DC attorney general sues to end federal National Guard deployment
Members of the National Guard patrol the National Mall in Washington, DC, on September 3, 2025. (Austin DeSisto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb filed a lawsuit on Thursday to end the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to the city, calling it an unlawful “military occupation.”
Nearly 2,300 troops from seven states have been stationed in the district since Aug. 11, a move Schwalb says goes beyond the president’s authority and violates local autonomy under the Home Rule Act.
The lawsuit argues the troops were placed under Defense Department command and later deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service to perform law enforcement, which Schwalb’s office says is “in violation of the foundational prohibition on military involvement in local law.”
By law, the president’s emergency deployment can last only 30 days unless extended by Congress, meaning the surge is set to expire Sept. 10.
Schwalb also alleges the federal government is unlawfully asserting command over state militias without formally bringing them into federal service, which he says is a violation of the Constitution and federal law.
The complaint says the deployments threaten to erode trust between residents and police, inflame tensions and damage the city’s economy — particularly in the restaurant and hospitality industries as, just last month, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington extended summer restaurant week in an effort to draw customers during the surge.
The attorney general’s office further argues that the deployments violate the Home Rule Act by overriding local autonomy and undermining public safety “by inflaming tensions and eroding trust between District residents and law enforcement.”
Still, Gregg Pemberton, the D.C. union chairman said the long-term goal is for the Metropolitan Police Department to resume full responsibility.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s challenge to his “one of a kind” felony hush money conviction in New York should be removed from state appellate courts and heard in federal court, an attorney for the president argued Wednesday.
Just over a year after Trump became the first former president to be found guilty of a felony, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit heard arguments Wednesday on Trump’s efforts to move his appeal of the verdict from state court to federal court.
“The federal officer is entitled to a federal forum, not to have those arguments heard in state court,” attorney Jeffrey Wall told the three-judge panel. “And if that’s true for a normal federal officer in a normal criminal prosecution, it certainly ought to be true for the president of the United States and for what we can all recognize is an anomalous one of its kind prosecution.”
Trump was convicted last year on 34 felony counts after Manhattan prosecutors alleged that he engaged in a “scheme” to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and then falsified New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.
New York Judge Juan Merchan, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, sentenced him to an unconditional discharge — the lightest possible punishment allowed under New York state law — saying it was the “only lawful sentence” to prevent “encroaching upon the highest office in the land.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, an attorney for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Steven Wu, argued that it’s now too late to move the case.
“After sentencing, removal is no longer available,” Wu said during oral arguments.
Wu also argued the purpose of removal is to decide where to hold the trial.
“It is not to divert a state criminal proceeding into a federal court for direct appellate review,” Wu said.
Wall, who served as an acting solicitor general in Trump’s first administration, argued that the time limit to ask for removal to federal court does not apply if Trump can show good cause.
“Why shouldn’t we be looking for some more specific signs that Congress actually intended this?” Judge Susan Carney asked.
“It’s the first-ever prosecution by a district attorney of a president,” Wall responded. “As long as you have colorable federal defenses, and it has something to do with your job, you get to come into federal court notwithstanding the state’s interest.”
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the conduct at issue during his criminal trial included “official acts” undertaken while he was president, and that the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year granting the president immunity for official acts — which was decided after Trump was convicted in May — would have prevented prosecutors from securing their conviction.
“There was evidence that came in at trial that triggered federal immunity,” Wall told the appellate panel.
Wu countered that the evidence offered involved discussion about a crime that related to Trump’s actions before he became president.
“It’s a highly unusual case, would you agree with that?” Judge Raymond Lohier asked.
“This defendant is a very unusual defendant,” Wu conceded — but he argued that should not automatically usurp the state’s interest in enforcing its laws.
The judges did not immediately rule, but said they would take the arguments under advisement.
If the appeals court grants Trump’s request, his conviction would still remain. The only change is that his appeal will play out in a federal, rather than state, courtroom. In either scenario, Trump could ultimately ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
Although Trump has in the past asserted that, as president, he would have the right to pardon himself for federal offenses, Pace University Law School professor Bennett Gershman told ABC News that would not apply in this case.
“It’s still a state crime — you’re now just talking about where the case is litigated,” Gershman said. “I’m not even sure that pardoning yourself is even allowed, but that’s an open question that’s never been addressed.”
(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said the U.S. military bomb strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities had “significantly damaged [Iran’s] nuclear program” and “set it back by years” in a confrontational news conference called to counter an early intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that said Iran’s program had been set back only by months.
Hegseth described news reports about the leaked DIA report as “half-truths” intended “to cause doubt and manipulate” and instead said he would focus on what he called the “bottom line” of Saturday’s strikes involving seven B-2 stealth bombers that dropped 14 massive ordnance penetrators on two of the three Iranian sites.
“President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war” in Iran, Hegseth said.
“Because of decisive military action, President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating – choose your word – obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”
Asked twice during the briefing about enriched uranium that may have been moved from nuclear sites before the attack — a key outstanding question as the intelligence community assesses post-strike realities — Hegseth said the Pentagon was “watching every aspect” and did not say the U.S. believed it was under rubble at the sites.
But he said he hasn’t reviewed any intelligence “that says things were not where they were supposed to be,” whether “moved or otherwise.”
The director general of the UN’s nuclear oversight agency, Rafael Grossi, has said he believes the material was moved from the sites before the attacks.
Hegseth lashed out against news media reporting about the early DIA assessment and said it was a “re-strike report” intended to gauge whether a site would need to be hit again.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, standing next Hegseth, referred questions about damage assessments to the intelligence community.
Hegseth said Caine told him in the White House Situation Room “that the first reports are almost always wrong.”
“They’re almost always incomplete,” he said Caine told him.
The defense secretary appeared to read from the preliminary DIA assessment that he said “admits itself, in writing, that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make” the assessment it made.
That assessment was made with “low confidence,” according to Hegseth, and was not coordinated with the broader intelligence community.
Hegseth said the DIA report was based on a “linchpin assumption,” which, he said, means “your entire premise is predicated on a linchpin” and “if you’re wrong, everything else is wrong.”
Caine, who had noticeably refrained from repeat Presdient Trump’s “obliterated” claim at a Sunday news conference the morning after the strikes, told reporters Thursday that “the Joint Force does not do [battle damage assessments] … the intelligence community does.”
Instead, he focused on tactical details and seemingly described a mission that unfolded without a hitch.
Describing “what we know,” Caine said “the weapons functioned as designed, meaning they exploded.” Planners “accounted for everything,” the chairman said.
“We know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function and the pilots stated, quote, ‘This was the brightest explosion that I’ve ever seen. It literally looked like daylight.'”
Hegseth told reporters it was “my lane” as the top civilian leader at the Defense Department, to “do politics.” He said it was part of his job to “translate and talk about those types of things.”
“So, I can use the word ‘obliterated.’ He could use ‘defeat, destroyed,’ [and] assess all of those things.”
When asked, “Have you been pressured to change your assessment or give a more rosy intelligence assessment to us by any political factors, whether it’s the president or the secretary? And if you were, would you do that?” Caine said that was an “easy” question to answer.
“I’ve never been pressured by the president or the secretary, to do anything other than tell them exactly what I’m thinking,” he said. “And that’s exactly what I’ve done.”
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a Hispanic Heritage Month event at Wilshire Ebell Theatre, Sept. 15, 2023, in Los Angeles. Mario Tama/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday ruled out running for president in 2028, apparently defending himself against accusations by conservative influencer Laura Loomer that he and top aides are quietly preparing for another White House bid as Kennedy runs America’s health apparatus.
“The swamp is in full panic mode,” Kennedy wrote in a lengthy post on X. “DC lobby shops are laboring fiercely to drive a wedge between President Trump and me, hoping to thwart our team from dismantling the status quo and advancing [Trump’s] Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
“They’re pushing the flat-out lie that I’m running for president in 2028. Let me be clear: I am not running for president in 2028.”
In the post, Kennedy also defended his longtime aide and deputy chief of staff at HHS, Stefanie Spear, whom Loomer accused in a Politico interview this week of trying “to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run.”
In his X post, Kennedy defended Spear, calling her “a fierce, loyal warrior for MAHA who proudly serves in the Trump Administration and works every day to advance President Trump’s vision for a healthier, stronger America.”
Spear served as press secretary for Kennedy’s failed presidential campaign, which ended last August with an endorsement of Trump.
Loomer, a staunch pro-Trump figure, has previously boasted of initiating the firings of government officials she deemed insufficiently loyal to the president. She did not immediately respond publicly to Kennedy’s post.
