Supreme Court poised to rule narrowly in police wrong-house raid case
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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court appears poised to rule narrowly in a closely watched dispute over when federal law enforcement can be held liable for mistakes that harm innocent victims.
Justices heard arguments on Tuesday in a case from Atlanta involving a 2017 pre-dawn FBI raid of the wrong house that traumatized a family and left thousands of dollars of damage.
Lower courts tossed out the victims’ claims for compensation because of sweeping legal immunity for government officials.
Much of the debate, while highly technical, focused on an exception to the immunity clause that Congress added to the Federal Tort Claims Act in 1974.
“If you really, really meant to drop the pizza off at the right address, it doesn’t matter. You still need to give a refund if you drop it off at the wrong address,” argued Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney representing the family.
A Trump administration attorney insisted officers exercising discretion in performance of their duties should not be subjected to lawsuits and second-guessed by courts.
“The officers here made a reasonable mistake,” said Frederick Liu, an assistant solicitor general.
Several justices did not appear to be buying the argument.
“That is so ridiculous,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “Congress is … providing a remedy to people who have been wrongfully raided, and you’re now saying, ‘No, they really didn’t want to protect them fully.'”
Most law enforcement agencies don’t keep track of wrong-house raids or publicly report data, according to legal experts. Civil rights advocates estimate that are hundreds of cases of wrong-house raids nationwide each year, and most victims are not compensated for the physical or emotional harm that often results from them.
When Liu argued the FBI agents in the case did not violate any government policy despite the mistake, Justice Neil Gorsuch shot back incredulously.
“No policy says, ‘Don’t break down the wrong door? Don’t traumatize the occupants’? Really?” Gorsuch asked Liu.
“It’s the United States’ policy to execute the warrants at the right house,” Liu replied.
“I should hope so,” Gorsuch responded.
Despite sympathy for the plaintiffs, many of the justices appeared wary of a broad ruling that might open the floodgates to litigation against the government.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is the justice most often in the majority, suggested the Supreme Court is likely to provide a limited decision and return the case to lower courts for further consideration.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Elise Stefanik, a key Republican ally of President Donald Trump, is considering a run for governor of New York, a source familiar with her thinking told ABC News.
Stefanik’s office didn’t immediately comment.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is running for reelection in 2026 in the Empire State and is vying for her second full term in office.
President Donald Trump nominated Stefanik to be the United Nations ambassador and she was replaced as House Republican Conference Chair by Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain.
However, on March 27, a week before her Senate confirmation vote, Trump announced that he was withdrawing her nomination, citing the razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
“There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations. Therefore, Elise will stay in Congress, rejoin the House Leadership Team, and continue to fight for our amazing American People,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“This is about stepping up as a team, and I am doing that as a leader, to ensure that we can take hold of this mandate and deliver these historic results,” Stefanik told Fox News that evening.
Addison Dick, a spokesman for the New York State Democrats, dismissed the news of Stefanik’s possible run, claiming in a statement that the New York GOP “can’t field a serious candidate from their pathetic crew of Trump minions.”
“New Yorkers want nothing to do with the clown show of Trump loyalists who are only focused on enabling Trump’s agenda that is raising costs, gutting health care, and attacking New Yorkers’ freedoms,” he said in a statement.
The upstate New York congresswoman has been rising among the ranks on the Hill for her hard conservative stances.
She played a key role in the congressional response to antisemitism on college campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war. She’s also accused the United Nations of antisemitism.
Although largely Democratic, New York state has seen voters shift red over the last couple of years.
Hochul won the 2022 election with just 377,834 votes, roughly 53% of the total vote, beating then U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin. In the 2018 election, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo won with over 1.4 million votes, roughly 59.55% of the total vote, beating then-Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom are engaged in a bitter fight over the handling of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue in Los Angeles — and both also are framing their confrontation in familiar, sharp political terms.
On Monday, the president said it would be a “great thing” if border czar Tom Homan arrested Newsom; in response, the California governor fired back that the comment is an “unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”
In a sign of how much politics is driving the confrontation, Trump, when asked on Monday afternoon by ABC News what crime Newsom has committed to warrant his arrest, Trump said the governor’s “primary crime is running for governor because he’s done such a bad job.” Newsom responded on X, “Donald Trump admits he will arrest a sitting governor simply because he ran for office.”
With the protests, Trump, who has characterized them as “violent, insurrectionist mobs” and “Gavin Newscum inspired Riots,” has deployed National Guard members to Los Angeles. Newsom has asked the administration to rescind the deployment and said Monday that he is suing the Trump administration, claiming Trump illegally federalized the National Guard.
But Trump is not only criticizing the protesters — he is blasting the Democrats leading the state and the city, calling them failures.
“The very incompetent ‘Governor,’ Gavin Newscum, and ‘Mayor,’ Karen Bass, should be saying, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR,'” Trump wrote on his social media platform on Monday. “Instead, they choose to lie to the People of California and America by saying that we weren’t needed, and that these are ‘peaceful protests.'”
Trump has long been critical of the leadership in most Democratic-run states, often focusing his ire on California.
The situation, separately, gives Trump the chance to take high-profile action on immigration enforcement — a key issue for the president during his 2024 campaign and one that has remained a priority during the first few months of his administration. A recent poll from Marquette Law School taken in early to mid-May found that Trump had positive or around even job approval on border security and immigration.
Newsom, for his part, has explicitly accused the White House of exacerbating the situation for political gain.
“They want a spectacle. They want the violence,” he said in an email to supporters sent through his political action committee on Sunday night. “They think this is good for them politically.” Since then, he’s posted a blizzard of attacks on Trump via social media.
The White House responded to an ABC News request for comment late Monday afternoon.
“Gavin Newsom’s feckless leadership is directly responsible for the lawless riots and violent attacks on law enforcement in Los Angeles. Instead of writing fundraising emails meant to score political points with his left-wing base, Newsom should focus on protecting Americans by restoring law and order to his state,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said.
Newsom and Trump have long been at odds, although the two had a brief detente in their relationship in the past few months.
In the aftermath of wildfires in January that devastated the Los Angeles region, Trump visited the city toward the end of the month and was greeted on the tarmac by Newsom with several handshakes and an embrace; Newsom also met with Trump in Washington in early February, and told CNN afterwards, “I have just all the confidence in the world that it’s going to be a strong partnership moving forward.”
But Newsom, around that time, also approved $50 million for funds that could be used in legal battles against the federal government.
And Newsom grew more critical of Trump in the months afterward — attacking the president’s tariff policy in an ad that aired on Fox News where he said the “tariffs punish families.”
The Trump administration has appeared to direct punishment at California as well. Earlier this month, Trump vowed to impose “large scale fines” on California after a transgender teen competed in a California state final competition in track and field. Last week, the Trump administration signaled that it would cut federal funding for a high-speed rail project in the state.
Newsom, separately, has begun to build a national profile amid speculation that he could run for president in 2028, which included stoking more speculation through a buzzy podcast launch in March. Newsom is term-limited and cannot run for governor in 2026.
While the Los Angeles situation is tied to Newsom’s current work as governor and not to any current or future campaign, it puts him back in the national spotlight and at the center of one of the nation’s highest-profile political issues, standing up to Trump.
Newsom referenced what he framed as the national stakes in his response to Trump’s comments on his potential arrest: “This is a day I hoped I would never see in America… this is a line we cannot cross as a nation.”
ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Bill Clinton, on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, said he didn’t have concerns about former President Joe Biden’s mental sharpness amid a slate of reports that allege a decline in Biden’s acuity during the 2024 campaign and at the end of his presidency.
“Well, I think you have to pay attention to them,” Clinton said when asked about the accounts. “But all I can say is whenever I was around him, his mind was clear, his judgment was good and he was on top of his brief.”
Clinton went on to question decisions made by the White House in the lead-up to the CNN debate in June 2024 between Biden and Donald Trump, including Biden’s overseas travel in the days prior to his standoff with Trump on stage.
“He was 80 years old. What the heck is he doing that for?” Clinton said. “Why was that allowed to happen?”
“There’s a lot of questions. I don’t know,” Clinton continued. “All I know is I think we should think less about that, more about the future.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
