivers, and is even naturally present in some foods and beverages, according to the American Dental Association(ADA).
It is added to some dental products, such as toothpaste, to help prevent cavities.
High-quality studies show fluoride prevents cavities and repairs damage to teeth caused by bacteria in the mouth. Fluoride makes tooth enamel stronger and rebuilds weakened tooth enamel, the ADA says.
Fluoride also replaces minerals lost from teeth due to acid breakdown, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, influential skeptics such as Kennedy have long raised doubts about the benefits of fluoride.
Kennedy has claimed that fluoride in drinking water affects children’s neurological development and that other countries that have removed fluoride from their water supplies have not seen an increase in cavities.
Last month, during a press conference in Utah, Kennedy said he plans to assemble a task force and change guidance from the CDC to stop recommending adding fluoride to drinking water.
Additionally, this week, the FDA announced it is taking action to remove concentrated ingestible fluoride prescription drug products for children from the market. This does not include toothpaste with fluoride or fluoride rinses.
A large review paper published in January 2025 suggested a link between fluoride and lower IQ in children, but much of the underlying data was pulled from other countries, where fluoride exposure is far higher than levels used in drinking water in the U.S.
Some health professionals have also expressed concerns about excessive fluoride intake and potential toxicity.
Many doctors and dental associations, however, argue that fluoride in water is still a crucial, low-risk/high-reward public health tool, especially for disadvantaged children and adults who may not be able to practice regular dental hygiene.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) — A 68-year-old woman has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a man at a senior living facility in Jacksonville, Florida.
Carol Carroll was arrested on suspicion of murder after sheriff’s deputies responded to Morris Manor Apartments and found 73-year-old Robert Tucker with multiple stab wounds to his torso in the lobby of the facility on Tuesday, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue informed officers that Tucker had died at the scene, according to an arrest report.
Officers noticed a trail of blood from Tucker leading to a specific unit on the property, including multiple spots of blood in the hallway, a pool of blood inside an elevator and more blood on the second flood of the building, according to the report.
After obtaining a master key from the property, Carroll exited the bedroom and was detained by officers, according to the report.
After police spoke to Carroll and reviewed evidence at the scene she was arrested for Tucker’s murder.
Carroll and Tucker knew each other prior to the stabbing, according to police.
A security guard on the property told investigators they had gone to conduct rounds on the property. When he returned to the front security desk in the lobby, he found the victim lying on the floor bleeding, according to the report.
The security guard told officers that he did not recognize the victim, according to records.
While searching the apartment, investigators found a small rag with blood on it, blood on the living room floor and bedroom floor. A knife with blood on it was found in a brown purse inside the bedroom, according to the arrest report.
Investigators notified Tucker’s sons of his death. They told investigators that Tucker came down to Jacksonville in February to be closer to his children and grandchildren, after being released from the hospital following an illness, according to the arrest report.
Tucker had been residing with Carroll at her apartment apart from staying with a son for two days, the report said.
Tucker’s sons told investigators that they did not know Tucker or Carroll to be violent and were not aware of any domestic violence issues between them. But, they told investigators that Carroll is bipolar/schizophrenic, according to the report.
Investigators did not find any obvious signs of injury on Carroll during two interviews with her, but photographs were taken of Carroll in areas where she told police she had been struck, the report said.
Carroll is being held in a pretrial detention facility and will be facing a murder charge, according to the sheriff’s office.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday heard oral arguments over President Donald Trump’s emergency request to roll back nationwide injunctions blocking his executive order to end birthright citizenship.
The rare May sitting of the court sets the stage for a decision by this summer on whether Trump can move forward with plans to limit U.S. citizenship only to children born on American soil to lawful permanent residents.
The case is also expected to address the legality of individual district court judges single-handedly blocking a presidential policy nationwide. Trump is seeking to dissolve judicial orders preventing mass federal layoffs, funding freezes, and expedited deportation protocols.
For more than a century, courts and the government have interpreted the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause to apply to anyone born in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship status of a child’s parents.
The Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer kicked off the first Supreme Court oral argument over Trump’s second-term policies by arguing that the ability of one district judge to issue a nationwide order creates a fundamentally unfair legal playing field for the government.
“Our primary contention is that the citizenship clause related to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens who weren’t even present as a discrete class at that time,” he told the justices.
Sauer said that national injunctions force district judges to rush their “high stakes, low information decisions,” encourage forum shopping, and prevent the “percolation of novel and difficult legal questions.”
“They operate asymmetrically, forcing the government to win everywhere, while the plaintiffs can win anywhere,” said Sauer, who last year argued on behalf of Trump in a personal capacity to push for presidential immunity.
His claim was immediately met with skepticism from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who suggested that such a theory would not only limit the ability of the district court but also the Supreme Court from issuing nationwide relief.
“That makes no sense whatsoever,” she said before making an analogy to when the balance of power shifts in Washington.
“When a new president orders that because there’s so much gun violence going on in the country, and he comes in and he says, ‘I have the right to take away the guns from everyone,’ and he sends out the military to seize everyone’s guns. We and the courts have to sit back and wait until every name plaintiff gets or every plaintiff whose gun is taken comes into court?” she asked.
On the issue of the legality of Trump’s executive order to limit U.S. citizenship only to children born on American soil to lawful permanent residents, Sotomayor was clear on where she stood. The order, she said, was unlawful.
“As far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents, and you are claiming that…both the Supreme Court and no lower court can stop an executive from universally violating those holdings by this court,” Sotomayor said.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order unilaterally declaring that only newborns whose parents have permanent legal status are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and therefore eligible to be citizens.
“This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained during a February briefing.
Three different sets of plaintiffs sued to block the order, including a group of 22 states, immigrant advocacy groups, and pregnant women whose soon-to-be-born children would be affected.
“Birthright citizenship is at the core of our Nation’s foundational precept that all people born on our soil are created equal, regardless of their parentage,” attorneys for the immigrant advocates wrote in legal briefs.
An estimated 150,000 children are born each year in the U.S. to parents who are not legal permanent residents, according to government data.
“Instead of the right to full participation and belonging in their home country — the United States — these children will be forced to live in the shadow,” the states warned in court filings, “under the constant risk of deportation while the appeals run their course.”
Federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state — and three federal appeals court panels — have issued nationwide injunctions keeping the Trump policy on hold during litigation, concluding that it very likely violates the Constitution and high court precedent.
“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the case presented is as clear as it is here,” said Judge John Coughenour of the Western District of Washington during a January hearing in the case. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
In 1898, the Supreme Court directly addressed the question of citizenship for children born to non-citizens on U.S. soil, ruling in the landmark case U.S. v Wong Kim Ark that they are Americans under the law.
“The [14th] Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States,” wrote Justice Horace Gray for the 6-2 majority. “Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.”
The issue arrives back at the high court in an unusual posture.
Neither side has briefed the justices on the constitutionality of the executive order. Instead, the primary dispute is over the scope of injunctions issued by individual district court judges.
“It focuses only on whether it is appropriate for courts to issue nationwide injunctions against the President’s egregiously unconstitutional executive order, as opposed to remedies limited to people directly involved in the litigation or those living in states that have sued the government,” said Ilya Somin, a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.
The Trump administration has complained that judges should only be allowed to block a contested policy insofar as it impacts the actual plaintiffs who brought the case — not block it universally.
“Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” acting solicitor general Sarah Harris wrote in the government’s application to the court.
Many of the administration’s high-profile attempts to reshape the federal government, sharply curtail federal spending, transform immigration policy, and limit protections for LGBTQ people have been blocked by nationwide injunctions issued by district courts.
Justice Department attorneys from administrations of both political parties have long complained about the overuse of nationwide injunctions and alleged incursion on executive branch power. The court may use this case to articulate parameters for when such sweeping injunctions are warranted and when they are not.
“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” Harris said, calling on the justices to narrow the injunctions applied to the birthright citizenship order.
Immigrant advocates, civil rights organizations, and Democratic state attorneys general have warned that blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship in some places but not others — or, exempting a small group of plaintiffs but not others — would create chaos.
“A situation where Trump’s order is in force for some people, but not others (or, alternatively, in some states but not others), creates obvious confusion and anomalies,” he said, “especially when it comes to a policy (citizenship rules) that is supposed to be uniform throughout the nation.”
Some legal scholars say it may be impossible for the court to address the question of nationwide injunctions without also resolving the underlying dispute over Trump’s attempt to redefine birthright citizenship.
“They’re going to have to address the whole thing,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law scholar and professor at South Texas College of Law. “The only way to avoid the scope of the injunction question is to rule on the merits. I believe they’re going to rule against Trump. He gets maybe one or two votes but not much more than that.”
A decision in the case is expected by early summer.
(MILWAUKEE) — Attorneys for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan are seeking to dismiss her federal indictment on charges alleging she helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, claiming in a new court filing that she is immune from federal prosecution for official acts.
In the filing, Dugan’s attorneys cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in President Donald Trump’s immunity case as support.
A federal grand jury indicted Dugan on Tuesday on charges she concealed a person from arrest and obstructed a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States.
Dugan appeared briefly in court Thursday morning. Her lawyers entered a plea of not guilty to the two federal charges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries, who presided over the arraignment, set a trial date for July 22. The trial will be overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman, and was estimated to take about a week.
The government has not yet filed a response to Dugan’s motion to dismiss the indictment.
“This is no ordinary criminal case, and Dugan is no ordinary criminal defendant,” her attorneys, Rick Resch and Steven Biskupic, wrote in the motion filed Wednesday. “The government’s prosecution of Judge Dugan is virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.”
Dugan was arrested on April 25 at the Milwaukee County Circuit Courthouse after being charged in a criminal complaint. Prosecutors allege she was attempting to help a defendant appearing in her courtroom evade federal agents who were in a public hallway outside her courtroom waiting to arrest him for immigration violations.
“The problems with this prosecution are legion, but most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts. Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset,” her attorneys wrote in the motion. “The prosecution against her is barred. The Court should dismiss the indictment.”
In three instances in the motion, Dugan’s attorneys cite the Supreme Court decision in the Trump immunity case as support for their position that Dugan is immune from prosecution for official acts.
Federal authorities allege that Dugan went into a hallway in the Milwaukee courthouse and directed the agents away from her courtroom, then instructed the defendant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, to leave the courtroom through a non-public entrance, allegedly in an effort to allow him to evade arrest. In a post on social media following her arrest, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse.”
But Dugan’s lawyers contend in their motion that the doorway Flores-Ruiz used to exit the courtroom leads to the same public hallway a few feet away from the doors to Dugan’s courtroom. There, agents involved in the operation spotted him, followed him to an elevator and then arrested him after a short foot chase outside.
“Even if (contrary to what the trial evidence would show) Judge Dugan took the actions the complaint alleges, these plainly were judicial acts for which she has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution,” her lawyers wrote. “Judges are empowered to maintain control over their courtrooms specifically and the courthouse generally.”
Her lawyers also argued that whatever Dugan’s motivations might have been, they are “irrelevant” to the issue of immunity.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan in the wake of her arrest, stating in an order that it found it was “in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties.”
Dugan’s legal team draws from four different firms and is led by Biskupic, a former Wisconsin federal prosecutor appointed by former President George W. Bush.
Another of her lawyers, Dean Strang, will be familiar to viewers of the Netflix docuseries, “Making a Murderer.” Strang was one of the defense attorneys for Steven Avery in a controversial homicide case, who became an unlikely star.
The legal team also includes Paul Clement. A former U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush presidency, Clement has argued before the Supreme Court more than 100 times. His Washington, D.C.-based law firm is listed in a court filing on Wednesday as being part of Dugan’s legal team, but Clement has not yet entered an appearance in the case.
(NEW YORK) — Some 350,000 New Jersey commuters could soon find themselves scrambling for other ways to get to work if contract disagreements between New Jersey Transit and its engineers’ union aren’t resolved, according to transit officials.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) has threatened to strike as early as Friday, May 16 unless NJ Transit and the union are able to agree on new contract terms and conditions for the workers who drive the trains. If no deal is reached, all New Jersey Transit commuter trains – and the MTA Metro-North West of Hudson service – will stop running.
“We have sought nothing more than equal pay for equal work, only to be continuously rebuffed by New Jersey Transit,” BLET General Chairman Tom Haas said during a press conference on May 9. “New Jersey Transit engineers want to keep the trains moving but the simple fact is that trains do not run without engineers.”
BLET National President Mark Wallace said during the press conference that it’s been five years since train engineers working for NJ Transit have received a pay increase. He also said many engineers might seek work at Amtrak or the Long Island Railroad if their contract requirements are not met.
“Reasonable people would vote for an agreement that is fair,” Wallace said.
Haas said during the news conference that engineers working for NJ Transit earn an average salary of $113,000 a year. If New Jersey Transit CEO Kris Kolluri agrees to an average salary of $170,000 a year for engineer operators, then “we got a deal,” Haas said.
“NJ TRANSIT locomotive engineers already have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000,” according to a statement on the New Jersey Transit website regarding negotiations with the BLET.
During a separate press conference the same day, Kolluri responded to the union’s arguments, saying Haas previously agreed to a wage increase to $49.82 an hour but then later demanded even higher wages because he thought there was “a better pot at the end of the rainbow.”
“I cannot keep giving money left and right to solve a problem. It all comes down to, who is going to pay for this? Money does not grow on trees,” Kolluri said.
ABC News requests sent to NJ Transit and the BLET for comment regarding Wallace, Haas and Kolluri’s statements concerning pay increase claims did not receive a response.
According to TV station WABC in New York, both sides will meet again Thursday morning for 11th-hour negotiations to avert the strike.
New Jersey Transit and BLET representatives met Monday with the National Mediation Board in Washington, D.C. to continue negotiations.
“We want to thank the National Mediation Board (NMB) for convening today’s meeting,” NJ Transit said in a statement on their website following the meeting. “We found the discussion to be constructive and look forward to continuing negotiations in good faith. To respect the collective bargaining process, we will not be sharing any additional details publicly at this time.”
There was no public BLET statement following the National Mediation Board meeting, nor did BLET immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.
NJ Transit states that if they were to accept BLET’s terms, it would cost both them and New Jersey taxpayers $1.363 billion between July 2025 and June 2030. Additionally, if BLET chooses to strike, the taxpayer cost of providing a limited alternative service via buses would be $4 million per day, NJ Transit claims.
NJ Transit commuters were already hit with a 15% fare increase on July 1, 2024, with an additional systemwide 3% fare increase scheduled to go into effect July 1 of this year and every subsequent year. NJ Transit said that the increase was necessary in order to cover a budget deficit caused in part by a pandemic-era decrease in ridership, as well as other increased costs, including inflation.
Should the strike commence on May 16, NJ Transit said it “strongly encourages all those who can work from home to do so and limit traveling on the NJ Transit system to essential purposes only.”
NJ Transit officials also said that they’ve developed a contingency plan that includes adding “very limited capacity to existing New York commuter bus routes in close proximity to rail stations and contracting with private carriers to operate bus service” for commuters that typically rely on the trains.
Even with the expanded bus service, however, NJ Transit said that it “estimates that it can only carry approximately 20% of current rail customers” because the bus system doesn’t have the capacity to replace commuter rail service.
Xuan Sharon Di, associate professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University, told ABC News the potential NJ Transit strike would be a “disaster” for the traffic in Manhattan due to the increased bus and car traffic into the city from commuters unable to take the train. There also will be the added penalty of commuters into Manhattan having to pay recently enacted congestion pricing.
“New Jersey Transit is the backbone for people who live in New Jersey to move around. This is actually shocking to me,” Di told ABC News of the prospect of a strike.
Steven Chien, civil and environmental engineering professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said many of his colleagues use NJ Transit to commute and that a strike will “paralyze vital transportation arteries in our regions.”
