Prior to its closure last year, Northland College in Ashland borrowed money from its endowment fund to cover its financial shortfall, causing funds to dwindle from $22 million in 2024 to $3.3 million this year.
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has upheld a Palmyra man's child pornography conviction after he argued — unsuccessfully — that Google had violated his privacy.
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A group of parents and educators from across Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Monday against the state Legislature, alleging lawmakers have failed to adequately fund public schools.
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Lawmakers applauded the family of the late Gail Zeemer after voting to concur in the passage of “Gail’s Law.” The bill expands insurance coverage for breast cancer screening. It passed with a unanimous 96-0 vote. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
During its final planned day of legislative business this year, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill to ensure health care coverage of screenings for women at high risk of breast cancer and a bill to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to a year.
Republican lawmakers announced Wednesday evening that they would vote on the bills, breaking gridlock on the issues which for years was held up by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester). Vos, who announced his retirement at the beginning of the floor session Thursday, reversed his position and voted in favor of both bills.
Each bill passed the Senate in nearly unanimous votes last year, and the Assembly concurring votes will send the bills to Gov. Tony Evers for a signature.
SB 264 requires health insurance policies to provide coverage for diagnostic breast examinations and for supplemental breast screening examinations for women with dense breast tissue. The bill would require coverage to include no patient cost-sharing.
The family of Gail Zeemer, a Neenah woman who spent time advocating for the legislation before her death from breast cancer in 2024, sat in the Assembly gallery. Zeemer, who had dense breast tissue, was diagnosed with cancer at a late stage after not receiving additional screening. She battled cancer for eight years and passed away in June 2024 at the age of 56.
Lawmakers applauded her family after voting to concur in the bill, named “Gail’s Law.” It passed in a unanimous 96-0 vote.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) spoke about listening to testimony from Zeemer during a hearing on the bill prior to her death in the Assembly Health committee.
“She was full of strength and determination,” Vining said. “This year, as we’ve heard testimony, her absence was felt in the room. Today is the day that she fought for, and I am so sorry that Gail is not here with us today. Gail’s law will save lives. It will prevent preventable deaths.”
“You didn’t give up. You didn’t take no for an answer,” Vining said of Zeemer’s family and other advocates for the bills.
Several lawmakers, including Rep. Nate Gustafson (R-Omro) and Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie), teared up as they spoke of their support for the legislation.
“It’s about families,” Nedweski said of the bill. “Too many husbands have lost their wives to breast cancer, too many parents have had to say goodbye to a daughter too soon, and too many children have seen their mother’s hair fall out and have had to cry themselves to sleep while their mothers went through chemo, surgery and radiation, sometimes only to be told the cancer is back, and there are no other options.”
Nedweski said the bill takes an important step to “help children keep their moms.”
“Mammography simply does not work for everyone,” she added.
Nedweski said the bill is a “wise investment,” noting that it is why Texas and Florida have adopted similar policies. “Gail’s law is not only life-saving, it is cost-saving. Detecting cancer early not only drastically increases survival rates, it means that treatment costs will be lower for patients and for families.”
Women with dense breast tissue have a higher risk of breast cancer and it can make it harder for radiologists to see cancer on mammograms, according to the American Cancer Society.
Insurance policies in Wisconsin are already required to provide coverage for two mammograms for women between the ages of 45 and 49 and annual screenings for women over the age of 50, but insurance companies are not required to cover additional screenings for women with dense breast tissue or at higher risk.
Bipartisan support for the bill did not prevent partisan bickering during debate. Republican lawmakers complained in a press conference announcing the bill scheduling and again on the floor about Democratic lawmakers’ prior actions urging a vote.
Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) said that the eight Republican Assembly lawmakers were the “true heroes who fought for where we are today.”
“I celebrate them, rather than the tantrum throwing we saw leading up to this,” she said.
Others highlighted the bipartisan nature of the bills.
Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) thanked Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton), a key supporter of the legislation, and Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah), who called for lawmakers to go to partisan caucus to discuss the measure on Wednesday. GOP lawmakers credit discussion during the caucus for the recent breakthrough.
“I know that this body is contentious often. I know that some of us don’t even like each other, but when we can come together and do something good for women’s health and the people of Wisconsin,” Snodgrass said, “it’s truly a victory.”
Some lawmakers said that Wisconsin still needs to do more to ensure that people can access health care in the state.
Margaret Arney (D-Wauwatosa) called the passage of the bill a “victory” but a “small step on a long road.”
“We need to seriously stare in the face of what it takes for people to afford health care,” Arney said. “All the people in Wisconsin deserve to have health security and I invite us to take that step together.”
Wisconsin is poised to become the 49th state to accept a federal expansion of Medicaid coverage for women for one year after they give birth after the state Assembly approved SB 23.
The bill passed 95-1. Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) is the only lawmaker who voted against the bill.
Evers, who most recently called on lawmakers to pass the bill and send it to him at his State of the State address on Tuesday evening, is likely to sign it.
Pregnant women can receive Medicaid coverage in Wisconsin if they have an annual income of up to 306% of the federal poverty level, however, currently they risk losing that coverage 60 days after giving birth.
Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston), the lead Assembly author on the bill, said he picked up the “mantle” on the issue because of what he heard while knocking doors during the campaign cycle. A previous author on the bill was former Republican Rep. Donna Rozar, who lost her reelection bid in 2024.
Snyder also doubled down on criticizing Democratic lawmakers for their efforts to force a vote on the issue. “I had a night’s sleep and I realized that a lot of my Democrat colleagues who I’m friends with are following orders,” he said.
“Thank goodness we beat Arkansas,” Snyder said, referring to the only other state in the U.S. that has not extended postpartum Medicaid coverage for a year. “Strong families will mean strong Wisconsin. That’s what I put my faith in, not trying to score political points.”
Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) struck a more cordial tone.
“I want to thank everyone here who changed their mind,” Andraca said. “That’s not easy.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
“I’m very angry at what happened today — very angry,” Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said. “I talked to my Democratic colleagues and told them that I was close, that it was going to get done, but then they throw this crap at us today. It almost blew it up.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Eight Republican state Assembly lawmakers announced at 9:45 p.m. Wednesday that gridlock is ending on bills to provide a year of Medicaid coverage to postpartum mothers and ensure cancer screenings for women with a high risk of breast cancer, and both will receive a vote in the Assembly this week.
The bills had been held up this legislative session despite widespread bipartisan support due to opposition from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), who once said he didn’t want to expand “welfare” in relation to the postpartum coverage and said recent federal changes made changes on breast cancer screening coverage unnecessary. He declined to comment to the Wisconsin Examiner on what changed his mind.
Vos was not at the press conference led by Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) and seven other Assembly Republicans, who represent purple districts across the state and had been advocating for the bills.
“It hasn’t been fun,” Novak said about the process. “I truly appreciate a caucus who is willing to listen to us bring the stories from our district… and get them to a point where they are willing to take a vote tomorrow.”
The lawmakers said that they sent a letter to Vos on Feb. 3 urging him to allow for a vote on the bill. The letter stated that the measure aligns with “core Republican priorities” including “protecting life and supporting families,” “fiscal responsibility” and “reducing government dependency.”
SB 23 would extend Medicaid coverage for postpartum mothers to a year. Wisconsin is one of two states in the U.S. that has not taken the federal extension, which was first offered to states five years ago in the American Rescue Plan Act.
People in Wisconsin are typically only eligible for Medicaid coverage if they make up to 100% of the federal poverty level, but pregnant women can receive Medicaid coverage if they have an annual income of up to 306% of the federal poverty level. Currently in Wisconsin, a newborn whose mother is a Medicaid recipient receives a year of coverage, but mothers risk losing their coverage after 60 days if they don’t otherwise qualify for Medicaid.
The bill passed the Senate in April 2025 on a 32-1 vote. It also previously passed the Senate in 2023-24 legislative session, but died in the Assembly.
SB 264 would require health insurance policies to provide coverage for diagnostic breast examinations and for supplemental breast screening examinations for an individual who has dense breast tissue. The bill would require coverage to include no patient cost-sharing.
The bill is named “Gail’s Law” in honor of Gail Zeemer, a Neenah woman who advocated for the legislation and who died from breast cancer in 2024. Women with dense breast tissue have a higher risk of breast cancer and dense breast tissue can make it harder for radiologists to see cancer on mammograms, according to the American Cancer Society.
The bill received a nearly unanimous vote in the Senate in October.
Republican lawmakers also railed at Democratic lawmakers, who had been urging the Assembly to vote on the bills for months and planned to hold up votes during Wednesday’s floor session by introducing amendments on every bill to advocate action on the issues.
“I’m very angry at what happened today — very angry,” Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said, adding that he had been speaking to his Republican colleagues about why it was important to join the majority of the country in extending coverage. “I talked to my Democratic colleagues and told them that I was close, that it was going to get done, but then they throw this crap at us today. It almost blew it up.”
At a press conference at 1 p.m., Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) announced that she and her husband are expecting their first child this summer while urging the Assembly to take a vote on the bills that would increase health care coverage for women.
“I wasn’t really planning to talk about this today, but I am pregnant,” Neubauer said, adding that she is due in June. “We could not be more excited. During this pregnancy, I have been reflecting and I’m very lucky. I’m lucky to have quality, affordable health care coverage for myself and my baby when they arrive. For too many Wisconsin families, that health care coverage is cut off far too soon… This needs to end. We must pass postpartum Medicaid expansion now.”
As the Assembly began acting on bills in the floor session that followed, Democrats took turns interrupting with speeches demanding that GOP lawmakers take up their amendments to put the Medicaid and breast cancer bills on the floor. Shortly after 3 p.m. Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) called for a partisan caucus, and the session was paused. The Assembly did not return to the floor until 10 p.m.
Republican lawmakers said they spent the time in caucus talking about the issues.
“I’m in it for the women that need this protection. They’re in it for politics, and that’s sickening,” Snyder said, adding that it would be hard for him to trust his Democratic colleagues in the future. “I don’t know what they were trying to do, but lobbyists told them to wait at least till Thursday, and they didn’t.”
Novak said his voice was hoarse after the caucus. He said lawmakers who were on the fence about the bill were angered by the Democratic amendments and it set back their progress on the discussions.
“I actually put my seat on the line. I said I wanted this bill to pass or I don’t know I could run again,” Snyder said. “How many Democrats put their seat on the line for anything if there’s something they’re passionate about? That’s why it’s about people, not about the politics.”
At a press conference after, Neubauer was unapologetic for the Democratic lawmakers’ actions.
“It seems that the bills are going to the floor after years of Rep. Pat Snyder telling us that these bills were going to be passed and them not being passed, so it does seem like our actions made a difference today,” Neubauer said.
Neubauer rejected the assertion that Democrats were just engaging in politics and said the job of the minority party is to ensure that important issues get air time and get votes.
“Republicans refusing to vote on [the amendments] is their own choice. We have a responsibility to our constituents and the women of this state whose lives depend on these policies being passed,” Neubauer said. “We were going to stop at nothing to get a vote on these bills. We hope that that’s what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls) said that the development is “proof that minds can be shifted.”
“I appreciate, certainly, the speaker’s willingness to hear us out. I appreciate all of my members in my caucus,” Zimmerman said. “The outcome that we have reached today is one that will have a positive impact on the lives of many in the state of Wisconsin.”
Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) were not at the caucus the entire time. In the early evening, the caucus leaders were at what Vos called a “thank you reception” hosted by the Jobs First Coalition — a nonprofit advocacy group that has a history of spending to help elect Republicans.
Michelle Litjens, Vos’ wife and a former Republican member of the Assembly, has worked as a fundraiser for the organization. She told reporters the group was thanking legislators and that they often bring guests to speak on issues to their members.
When asked about why they were at the event while lawmakers were said to be in recess for caucus, Vos said “people are caucusing.”
“This is the way it was for, like, 50 years before I became speaker,” Vos said. He added that people would leave floor sessions to go to receptions “all the time.”
The Republican lawmakers who announced the deal to bring the bills to the floor said they were able to “win over hearts” in their caucus and shared personal stories about breast cancer.
“Probably every person in this room has been touched in some way with someone in their family with cancer,” Kaufert said. “In my particular case, my mother when I was 17 years old in high school, she had breast cancer, and they didn’t have technologies that they do now, and at age of 19, my mother passed away due to that breast cancer.”
Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) said his wife was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
“Sadly, had this bill been in place back then, it may have impacted her particular situation. I’m very proud of the way she has dealt with this in front of my family and how they’ve stepped up to the plate to deal with it,” Donovan said. “Our situation is what it is, but I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have played a small part in helping this bill move forward.”
Novak also said Vos is a “tough negotiator,” but that he “really felt what we were saying,” and that other GOP lawmakers also had some concerns.
The reversal comes as Assembly lawmakers are racing to finish their work. August said the Assembly GOP leaders plan to be finished this week. The Assembly has scheduled a floor session for Thursday.
The lawmakers said they want the bills to go to Gov. Tony Evers by Monday, adding that Evers has committed to signing them without any line-item vetoes as long as they are unchanged.
“They’ll be clean,” Novak said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Clinic escorts attempt to stand between patients and anti-abortion protesters outside A Preferred Women’s Health Center of Atlanta in Forest Park, Georgia, in July 2023. Some abortion opponents say a law created to protect access to reproductive health clinics and houses of worship should be repealed, though providers fear a continued rise in violence. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)
The Trump administration is using a law Congress passed in the 1990s after a wave of deadly violence at abortion clinics to prosecute demonstrators and reporters who were at a immigration-related church protest in Minneapolis last month.
Independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, along with several activists, are accused of violating a 1994 law that made physically obstructing access to reproductive health clinics and places of worship a federal crime. Lemon pleaded not guilty Friday, while Fort is set to be arraigned next week and has denied any wrongdoing. Other plaintiffs have vowed to fight the charges — they’re also accused of conspiring against churchgoers’ right to worship — and maintained they were exercising their First Amendment rights.
Some abortion opponents say the law should be repealed entirely, even though the statute also protects access to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Reproductive rights advocates say getting rid of the law altogether could spur more attacks on clinics and providers, which already increased in recent years.
“It would give an even stronger signal to the zealots who would wish to shut us down to intimidate and harm our clinic folks and patients,” said Julie Burkhart, who owns clinics in Wyoming and Illinois.
The Minnesota indictment is only the second time that the Department of Justice has brought charges under the religious provision tucked in the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. In September, the federal government filed a civil complaint against pro-Palestinian groups and demonstrators, accusing them of violating the FACE Act after they protested outside a New Jersey synagogue in 2024.
During a news conference announcing the charges, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, said the New Jersey case was the “first time in history” the FACE Act was used to “prosecute an attack civilly on a house of worship.”
While the Trump administration has started to use the FACE Act in religion-related cases, it has also relaxed enforcement of the law against people who interfere with access to abortion clinics.
Republican President Donald Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion protesters convicted of violating the law within weeks of taking office in January 2025, and the DOJ released a memo that stated abortion-related cases should only be pursued in “extraordinary circumstances,” such as death, serious bodily harm or severe property damage.
“This sent a very clear signal to anti-abortion extremists that this administration was OK and even encouraged anti-abortion violence, and we’ve seen the same people that were pardoned within Trump’s first week in office go right back out and start harassing abortion providers and their patients, whether that is putting together blockades or clinic invasions,” National Abortion Federation President and CEO Brittany Fonteno told States Newsroom.
Tactics by the anti-abortion movement were starting to reach a fever pitch in the U.S. before the FACE Act’s passage. In 1988, hundreds of protesters were arrested in Georgia during the “Siege of Atlanta,” where abortion opponents staged routine clinic blockades over a three-month period. In 1991, thousands of anti-abortion protesters were arrested by local officials for invading abortion clinics in Kansas during the “Summer of Mercy.”
“We were literally unable to do our jobs,” said Burkhart, who worked in Wichita that summer with Dr. George Tiller, a provider who was later killed by an anti-abortion extremist.
In 1993, Dr. David Gunn was murdered by an anti-abortion protester outside a Florida clinic, and six months later, Tiller was shot outside his Kansas clinic. Tiller survived that attack, but he was assassinated at his church in 2009.
Sen. Ted Kennedy and then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, introduced the FACE Act in Congress alongside former Republican Rep. Connie Morella, and President Bill Clinton signed the legislation the following year.
Legal experts said the religious part of the reproductive health law was added to broaden legislative support for the bill.
The law protects reproductive health clinics and places of worship from being physically obstructed or damaged, and makes it a federal crime to intentionally injure, intimidate or interfere with access to those places. Violators face up to a year in prison or a $10,000 fine, and up to six months in prison for nonviolent obstruction. A defendant could face 10 years if they inflicted bodily harm or life behind bars if someone is killed.
Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said the measure was modeled on other civil rights laws, which typically include protections for religious institutions. She said Congress already had a Democratic majority at the time, but the religious part of the law could have been added to avoid accusations of viewpoint discrimination.
“Even people who saw themselves as pro-life were disturbed by some of the violence,” Ziegler said.
After the law took effect, violence against abortion clinics declined by 30%, according to the National Abortion Federation.
The power of anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue, known for orchestrating mass clinic blockades, waned.
“The FACE Act was created to suppress civil disobedience at abortion centers, so it’s had a massively negative impact on the anti-abortion movement,” said Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.
Bukovinac’s group along with Students for Life of America and Alliance Defending Freedom have called for the law’s demise since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion in June 2022.
Violence against abortion clinics increased after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. From 2021 to 2022, clinics saw a 100% increase in arsons, a 25% increase in invasions and a 20% increase in death threats or threats of harm, according to the National Abortion Federation.
The Biden administration pursued enforcement of the FACE Act by prosecuting people convicted of blocking access to abortion clinics in Michigan, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
Trump pardoned all of those defendants. But for some abortion opponents, the Republican administration’s narrow use of the FACE Act does not go far enough.
“It should be repealed because it’s a draconian law,” Bukovinac said. “There are local laws that address trespass, disorderly conduct, disruptions of churches, and various other violations of statutes, but the FACE law adds the full weight of the federal government in these situations.”
Ziegler said the law isn’t a trespassing statute, it’s about conduct and obstruction. No legal challenges against the law have held up in court before or after Dobbs, she said.
“If you’re shooting someone in the head because they’re trying to go to a synagogue or they’re trying to go into an abortion clinic — or you’re threatening to kill them or you’re physically blocking all the entrances — that’s not speech protected by the First Amendment,” Ziegler said.
Matthew Cavedon, a criminal justice and religious liberty expert at the libertarian CATO Institute, has written that the law may be unconstitutional. He said the federal government has typically defended the FACE Act’s constitutionality based on the Commerce Clause and the 14th Amendment.
“Pro-lifers have made the point that in order to defend the FACE Act under the 14th Amendment, you have to have some sort of federal constitutional right to have an abortion,” Cavedon said. “Back in 1994 when the act passed, the Supreme Court said that you did have that right. It doesn’t anymore. That’s been reversed. So I think that’s a very strong argument.”
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, introduced a bill last year that would repeal the law. The House Judiciary Committee advanced the measure in June, States Newsroom reported.
Roy did not respond to requests for comment, but during a hearing for the bill, he said he has been criticized by Trump administration officials who wanted to use the law to defend churches.
“That’s not what my goal is,” he said. “My goal is to alleviate the politicization in the first place.”
Renee Chelian, the founder and CEO of Northland Family Planning Centers in Michigan, testified before the committee about the importance of the FACE Act and the invasion of one of her clinics during the first Trump administration.
“Once the law went into effect, the violent blockades immediately stopped. This all ended when President Trump took office for his first term, emboldening extremists to resume their attacks,” she said.
In August 2020, a group of protesters blocked the entrance to Chelian’s Sterling Heights clinics, preventing patients and staff from entering the clinic.
“Patients were stuck in their cars, including three women who were coming in for abortions following the detection of fatal fetal anomalies,” Chelian said. One of those patients was losing amniotic fluid and needed to get to her appointment for the second day of her procedure, but protesters surrounded her car and chanted at her, her mother and her husband, according to the DOJ.
Trump’s decision to pardon seven people who invaded her clinic “left us reliving our trauma and feeling abandoned by the government that is supposed to protect us,” Chelian told lawmakers.
Last month, the Center for Reproductive Rights sued the Trump administration after the government did not respond to Freedom of Information Act requests about “selective enforcement” of the FACE Act and Trump’s pardons of 23 anti-abortion protesters convicted under the law.
“This is straight out of the anti-abortion movement’s playbook,” said Sara Outterson, the center’s chief federal legislative counsel. “They know they can’t ban abortion outright in a number of states, so they’ll try everything they can to restrict access to care, including allowing criminals to harass people as they try to go in to get care.”
This story was originally produced by News From The States, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
A Superior police officer violated the constitutional rights of a DoorDash delivery driver and used excessive force when she used a Taser on him during a traffic stop nearly two years ago, a federal judge ruled Monday.
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People whistle and film as federal agents block an alley near 35th Street and Chicago Avenue while they break a car window to detain a man and his young daughter Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
Less than an hour after the Saturday morning killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in south Minneapolis, conservative influencer Cam Higby took to social media with a sensational claim: Higby had “infiltrated” the group chats fueling local resistance to Operation Metro Surge.
On Monday, FBI director Kash Patel said he had “opened an investigation” into the chats. Many are said to be hosted on Signal, the encrypted messaging app.
“You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way,” Patel said in a podcast interview with Benny Johnson, another conservative influencer. Johnson’s title for the episode’s YouTube stream, “Kash Patel Announces FBI Crack-Down of Left-Wing Minnesota Terrorist Network LIVE: ‘Tim Walz Next…’,” left little to the imagination.
In response to emailed questions about the nature of its investigation, the FBI declined to comment.
First Amendment lawyers and national security experts expressed deep skepticism that any charges stemming from it will stick, however.
“As a general proposition, reporting on things you are observing and sharing those observations is absolutely legal,” Jane Kirtley, professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota Law School, said in an interview.
A guide that Higby described as “the watered down opsec version” of a “TRAINING MANUAL for domestic terrorist patrols chasing ICE agents in Minneapolis” instructs observers to draw attention to suspected ICE activity using whistles and car horns — but specifically warns against impeding officers.
Kirtley said Patel’s statements to date have been too vague to support firm conclusions about what the FBI will actually investigate or what charges, if any, the United States Department of Justice would bring as a result. The sorts of loaded terms that influencers like Higby and President Trump himself have used to describe organizers’ activities — such as “conspiracy” or “insurrection” — are formal legal concepts that require certain standards to be met, she added.
Jason Marisam, a constitutional law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, said any prosecution would likely need to pass a two-part test established in a nearly 60-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brandenburg v. Ohio.
Brandenburg prohibits speech only if it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action,” such as violence against law enforcement officers, and “is likely to incite or produce such action,” according to a summary by Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.
Brandenburg is “a very high bar,” Marisam said. Speech that only indirectly led to “lawless action,” such as coordinating a protest that later turned violent, would likely not meet it, he added.
“The use of encryption to keep government authorities from getting access to our private communications is literally as American as apple pie.”
– Patrick G. Eddington
Marisam said Brandenburg, incidentally, is the same standard that former special counsel Jack Smith would have needed to meet had his January 6th prosecution against President Trump gone to trial, Marisam added. That case was mooted after Trump won a second term and subsequently oversaw a campaign of professional retribution against the career prosecutors on Smith’s team.
Marisam said narrowing or overturning Brandenburg has not yet been a priority for conservatives in the judiciary, despite self-evident benefits for Trump’s efforts to quell dissent and consolidate power. But he acknowledged that the “politics of free speech” can change depending on who’s in charge in Washington.
For instance, Trump supporters castigated what they perceived to be limits on free speech during the Biden years, but have remained silent in the face of a student’s deportation for writing an op-ed.
Still, Patel’s apparent interest in Twin Cities observers’ encrypted chats is likely less the opening move of a well-thought-out legal strategy than an effort to discourage legally permissible activity, Marisam said.
“It seems to me that (Patel’s) announcement is meant to chill speech ahead of time,” he said.
In a blog post published Tuesday, Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, said federal prosecutors would likewise struggle to make hay out of Twin Cities observers’ use of the encrypted messaging apps themselves.
Trump officials and right-wing pundits have pointed to Signal’s popularity within the observer networks as evidence that participants want to evade legal accountability for their actions. Signal uses end-to-end encryption, meaning messages sent on properly secured devices kept in their owners’ possession are effectively impossible for third parties to see. Signal itself can’t access messages or calls sent over the app, the company says, though messages on a user’s device can be read if it is hacked or stolen. (Or, if the wrong person is added to a Signal chat, as when senior national security figures in the Trump administration — including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — sent information about military operations to the editor of The Atlantic magazine after he’d been accidentally included.)
Eddington, who works on homeland security and civil liberties issues for Cato, said the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 1999 ruling in Bernstein v. United States Department of Justice established ordinary citizens’ rights to use encrypted channels for communication they wish to keep private. Government efforts to curtail encryption could impede individuals’ rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits “unreasonable search and seizure.”
Eddington cited a much earlier precedent that may well have informed the Constitution’s privacy protections, though its contemporary legal relevance is unclear. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other members of America’s founding generation used “codes and ciphers” to communicate before, during and after the Revolutionary War, Eddington wrote.
“The use of encryption to keep government authorities from getting access to our private communications is literally as American as apple pie,” he wrote.
This story was originally produced by Minnesota Reformer, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
A picture sits at a memorial to Alex Pretti on Jan. 25, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA medical center, died on Jan. 24 after being shot multiple times during a brief altercation with border patrol agents in Minneapolis. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A partial federal government shutdown appeared Sunday to unexpectedly be on the horizon, after another fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis led key U.S. Senate Democrats to say they will oppose a spending package that includes immigration enforcement funds.
Senators have until a Friday deadline to clear a package of six House-passed funding measures, including the $64.4 billion Homeland Security appropriations bill that includes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol.
Republicans hold a majority in the chamber but would need at least seven Democrats to join them in voting for the package in order to clear the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to advance legislation.
The agreement had appeared to be on track for easy passage by the Senate by Friday, when a stopgap spending law expires.
But after Saturday’s killing of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, the second by Homeland Security Department officers in Minneapolis this month, key moderate Democrats, appropriators and leaders said they would not support the package if it includes the Homeland Security legislation in its current form.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also said his caucus would not provide the votes needed, citing the killings of Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and called for the DHS bill to be split from the five spending bills with broad bipartisan support.
“Senate Democrats will not allow the current DHS funding bill to move forward,” Schumer said in a Sunday statement. “The appalling murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis must lead Republicans to join Democrats in overhauling ICE and CBP to protect the public. People should be safe from abuse by their own government.
“Senate Republicans must work with Democrats to advance the other five funding bills while we work to rewrite the DHS bill,” he added. “This is (the) best course of action, and the American people are on our side.”
A complicating factor is the DHS bill also includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, even as a major winter storm swept through a large swath of the nation Saturday and Sunday, triggering disaster declarations in multiple states.
President Donald Trump and key administration officials committed to a robust media strategy over the weekend, defending the officers involved and smearing Pretti, despite contradictory evidence in available video.
Some elected Republicans backed the administration’s account, but an unusual number of GOP members of Congress and at least one governor called for accountability.
Five of the eight Democrats and independents who voted with Republicans to end a shutdown in November have said they will not support the package if it includes DHS funding.
Maine independent Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats, said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that he would vote against the package.
“I hate shutdowns,” King said in a video interview on the Sunday morning show. “I’m one of the people that helped negotiate the solution to the end of the last shutdown, but I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances.”
Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, a former federal prosecutor, criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and called for blocking the funding package.
“The Trump administration and Kristi Noem are putting undertrained, combative federal agents on the streets with no accountability,” she said. “They are oppressing Americans and are at odds with local law enforcement. This is clearly not about keeping Americans safe, it’s brutalizing U.S. citizens and law-abiding immigrants. I will not support the current Homeland Security funding bill.”
Cortez Masto called for the DHS bill to be split off from the rest of the package.
“We have bipartisan agreement on 96% of the budget. We’ve already passed six funding bills,” she said. “Let’s pass the remaining five bipartisan bills and fund essential agencies while we continue to fight for a Department of Homeland Security that respects Americans’ constitutional rights and preserves federal law enforcement’s essential role to keep us safe.”
Fellow Nevada Democrat Jacky Rosen, who also voted to end the shutdown in November, said “enough is enough” and that she would oppose a funding package that did not “rein in ICE’s out-of-control conduct.”
“As a member of the U.S. Senate, I have the responsibility to hold the Trump Administration accountable when I see abuses of power — like we are seeing from ICE right now,” she said. “That is why I’ll be voting against any government funding package that contains the bill that funds this agency, until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.
“My personal guiding principle has always been ‘agree where you can and fight where you must,’” she added. “And I believe this is a time when we must fight back.”
Virginia’s Tim Kaine said in a Friday statement — before Pretti’s killing — that he would oppose the package for several reasons, including as a check on ICE.
“We are not living in normal times,” he said. “The President is acting chaotically and unlawfully and we shouldn’t give his deranged decisions the imprimatur of congressional approval by passing this legislation without significant amendment.”
Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois also said after Pretti’s killing early Saturday — the third shooting by immigration officers in Minneapolis in three weeks — that he would vote against the package. Durbin is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.
The House last week passed the DHS funding bill, with seven Democrats voting to approve it, and a separate package of three other appropriations bills that passed with broad bipartisan support. House members passed two other funding bills the week before.
The fiscal 2026 Homeland Security spending bill cuts funding for Customs and Border Protection by $1.3 billion, and maintains flat funding for ICE at $10 billion.
The bill attempts to put guardrails around immigration enforcement by allocating $20 million for body cameras for ICE and CBP officers.
But even if the funding bill doesn’t pass or gets held up, the immigration enforcement agencies are still flush with cash after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans passed last year allocated $190 billion for DHS. ICE is slated to receive about $75 billion over four years, or $18.7 billion a year.
Any Senate amendment to the House-passed package would require another House vote. The House is scheduled to be out this week and the chamber, narrowly controlled by Republicans, may be unwilling to cooperate with Senate changes.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican up for reelection this year in one of the nation’s most closely watched races, did not dismiss the possibility of changes in the spending bill package, telling The New York Times on Saturday she was “exploring all options” for passage.
The major winter storm also hit Washington, D.C., and could further complicate the Senate vote or potential House consideration. All flights into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were canceled Sunday as snow and sleet covered the region.
A handful of GOP officials, including Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called for more scrutiny into Pretti’s killing and ICE’s conduct more generally.
“There must be a thorough and impartial investigation into yesterday’s Minneapolis shooting, which is the basic standard that law enforcement and the American people expect following any officer-involved shooting,” Tillis said on social media.
“For this specific incident, that requires cooperation and transparency between federal, state, and local law enforcement. Any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy.”
Cassidy posted on social media: “The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who is a former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on social media he was “troubled by the events that have unfolded in Minneapolis.”
“As an attorney and former federal prosecutor, I believe a thorough investigation is necessary—both to get to the bottom of these incidents and to maintain Americans’ confidence in our justice system,” he said.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, was among those who said he was troubled by the shooting.
“I think the death of Americans, what we’re seeing on TV, it’s causing deep concerns over federal tactics and accountability,” Stitt said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Americans don’t like what they’re seeing right now.”
Many others, including Republican senators and Trump administration officials speaking on Sunday talk shows — Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — defended the agents involved and blamed Pretti and state and local Democrats in Minneapolis.
“Democrats are now backing out of a bipartisan agreement to fund DHS, which makes sure our border is secure and our immigration laws are enforced,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote on social media.
“This is reckless and quite frankly, very disappointing. It appears that Democrats are so wedded to supporting people carrying guns trying to interfere with a lawful arrest that they will shut down the government.”
Patel, on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News, said DHS is investigating the shooting but the FBI is processing physical evidence. “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up in a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines,” Patel said, referring to reports that Pretti was carrying a handgun for which he had a concealed carry license, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.
Spokespeople for Collins, Schumer and Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota did not return messages seeking comment Sunday. Senate Democrats were set to meet virtually on Sunday night, according to multiple media reports.
The ordinance states that law enforcement agencies must have prior authorization to use parks or parkways as staging areas.
The post Milwaukee County officials consider ordinance to limit ICE from operating in county parks appeared first on WPR.
President Donald Trump tours the assembly line at the Ford River Rouge Complex on Jan. 13, 2026 in Dearborn, Michigan. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promised during his bid for another White House term that he would be a dictator only on “day one.”
Before a town hall audience in Iowa in December 2023, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump, “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”
“Except for day one,” Trump responded, seconds later adding, “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
But a year since his inauguration, Trump has acted on some of his most extreme campaign hyperbole, and then some.
A limited history of Trump’s expansion of presidential powers includes:
Those actions and others, coupled with a cooperative GOP Congress, have created an unprecedented shift away from the United States’ democratic tradition and founding principles that establish a system of checks and balances, States Newsroom was told in extensive interviews over recent months.
Many congressional Democrats — and nearly half of Americans, in a recent poll — believe Trump has gone too far in his expansion of presidential power. Historians, political scientists and legal experts have sounded the alarm, with some saying the United States has reached authoritarianism, even as Trump has shown no signs of slowing down.
Experts interviewed agreed that the United States finds itself in a “troubled moment,” as William Howell, dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University, put it.
“We’ve never seen a presidency that represents such an enduring threat to the health and well-being of our democracy as we do today,” said Howell, who recently co-authored the book “Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency.”
Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School and constitutional studies expert with the libertarian Cato Institute, said “I don’t know that it is likely that we’re going to slide into authoritarianism, but the very fact that the issue has to be raised is itself already bad.”
“My hope, and to some extent my expectation, is that a combination of legal and political action will stop these abuses, or at least curb them, and to some extent, it has already. But, you know, how well the system withstands it remains to be seen,” Somin told States Newsroom.
Others painted a more dire picture by pointing to the lack of such checks from the other branches of government.
Retired Army Col. David Graham, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Law Center’s Center on National Security, said Congress’ inability to block Trump’s military action in Venezuela shows that the president is operating with “unbridled” power.
“This unbridled presidential authority represents what I consider to be a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and to the global security of the international community,” Graham said.
The Cato Institute’s Patrick Eddington offered: “It is absolutely noteworthy the speed and systematic nature (with) which Trump has been successful in literally gutting and reshaping to his will the domestic instruments of coercive power.”
“I speak here about the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, in particular, but also successful in reshaping the military, the military leadership and the entire institution, to make it essentially as subservient as possible,” Eddington, the think tank’s senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties, and former senior policy adviser for Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., told States Newsroom.
Pollsters also find voters are increasingly wary of Trump’s governing style.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 70% believed the president needed authorization from Congress to go to war. The same day the poll was released, Jan. 14, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate rejected a measure to require Trump to obtain permission before further operations in Venezuela.
Bright Line Watch, a quarterly survey of the health of American democracy, has shown a decline in both expert and public opinion of how U.S. democracy has fared since Trump’s inauguration. The poll, conducted since 2017, surveys roughly 700 political science faculty at U.S. universities and 2,750 members of the general public.
A Pew Research Center survey of 3,455 adults released in late September found 7 in 10 Americans believe Trump is trying to exert more presidential power than previous administrations. And overall, 49% of those surveyed said that Trump’s use of power compared to presidents past is bad for the country — though responses notably split along partisan lines.
In response to an interview request for this story, White House spokesperson Liz Huston provided a one-sentence on-the-record written statement.
“President Trump is making America greater than ever before for all Americans,” she wrote.
Throughout its first year, the Trump White House has trumpeted its many policy victories, including conducting mass deportations, raising money through tariffs, extending tax cuts, cutting some federal spending and exerting influence over elite universities.
Throughout 2025, until the Supreme Court disallowed the practice days before New Year’s, Trump sent National Guard troops to a handful of cities led by elected Democrats.
Depending on the city — Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; and New Orleans — he rationalized the deployments as either to control crime or protect immigration operations and federal property.
His critics, though, say those were pretexts meant to get Americans used to seeing military forces in U.S. cities, potentially to be deployed during the next federal elections.
“It’s really designed to lay the groundwork to normalize a militarization, essentially, of American civic life, as a prelude to using federal troops and National Guard troops, probably specifically for so-called election integrity operations,” Eddington said.
The deployments themselves, especially in California, Illinois and Oregon, where Democratic governors who usually control the state national guards vociferously objected to federal troops patrolling their cities, seemed to violate a founding U.S. principle against the military acting as a police force.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the Chicago deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law forbidding military forces from civilian law enforcement.
Trump’s use of military forces domestically is out of step with precedent, at least of the last 50 years, Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said.
“The last nine presidents, not counting Trump I, we saw exactly two deployments to quell civil unrest or enforce the law,” she said. “Nine presidencies. Under President Trump, it’s happened five times in the last four months. So this is not normal,” said Goitein, who previously worked as counsel to former Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
Oregon Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley told States Newsroom the deployments marked one of the criteria of authoritarianism.
“In order to anchor a strong-man state, you have to have the ability to put troops in the street,” he said.
Congressional Democrats, and in a few cases Republicans, have also protested Trump’s reach.
Days after nationwide “No Kings” day protests filled the streets on Oct. 18, Merkley led fellow Senate Democrats in an all-nighter on the Senate floor, speaking against what they described as Trump’s slide into authoritarianism.
In mid-December, Merkley introduced a resolution “denouncing the horrors of authoritarianism.”
Merkley has emerged as perhaps the leading Democrat focusing on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. He’s made several closed-door presentations to his colleagues on the subject that includes urging them to look beyond the daily drumbeat of Trump news, he said.
“It’s one issue after another in this flood-the-zone undertaking, and it’s easy to see the issue of the day and miss the big picture,” Merkley said in a Jan. 8 interview with States Newsroom. “And the big picture is a systematic implementation of an authoritarian strategy to create a strong-man state.”
Merkley has branded Trump’s actions as authoritarianism, but said that is actually “weaker” language to describe it.
“The stronger language is fascism,” he said.
Speaking the day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Merkley said the agency’s mode of operating under Trump, as well as the deportation of hundreds to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, were fascism in action.
“And when you see people with their faces covered, with no identifier of what military unit or police unit they belong to, it just says like, ‘Police.’ That’s fascism. Grabbing people off the street without due process, preventing them from talking to a lawyer, shipping them overseas. That’s fascism,” he said.
Congressional Republicans who control the Senate and the House have paved a smooth path for Trump’s agenda.
Despite a notable rebuke of Trump, in which a handful of Senate Republicans joined Democrats to advance legislation to curtail Trump’s unilateral military actions in Venezuela, the chamber eventually opted not to rein in the executive.
Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska split with their party in the Jan. 8 procedural vote to act as a check on the administration’s use of military forces — as did Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the measure’s co-sponsor with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.
Trump swiftly responded on Truth Social that the five “should never be elected to office again.”
The pressure campaign worked. In a followup vote less than a week later, Young and Hawley flipped and voted to block the measure.
Five days prior to the procedural vote, U.S. special forces apprehended Maduro and his wife from their bedroom in the Venezuela capital of Caracas.
In the months leading up to the operation, the Trump administration amassed roughly 15,000 troops and personnel, according to a figure cited in a U.S. Southern Command press article, and nearly a dozen warships in the region, including the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, according to numerous media reports on the buildup. U.S. Southern Command declined to confirm specifics on “force posture.”
Since September, U.S. warplanes have targeted numerous small boats off the coast of the South American country, killing more than 115 alleged “narco-terrorists” by the end of 2025, according to the U.S. Southern Command.
By using the military, instead of police, to kill, instead of capture, suspected drug traffickers, Trump was subverting the rule of law, critics across the political spectrum said.
Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said, “Basically what the president has decided is that we are now going to have the death penalty for drug traffickers.”
“But further, not only are we gonna have the death penalty, but Trump is going to be judge, jury and executioner. … That, again, is a massive expansion of presidential power,” Smith, a Washington state Democrat, told C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Dec. 19.
Graham, a former staff judge advocate for U.S. Southern Command, said the alleged drug-running boats should have been treated as suspected criminals, not as enemy combatants akin to terrorist groups like al-Qaida. The alleged drug organizations involved did not constitute an “armed attack on the U.S. government,” he said.
But the Trump administration wrongly expanded the definition of enemy combatants to include alleged drug organizations, rather than as alleged criminals, to circumvent laws governing police powers, he said.
“If there exists no non-international armed conflict, and thus no applicable law of armed conflict, no unlawful combatants, no lawful targets, the U.S. personnel conducting these strikes. … are simply engaged in extrajudicial killings,” he said.
Perhaps most troubling, Graham said, Trump told New York Times reporters in a Jan. 7 interview he did not “need” international law, and that the only restraint on his use of the U.S. military was his “own morality.”
Venezuela is not the only country on Trump’s radar. The president told reporters as recently as Jan. 11 that the U.S. is going to take over Greenland “one way or the other.”
Trump first mentioned buying Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark, during his first term. Now, in his second, the president has not ruled out the idea of taking the massive Arctic island by force.
Soon after Trump took the oath of office for the second time, he trained his focus on any dissent. Universities, media outlets and law firms were quickly in his crosshairs.
The president demanded that in return for federal funding, access to government buildings and contracts, the institutions adhere to principles in line with the administration’s vision for America.
The administration froze billions of federal research and grant dollars for Harvard University unless it changed its admissions and hiring policies, among other demands. The university won a First Amendment lawsuit against the administration in Massachusetts federal district court Sept. 3.
Much of the funding was restored, according to Harvard Magazine, but the Trump administration appealed the decision in mid-December, again putting the nearly $2.2 billion in jeopardy.
Other higher education institutions settled with Trump’s White House, including Columbia, which agreed to pay $200 million over three years to get its federal funding reinstated.
“Universities that Trump considers to be liberal in their views are being punished. Journalists and media companies that don’t toe the line (and) that are critical of Trump are being punished, directly or indirectly,” Goitein said.
“Everywhere you look, you are seeing the targeting of people and institutions based on perceptions that they are politically opposed to the president,” Goitein said.
In late September, Trump signed a memo directing law enforcement to prepare a national strategy to investigate “domestic terrorists” who are animated by “anti-fascism” as well as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity.”
The president has also homed in on news and entertainment media that don’t align with his vision.
The Associated Press and the White House remain tangled up in court over press access after the wire service refused to use “Gulf of America” in its reports without noting that Trump had ordered a renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. The AP, a leader in editorial style, issued the same guidance for other news outlets. In response, the administration curtailed the AP’s access to press events in the Oval Office and on Air Force One.
The Pentagon has also placed stipulations on press access. In October, dozens of reporters walked out of the building after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave journalists an ultimatum: either sign a pledge to only publish approved material or lose their press badges.
Trump also requested Congress yank previously appropriated funds for public broadcasting stations around the country, including affiliates of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, which the administration said “fueled partisanship and left-wing propaganda.” House and Senate lawmakers voted mostly along party lines to nix the funding in July.
Trump has also been exerting influence over network television, both news and entertainment operations.
In September, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke Disney-owned ABC’s affiliate licenses unless they pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from the air after the late-night host made comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Disney and ABC adhered to Carr’s demand but reinstated Kimmel a week later following public outcry.
ABC News settled with the then president-elect in December 2024 for a $15 million charitable contribution to his future presidential library, and $1 million for legal fees. Trump had sued the network for defamation following a misstatement by “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos regarding a civil suit finding.
In July, CBS’ parent company, Paramount, paid Trump $16 million after he sued over an edit in a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Trump’s latest target among his political foes is Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The president has publicly pummeled Powell with threats to fire him if he did not rapidly lower interest rates.
Powell learned Jan. 9 upon receiving a federal grand jury summons that the Department of Justice is probing whether he lied to Congress in June about renovation costs to the agency’s District of Columbia headquarters.
Trump’s investigation of the Fed chair drew swift criticism as an overreach into independent monetary policy decisions meant to stabilize the economy.
Numerous former Fed chairs and White House economic officials who served under both parties issued a statement calling the investigation “an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence.”
The investigation revelation even roused Senate Republicans to question Trump’s actions. Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in a statement he will oppose Trump’s forthcoming nominations to the Federal Reserve board of governors, including the Fed chair vacancy when Powell’s term expires.
“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” wrote Tillis, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee.
Murkowski chalked up the investigation as “nothing more than an attempt at coercion.”
Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told numerous reporters on Capitol Hill Jan. 12 that the allegations against Powell “better be real and they better be serious.”
Trump had already exerted his influence over the central bank when he fired Board Governor Lisa Cook, appointed to the panel by President Joe Biden in 2023.
Trump hit setbacks in lower federal courts after Cook sued and retained her position. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Jan. 21 on the question of the president’s power to fire independent agency appointees without cause.
The justices heard a similar argument Dec. 8 over Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission appointee Rebecca Slaughter.
The president has so far hit roadblocks in his other attempts to prosecute political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
A federal judge in Virginia dismissed Trump’s cases against Comey and James after finding U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi illegally appointed former special assistant and personal lawyer to the president, Lindsey Halligan, as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Halligan secured a two-count indictment against the former FBI chief for allegedly lying to Congress over a leak to the press about the bureau’s investigation into whether Russia played a role in Trump’s first presidential campaign. Comey pleaded not guilty.
The indictment followed the departure of Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Seibert, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who declined to seek charges against Comey.
Halligan also secured an indictment against James, alleging bank fraud and that she lied to a financial institution to receive better loan terms. James also pleaded not guilty.
James successfully prosecuted a massive fraud case in 2024 against Trump, his family and the Trump Organization, for falsely inflating asset values.
In one particularly high-profile post on his own social media platform, Trump directly appealed to Bondi to prosecute Comey and James.
“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He continued further down in the post: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Eddington described Trump’s actions as a “revenge tour” and said the president is “utilizing the coercive power of government, and in this particular case the Department of Justice, to go after his political enemies.”
Then, the administration on Jan. 5 attempted to downgrade the military retirement rank and pay of Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat and retired Navy captain.
Trump and Hegseth singled out Kelly after he and five fellow Democratic lawmakers, all veterans, published a video encouraging U.S. troops to refuse “illegal orders.”
In a barrage of Truth Social posts on the morning of Nov. 20, Trump wrote, “Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!,” he added a couple of hours later.
The president reposted several messages from Truth Social users, including one with the handle @P78 who wrote, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
The lawmakers published the video as the U.S. was nearly three months into its campaign of striking small boats off the coast of Venezuela.
The president has also reached back as far as the late 18th century to invoke laws meant for extraordinary circumstances.
In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to bolster his mass deportation campaign and deport more than 100 Venezuelans, without due process, to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The wartime law, which had only been invoked during the War of 1812 and both world wars, gives the president power to deport people from nations with which the U.S. is at war.
Even when a federal judge issued an emergency order that the flights carrying men deported under the law turn back to the U.S., the Trump administration did not comply. As of Jan. 13, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was unlikely the men could be retrieved due to the chaotic situation in Venezuela, which the Trump administration caused.
The Venezuelan nationals, ages 14 and up, many of whom the administration accused without evidence of being gang members, were incarcerated for months before being released to their home country in a prisoner exchange.
A federal appeals court has blocked Trump, for now, from using the law to quickly expel Venezuelan nationals. A full hearing is pending.
Trump is also facing headwinds from Democrats and advocates for affixing his name to federal buildings and his face to this year’s national parks annual pass.
Senate Democrats Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland joined independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont Jan. 13 to introduce what they’re calling the “SERVE Act,” short for “Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego Act.”
The lawmakers unveiled the bill less than a month after Trump announced his name would now appear on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump was elected chair of the cultural center after he installed new board members early in his second term.
Sanders said in a statement that Trump aimed “to create the myth of the ‘Great Leader’ by naming public buildings after himself — something that dictators have done throughout history.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, sued Trump in federal court on Dec. 22, alleging only Congress has the power to rename federal buildings.
A public lands group has also challenged Trump in federal court, alleging he broke the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act when he replaced a national contest-winning photo of Glacier National Park with his image next to George Washington on the U.S. residents’ annual National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass.
Nearly a year after he took office, Trump again sat down with Hannity.
In the Jan. 8 interview — the same day the administration sent more federal agents to Minneapolis in the face of intense protests and a day after the president said his own morality was the only restraint on his power — the Fox News host asked whether Republicans will win the upcoming midterm elections.
“I think we’ve done a great job,” Trump said. “Maybe the best job ever in the first year.”
Timeline graphic by Ashley Murray.
Craig Stingley listens during a Milwaukee County court hearing. Stingley spent years fighting for justice after the death of his son Corey. | Taylor Glascock for ProPublica
This story was originally published by ProPublica
A judge in Milwaukee brought a 13-year quest for justice by a grieving father to a close on Thursday, accepting a plea deal for two men charged criminally for their role in the killing of his teenaged son.
Robert W. Beringer and Jesse R. Cole pleaded guilty to felony murder under a deferred prosecution agreement that allows them to avoid jail time yet publicly stand accountable for their actions leading to the 2012 death of Corey Stingley. The men helped restrain the 16-year-old inside a convenience store after an attempted shoplifting incident involving $12 worth of alcohol.
“What happened to Corey Stingley should have never happened. His death was unnecessary, brutal and devastating,” Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the judge in a letter filed with the court.
Both of Stingley’s parents spoke directly to the judge in an hourlong hearing in a courtroom filled with family members, community activists, spiritual leaders and some of the teen’s former classmates.
“Corey was my baby. A mother is not supposed to bury her child,” Alicia Stingley told the judge. She spoke of the grace of forgiveness, and after the hearing she hugged Beringer. The Stingleys’ surviving son, Cameron, shook both men’s hands.
The agreement requires Cole and Beringer to make a one-time $500 donation each to a charitable organization of the Stingley family’s choosing in honor of Corey. After six months, if the two men comply with the terms and do not commit any crimes, the prosecution will dismiss the case, according to documents filed with the court.
ProPublica, in a 2023 story, reexamined the incident, the legal presumptions, the background of the men and Stingley’s father’s relentless legal campaign to bring the men into court. The three men previously had defended their actions as justified and necessary to deal with an emergency as they held Stingley while waiting for police to arrive.
Ozanne, who was appointed in 2022 to review the case, recommended the agreement after the two men and the Stingley family engaged in an extensive restorative justice process, in which they sat face to face, under the supervision of a retired judge, and shared their thoughts and feelings. Ozanne said in the letter that the process “appears to have been healing for all involved.”
From the bench, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello said she found the agreement to be fair and just and commended the work of all the parties to come to a resolution.
“Maybe this is the spark that makes other people see similarities in each other and not differences,” she said. “Maybe this is the spark that makes them think about restorative justice and how do we come together. And maybe this is part of the spark that decreases the violence in our community and leads us to finding the paths to have those circles to sit down and have the dialogue and to have that conversation. So maybe there’s some good that comes out of it.”
Craig Stingley, Corey’s father, said during the hearing that his 13-year struggle “has turned into triumph.”
Earlier, the Stingley family filed a statement with the court affirming its support for the agreement and the restorative justice process.
“We sought not vengeance, but acknowledgement — of Corey’s life, his humanity, and the depth of our loss,” it states. “We believe this agreement honors Corey’s memory and offers a model of how people can come together, even after profound harm, to seek understanding and healing.”
The family remembered Stingley as a “vibrant, loving son, brother, and friend” and found that the restorative dialogues brought “truth, understanding, and a measure of healing that the traditional court process could not.”
Jonathan LaVoy, Cole’s attorney, told reporters after the hearing: “This has been a long 13 years. He’s been under investigation with multiple reviews over that time. I think everyone is just so happy that this day has come, that there’s been some finality to this whole situation.”
In a joint written statement provided to the court, Beringer and Cole said they came to recognize “the profound ripple effects” of the incident and their connection to Stingley’s death. They expressed sorrow that Stingley’s “time on this earth ended far too soon.”
The proceeding followed years of work by Craig Stingley to force the justice system to view his son as a crime victim whose life was unlawfully cut short by Beringer, Cole and another store patron, Mario Laumann, who died in 2022.
Prosecutors at the time declined to charge anyone, saying the men did not intend to kill Corey Stingley when they tackled him and pinned him to the floor of VJ’s Food Mart, in West Allis, Wisconsin. They were detaining him for police after the youth attempted to steal bottles of Smirnoff Ice. In surveillance video, Laumann can be seen holding Stingley in a chokehold while the other two men aided in restraining him. A witness told police Laumann was “squeezing the hell” out of the teenager.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office found that Stingley died of a brain injury due to asphyxiation after a “violent struggle with multiple individuals.” It ruled the death a homicide.
Under Wisconsin law, the charge of felony murder is brought in cases in which someone dies during the commission of another alleged crime — in this case false imprisonment.
Ozanne wrote to the court that his analysis found that “there is no doubt Cole, Beringer and Laumann caused Corey Stingley’s death.”
All three men, he wrote, restrained Stingley “intentionally and without his consent” and without legal authority to “arrest” him. “Simply put, Corey, a teenager, was tackled and restrained to the ground by three grown men because they suspected him of shoplifting,” Ozanne wrote. “They killed him while piled on top of his body awaiting the police.”
But he noted that there is no evidence that Beringer or Cole knew that Stingley was in medical distress during the incident. He described their hold on him as “rudimentary detention techniques.”
It was Laumann, Ozanne concluded, who “strangled Corey Stingley to death.” Ozanne wrote that surveillance video shows Laumann’s arm for several minutes across Stingley’s neck “as he fades out of consciousness.”
If Laumann were still alive, Ozanne said in court, prosecutors likely would have been seeking a lengthy prison term for him.
Stingley died the same year as Trayvon Martin, a Black Florida teen shot to death by a neighborhood volunteer watchman, who was acquitted in 2013. Martin’s case drew national attention and led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement. But Stingley’s death after being restrained by three white men did not garner widespread notice outside Wisconsin.
Over the years, Craig Stingley unsuccessfully advocated for the men to face charges. Two prosecutors reviewed the case, but nothing came of it.
He then discovered an obscure “John Doe” statute, dating back to Wisconsin’s territorial days, that allows a private citizen to ask a judge to consider whether a crime has been committed and, if so, by whom when a district attorney can’t or won’t do so.
Stingley filed such a petition in late 2020. That led to the appointment of Ozanne as a special prosecutor to review the matter yet again. In 2024, Ozanne informed the Stingley family that his office had found evidence of a crime but that a guilty verdict was not assured for the remaining two men.
That set in motion an effort to achieve healing and accountability through a restorative justice process. Restorative justice programs bring together survivors and offenders for conversations, led by trained facilitators, to work toward understanding and healing and how best to make amends. Last year, Stingley and members of his family met on separate occasions with both Cole and Beringer through the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, part of the law school at Milwaukee’s Marquette University.
The discussions led to the deferred prosecution agreement.
In an interview, Anthony Neff, a longtime friend of Craig Stingley’s, recalled seeing Corey Stingley in a hospital bed, attached to tubes and a ventilator in his final days. Corey Stingley had been a running back on his high school football team. Everyone in the program showed up for the funeral, Neff said.
“Coaches. The ball boys. The cheerleaders. I mean, they’re all standing in solidarity with Craig and the family,” he said.
In the years since, he and other golfing buddies of Craig Stingley’s have provided emotional support in his quest. Neff called it “a lesson in civics, a master lesson in civics.”
Neighbors confront Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Special Response Team officers following an immigration raid at the Italian restaurant Buono Forchetta in San Diego on May 30, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Pedro Rios)
This story was originally published by CalMatters.
A series of immigration raids across California in 2025 had one thing in common: Most of the federal agents detaining people wore masks over their faces.
This month, the state of California and its largest county will ban law enforcement officers from covering their faces, with a few exceptions, putting local and state police at odds with masked immigration agents.
The state law gives law enforcement officers a choice: If they cover their faces, they lose the ability to assert “qualified immunity,” the doctrine that protects officers from individual liability for their actions. That means they can be sued for assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest or malicious prosecution, and the law adds a clause that says the minimum penalty for committing those offenses while wearing a mask is $10,000.
Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, a Los Angeles Democrat who co-authored the law, said it was necessary to rein in anonymous federal agents.
“We initially were under the understanding that, oh, they’re only targeting folks who were not citizens,” Gonzalez said, “And then actually over time you learn they don’t give a [crap] who you are, they’re attacking you no matter what, with no due process.”
The Trump administration has sued to block the bill, and more than a century of federal court precedent is on its side. An 1890 Supreme Court case provides that a state cannot prosecute a federal law enforcement officer acting in the course of their duties.
The Trump administration said in its brief to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California that forcing agents to reveal their identities would put the agents at risk.
During Immigration and Customs Enforcement “actions, individuals can be heard threatening to doxx and find out who officers and their family members are and where they live,” the administration’s lawyers said in the Nov. 17 brief. “There are even public websites that seek and publish personal information about ICE and other federal officers to harass and threaten them and their families.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said the issue may not be as cut-and-dried as one or two Supreme Court cases. He pointed to a 2001 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that allowed the case of a federal sniper who killed a woman during the 1992 Ruby Ridge, Idaho, standoff to go to trial.
“It basically says that a federal officer can be criminally prosecuted for unreasonable actions,” Chemerinsky said. “Federal officers, by virtue of being federal officers, do not get immunity from all state civil and criminal laws.”
Brian Marvel, president of an organization that represents California police unions, said the law will make life harder for local cops and county sheriffs’ deputies. The organizations that represent police chiefs, sheriffs, agents in the attorney general’s office and California Highway Patrol officers opposed the law, too.
“I think that the state has put us in a tenuous position with this battle they’re having with the Trump administration,” said Marvel of the Peace Officers Research Association of California. “We don’t want to be in the middle of this fight. But unfortunately, [with] the desire for higher name recognition and elections in 2026, they decided to create things that are much more political and not geared toward legitimate public safety issues.”
Marvel said another drawback of the law is giving “a false sense of hope to the immigrant community in California” that the law will force federal agents to leave the state.
Los Angeles County supervisors have also approved a local mask ban on law enforcement for unincorporated areas of the county, a measure that will go into effect in mid-January, unless a court decision comes sooner.
Gonzalez noted that masks have played a significant role in recent California history. First, California temporarily made masks mandatory in public and at work during the pandemic. Then, a couple of years later, a rush of smash-and-grab robberies were harder to solve because the suspects all wore masks. Now, California finds itself in its third back-and-forth over face coverings.
The law provides exemptions for N-95 or medical-grade masks to prevent infection transmission, and permits undercover operatives to wear a mask.
“This is specifically aimed to federal agents because we gotta combat these kidnappings somehow,” Gonzalez said, “and this was our way in.”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Gov. Tony Evers signed “Bradyn’s Law,” which creates a new crime for sexual extortion and the “Swenson Starkie Act,” which extends the statute of limitations for hiding a corpse. Evers addresses the Legislature in his 2024 State of the State message. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers signed two bills this week introduced in response to crimes, including “Bradyn’s Law,” which creates a new crime for sexual extortion and the “Swenson Starkie Act,” which extends the statute of limitations for hiding a corpse.
AB 201, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 48, was introduced by Rep. Patrick Snyder and Sen. Jesse James after the death of 15-year-old Bradyn Bohn from Kronenwetter, a village outside of Wausau. Bohn died by suicide in March after being targeted online by a perpetrator who convinced him to send photos of himself and told him that he needed to send money or face major consequences. He suffered through hours of threats and was coerced into sending money before his death.
“Today is an important day to remember Bradyn as we honor him and his memory, because now, moving forward, we will be able to hold bad actors responsible for reprehensible behavior, especially when they prey on our kids, and that is so important,” Evers said in a statement. “We wouldn’t be here today without Bradyn’s family and their relentless advocacy to keep kids safe online and hold predators accountable. We will be able to protect more of Wisconsin’s kids because of Bradyn’s family’s efforts to fight back.”
Sexual extortion, or “sextortion” is defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a crime in which “an offender coerces a minor to create and send sexually explicit images or video and then uses that material to extort the victim by threatening to release it.”
2025 Wisconsin Act 48 makes it a Class I felony to coerce someone to engage in sexual conduct or to produce “an intimate representation” by threatening to injure someone’s property or representation, by threatening to commit violence or by threatening to distribute intimate photos of another person. The crime would be a Class H felony if the victim does any of those acts or is under the age of 18, and a Class G felony if the defendant was previously convicted of a sexually violent offense, the violation was committed during the course of a child abduction or the victim is under age 18 and the defendant is more than four years older than the victim.
A person can also be prosecuted for felony murder if the person commits extortion and it causes the death of the victim.
Sexual extortion has become a growing threat in the U.S. in recent years. The FBI observed from October 2022 to March 2023 an increase of more than 20% in reports of financially motivated sextortion incidents involving minor victims.
From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors that included at least 12,600 victims, mostly boys, and led to at least 20 suicides.
Rep. Brent Jacobson (R-Mosinee) said in a statement that the bill is the first step towards “protecting vulnerable Wisconsinites from exploitation.”
“As technology creates new avenues for exploitation, my colleagues and I have an obligation to make sure our laws protect our constituents, and that Wisconsin parents have the resources and awareness to keep their children safe from harm,” Jacobson said. “We must continue to come together to prevent these heinous crimes from claiming children in our state.”
SB 423, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 59, extends the statute of limitations for prosecuting the crime of hiding or burying a corpse by specifying that it only begins “once the victim’s remains are found and identified or when the crime occurs, whichever is later.” The current statute of limitations is six years in Wisconsin.
The legislation was introduced by Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) and Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) after the case of Starkie Swenson. Swenson disappeared in 1983 but his remains weren’t found until 2021, 38 years later.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, John C. Andrews accepted a plea in the case and was convicted on a charge of homicide by negligent use of a vehicle in 1994 and served 16 months in prison. He refused to reveal where Swenson’s body was.
Police charged him with hiding a corpse after identifying the remains in 2021, but the charges were dismissed due to the statute of limitations.
“The killer should’ve faced justice for hiding the remains in an attempt to conceal his crime. However, because of a loophole in Wisconsin law, Starkie’s killer was able to avoid charges,” Tusler said in a statement. “Although we cannot heal the wounds caused by the murder of Starkie Swenson, 2025 Wisconsin Act 59 ensures that no violent criminal will be able to exploit the corpse-hiding loophole again,” Tusler said in a statement.
AB 74, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 57, requires Wisconsin schools to notify a pupil’s parent or guardian if the pupil is an alleged victim, target or recipient of alleged sex offenses while at school. The law also requires school boards to provide parents and guardians each year with information on their rights to access records regarding school employee discipline.
“Doing everything we can to keep our kids safe at school, at home, and in our communities is a top priority for me, as well as our schools and education professionals, who are frontlines of doing what’s best for our kids every day,” Evers said in a statement. “This bill will strengthen transparency by making sure parents and family members are notified if any misconduct at school affects their kids’ safety or well-being and bolster accountability by ensuring they know what their rights are and what their kids’ rights are.”
Under AB 136, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 55, the penalty for impersonating a peace officer, a firefighter, an emergency medical services practitioner or an emergency medical responder is increased from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class I felony. Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rep. Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego) introduced the legislation this year following an incident in New Berlin.
AB 388, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 75, creates a legal framework to establish a behavioral health hospital in Chippewa Falls using $10 million, which was set aside in the state budget this year to be used for Rogers Behavioral Health. Sen. Jesse James, who coauthored the bill, said in a statement that it “is extremely monumental for the people of northwestern Wisconsin” and provides “a renewed sense of optimism” to the community as it will provide mental health support for children and adults in the area.
Under SB 11, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 79, principals will now be required to allow youth membership organizations, including the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts, to schedule at minimum one time to visit their school to encourage students to join their organization. The visit can consist of both spoken and written information on how the organization helps students with educational interests and civic engagement.
Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) celebrated Evers signing the bill, saying that the organizations “create more engaged, confident, and community-minded citizens” and the law “ensures the next generation of Wisconsin children will continue to benefit from these life-changing experiences.” She also criticized Evers for vetoing another bill that would have added new requirements on schools related to military recruiters, saying the state should “proudly support our military, not slam the door shut when they’re offering students legitimate career options, which is precisely what the governor did with this veto.”
SB 310, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 61, limits the amount of time covered by an emergency power proclamation by a local government’s chief executive officer to 60 days, unless extended by a local governing body. The bill was part of a controversy surrounding Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez earlier this year who claimed that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is running for governor, abused his power during the COVID-19 pandemic when he issued emergency orders in 2021.
AB 265, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 56, requires judges to sentence offenders to a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime.
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Community and environmental justice advocates say the Biden administration is failing to deliver promised transparency and public engagement around its $7 billion clean hydrogen hub initiative.
“Engagement isn’t merely leading people into a process that’s going to happen with or without them,” said Tom Torres, hydrogen program director for the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit serving one of the regions where federally funded partnerships are trying to lay the groundwork for new local hydrogen economies. “It means meaningfully involving people in the decisions about the project.”
The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding in October 2023 for seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — clusters of interconnected projects meant to kickstart production of the fuel with little or no greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the department has held online briefings and virtual listening sessions for each hub, but advocates say they are not getting the kind of information necessary to assess who will be impacted by the projects and how.
Torres and others say they want more than just dots on a map. They want to know how hydrogen will be produced, how it will be used, and how it will get to end users. For projects that depend on carbon capture, they want to know how and where the carbon will be captured, transported and stored. And once the specifics are known, they want a chance to have meaningful input on the final projects.
Spokespeople for the Department of Energy and regional hubs said the answers to those questions are still being worked out and that more engagement is on the horizon. Advocates are increasingly frustrated and fear that community input will come too late to affect how the hubs are developed.
“It doesn’t make sense … on one hand to say there’s not enough on paper to tell the public about, but on the other hand there is enough to allocate almost $1 billion for these companies,” Torres said.
When burned as a fuel source, hydrogen does not emit carbon dioxide, but its production today almost always comes from fossil fuels. Some see a potential for hydrogen to replace natural gas in certain hard-to-electrify sectors such as industry or heavy duty transportation, but the benefits for addressing climate change hinge on whether it can be produced cleanly and at scale.
The Biden administration’s hydrogen hub program, part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to ramp up production of hydrogen made with low-carbon energy, including renewables, nuclear power, and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture.
“It is literally like building the natural gas infrastructure that we have all over the place again for hydrogen,” said Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience manager for Battelle, the project manager for the Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, ARCH2, which includes projects for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. A majority of its projects will use steam methane reforming to make hydrogen from natural gas, along with carbon capture and storage. Other projects in the hub plan to make hydrogen from waste gases or from electrolysis, which uses energy to split water molecules.
In May, dozens of groups urged the Department of Energy to suspend funding discussions for the ARCH2 project until the public receives detailed information beyond general maps and short project descriptions. On July 31 the Department of Energy formally committed the first $30 million of federal funding to ARCH2, with a total of up to $925 million to be spent over the next decade or so.
Last month, the Department of Energy committed up to $1 billion for the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, MachH2, which spans Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa and plans to produce hydrogen from a mix of nuclear power, wind energy and natural gas. The department will hold a December 9 briefing on MachH2.
In response to the Energy News Network’s questions about community groups’ complaints about a lack of outreach, a Department of Energy spokesperson provided a statement saying it “has been actively engaged with these communities in support of the economic playbook” of the Biden-Harris administration.
The ARCH2 project held a community outreach session in West Virginia in November, and additional meetings will be held in Ohio and Pennsylvania early next year, Bennett said. Some community group members protested outside at the West Virginia session but then came inside for a good discussion, he added.
Torres said there was no general presentation at the West Virginia meeting, and company representatives were present for only a handful of the hub’s projects. Even then, project information was still sparse.
“It wasn’t an opportunity for people’s voices to be heard,” he said. “What is the value of these events other than checking a box for these companies?”
Advocacy groups focusing on the MachH2 project said months went by without getting updates or details. Then last month, they got less than 24 hours’ notice for a briefing with general descriptions about the MachH2 hub projects.
During that session, representatives for the Department of Energy said a decision on the hub’s funding commitment would come soon, “probably next week sometime,” said Susan Thomas, the legislative and policy director and communications manager for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. Minutes after the November 20 session ended, the Department of Energy announced the MachH2 funding commitment.
“Our jaws were on the table,” Thomas said.
Groups have been trying to get answers from the Department of Energy for more than a year, said Chris Chyung, executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters. In his view, the agency’s approach “is just flouting the law.” According to the Department of Energy’s website, engagement with communities and labor is a key principle required in hubs’ community benefits plans, which are part of hubs’ contractual obligations for funding.
Community groups learned in the November 20 briefing that the MachH2 community engagement would not address concerns related to any pipelines associated with the hub. Instead, those would be handled by a separate office within the Department of Energy.
But a pipeline for northwestern Indiana “is absolutely part and parcel of [a] dirty hydrogen project that is part of MachH2,” and the community should get a say on it, said Lauren Piette, an attorney with Earthjustice, which does not consider hydrogen made with natural gas to be climate-friendly, even with carbon capture.
The Department of Energy spokesperson did not respond to the Energy News Network’s question about how community benefits for hub projects can fully be assessed if they don’t include consideration of issues and input related to necessary pipelines.
Representatives of the MachH2 and ARCH2 hubs who spoke at an Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Consortium program last month said they couldn’t practically engage in community outreach until funding commitments had been negotiated with the Department of Energy. Until then, it wasn’t certain whether each hub would move forward.
Also, as a practical matter, “there was no budget for these things,” Bennett said. Details for each hub’s projects are still being worked out, and ARCH2 is still trying to add additional project partners.
Even then, details for projects won’t be finalized until review under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to Neil Banwart, who is the chief integration officer for the MachH2 hub and also the managing director for hydrogen at Energy Systems Network.
“It’s not a certainty that all of the projects will get built in the locations that we shared on a map,” he said.
Chyung said he felt the comments about funding were “a complete dodge on behalf of these extremely wealthy national corporations that have said since 2023 they were eager to get started on community outreach.”
Advocates frustrated by lack of transparency, engagement on regional hydrogen hub projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.
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