Politics
A fiery lawyer's longshot bid to put Donald Trump in the hot seat goes cold
The named defendant in the federal lawsuit was California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, but there was never a doubt that the target was Donald J. Trump.
For a time, as the legal maneuvering proceeded through the fall, it appeared that Los Angeles could be treated to another of its celebrated courtroom dramas, this one a constitutional showdown pitting a colorful civil rights attorney against a volcanic former president in the courtroom of a judge known for his fiery judicial flair.
The case sought an order prohibiting Weber from placing the Republican presidential front-runner on the California ballot, based on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.
It was also intended to be a trap. If Trump’s legal team took the bait and joined the case, then the former president could be forced to face a grilling under oath on his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
At least that was the theory of Stephen Yagman, an attorney both admired and reviled in local lore for his history of toppling sacred cows.
Over a span of two decades, Yagman broke legal ground in cases against the LAPD and the U.S. government, establishing that Los Angeles Police Department officers and their leaders can be held personally liable for civil rights violations and that prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center had a right to due process. Then he suffered an ignominious fall with a 2007 federal conviction for tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud. In his 70s, more than a decade after serving 29 months in prison, Yagman regained his law license and resumed fighting for indigent victims of government abuse.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a no less colorful figure than Yagman, has built a reputation for judicial unorothodoxy bordering on heavy-handedness. He’s held court on Skid Row and summoned mayors and supervisors to answer for their ineffective responses to homelessness. In two cases that were active at the time, Carter was holding L.A. County officials’ feet to the fire to extract a commitment for thousands of mental health beds and rebuffing efforts of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to wiggle out of a lawsuit over veterans housing.
More to the point of Yagman’s case, Carter had found in a 2022 ruling that stripped Trump legal adviser John Eastman’s attorney-client privilege that the two had “more likely than not” attempted to illegally obstruct Congress, calling it “a coup in search of a legal theory.”
Would Carter, who drew Yagman’s case because it was related to the earlier one, follow through with that reasoning? Yagman hoped so.
When Trump’s lawyers took the bait and petitioned Carter to intervene, Yagman virtually frothed with anticipation.
“This court, right here and now, has a unique opportunity to prevent a truly deranged and dangerous fool, Donald Trump, who perpetrated an assault on American Democracy, from again being president of the United States,” he wrote in a motion, noting that Trump “improvidently (for him) has intervened to make himself a party-defendant to the instant action.”
He buttressed his ever eccentric legalese with a flight of literary allusion invoking both Socrates and The Rolling Stones.
“Trump is a vile man. He has no virtue whatsoever,” Yagman wrote, appending a long footnote on the Greek philosopher’s concept of civic virtue.
“And contrary to what the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger sings … Trump, as today’s embodiment of the devil … deserves no sympathy….”
But it was to no avail. Not once, but twice in the months that followed, Trump’s lawyers raised legal technicalities to knock down Yagman’s flaming rhetoric.
The first was based on standing, a slippery legal concept meaning something akin to skin in the game.
Yagman’s case made the tortuous argument that his client, a Republican voter who planned to vote for Trump, would be disenfranchised if, after the March California primary, Trump was ruled ineligible to be president.
Carter dismissed the case in November, finding his client did not have standing because “the harm he alleges is too generalized.”
Yagman had a backup strategy, an amended complaint changing his case to a class action representing all Republican voters and naming Trump himself as a defendant on a novel theory of negligent infliction of emotional distress.
His clients, he argued, were “direct victims of Trump’s acts in creating and participating in insurrection,” both on Jan. 6 and in the “innumerable viewings of those acts on television, on the radio and in numerous publications….”
Reconsidering, Carter set a hearing for Jan. 8. But, over the holidays, Trump’s lawyers convinced the judge that a hearing was not necessary. In a Dec. 22 filing, Shawn E. Cowles of the Dhillon Law Group gave eight reasons why the case had no merit, ranging from presidential immunity and 1st Amendment protection to “reasons to doubt the veracity of Plaintiff’s claim that he is a registered Republican voter in Los Angeles County.”
The argument that carried the day for the former president was based on the statute of limitations. Ignoring Yagman’s contention that the injury was repeated every time Jan. 6 imagery appeared on TV, radio or in print, Carter ruled the case “time-barred” based on California’s two-year statute for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Yagman, whose past victories included establishing that lawyers cannot be sanctioned for making disparaging comments about their judges, showed uncharacteristic magnanimity in defeat.
Carter, he said, is a good judge and decent human being.
“I’m happy enough with it because it’s him,” he told The Times. “Part of me is really sorry to see it go, I really wanted to depose Trump. But I’m ashamed of that because it would just be me playing games. I wouldn’t get anything out of that except chuckles.”
Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this story.
Politics
Arizona school board member gets backlash after mocking board president with Nazi salute
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An Arizona school board member is facing calls to resign after appearing to make a Nazi salute during a contentious public meeting before later comparing the board president to a dictator and saying, “All I could think of tonight was Hitler.”
Video from a May 26 Deer Valley Unified School District Governing Board meeting appears to show board member Kimberly Fisher raising her right arm and saying, “Heil, heil” during a dispute with board President Paul Carver Jr.
The exchange occurred near the end of the meeting during a disagreement over scheduling a community study session related to district boundary discussions.
According to video of the meeting, Fisher objected to holding the session during the afternoon, arguing that community members would have difficulty attending.
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A still image from a Deer Valley Unified School District board meeting shows board member Kimberly Fisher during a contentious exchange with board President Paul Carver Jr. over meeting procedures. (DVUSD)
“The whole point of having a study session with our community is that we can get their input and they can hear our discussions,” Fisher said during the meeting.
Carver later said he moved to adjourn the meeting because the discussion involved an item that was not on the posted agenda and could have raised concerns under Arizona’s Open Meeting Law.
“The reason for calling for the adjournment was simply that, as the question turned into discussion concerning an item that was not on the agenda, the board was moving into an area that could have been considered a violation of Arizona’s Open Meeting Law,” Carver said in a Facebook video posted after the meeting.
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Carver said Fisher made the gesture and comment after the motion to adjourn.
“The point behind this post is that there’s a lot of noise being made that she may have been justified in making that statement because she felt like I was being a dictator,” Carver said. “I was simply following the rules of the state of Arizona.”
He added that “it is never okay to make those gestures and make that statement with those gestures in any environment.”
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The incident prompted condemnation from district officials, who said Fisher was acting independently and did not represent the views of the district.
“The District does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation or violence in any form,” Deer Valley Unified School District said in a statement. “Such actions do not reflect the mission or vision of Deer Valley Unified School District.”
Kim Fisher took to Facebook hours after the board meeting to explain her side of the story. (Facebook/@kim.fisher.233417)
The district added that Fisher’s “views and actions do not reflect and should not be attributed to other board members, staff, other members of the school community or the District.”
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The Deer Valley Educators Association also condemned Fisher’s conduct and called for her resignation.
“DVEA was horrified and disgusted to see DVUSD Governing Board Member Kimberly Fisher deliver a Nazi salute during the Tuesday, May 26, 2026, board meeting,” association president Kelley Fisher said in a statement.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior. Kimberly Fisher should resign before she does more harm to our students and the community at large.”
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Hours after the meeting, Fisher posted a Facebook livestream in which she doubled down on her criticism of Carver, repeatedly describing his leadership as dictatorial.
“We have been living or operating under virtually a dictatorship for a long time,” Fisher said.
She also accused Carver of acting like “a dictator” and urged voters not to support him in future elections.
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Near the end of the livestream, Fisher appeared to connect her thinking during the meeting to historical dictators.
“What was it? Pol Pot, you know, was the most egregious dictator I’ve heard of,” Fisher said. “All I could think of tonight was Hitler.”
Fisher did not directly address the gesture or comment from the meeting during the livestream.
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In a separate video posted to social media, Carver said community members had asked why the board was not taking action against Fisher. He argued Arizona law limits the ability of school boards to discipline elected members.
Deer Valley Unified School District Governing Board President Paul Carver Jr. addresses community questions in a Facebook video after a May 26 board meeting during which board member Kimberly Fisher appeared to make a Nazi salute and say “heil, heil.” (Facebook/@paul.carver.264650)
“I need the community to understand that in the state of Arizona, the school district and the board do not have the ability to discipline board members,” Carver said.
Carver called Fisher’s behavior “rampant and repetitive” and said her actions were “totally unacceptable and unprofessional.”
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Deer Valley Unified School District serves more than 33,000 students across northern Maricopa County, including communities in north Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Cave Creek and New River, according to the district.
Fox News Digital reached out to Fisher for comment.
Politics
Commentary: In Washington, the knives are out for Xavier Becerra. Most anonymously, of course
Xavier Becerra has spent nearly four decades in elected office. To some that speaks of extensive experience and a deep grounding in policy. To others, it smacks of political careerism and a long-term investment in the failed status quo.
Wired or tired?
It all depends on your perspective.
Becerra, a California native, emerged from the hothouse of Latino politics on Los Angeles’ Eastside. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1990, served 12 terms in Congress, was California attorney general and then, for nearly four years, ran the Department of Health and Human Services under President Biden.
It’s that latter stint that’s become a particular focus in the final days of California’s long and winding gubernatorial primary.
As Becerra surged from inconsequence to front-runner, opponents — led by chief Democratic rival Tom Steyer — have hammered Becerra’s performance in the Biden administration, suggesting he was AWOL during the COVID-19 pandemic and inept in his handling of unaccompanied migrant children, 85,000 of whom were supposedly “lost” on Becerra’s watch.
Politics is about persuasion and emotion, not rocket telemetry, so it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on.
“You look at Xavier and he seems to be perceived as a thoughtful, credible, trustworthy choice. That’s what I hear when I talk to regular people who aren’t political insiders,” said Darry Sragow, a Democrat strategist who’s spent decades running California campaigns. “So you see the people who want to take him out going after one of the words I just used here, which is ‘trustworthy’ and, to some extent, ‘credible.’”
A recent Steyer mail piece — which, naturally, features a grim-faced portrait of Becerra — accuses him of “mismanagement,” “scandal” and “incompetence,” and cites a 2024 quote from Susan Rice, a former Biden domestic policy advisor, describing the ex-Cabinet member as an “idiot.” (Apparently “bitch-a—,” another Rice epithet from the same Axios news report, was deemed unsuitable.)
The mail piece also quotes Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokesperson in the Biden administration, saying Becerra “was not effective in government,” though several people who worked in the White House could not think of any occasion, or any reason, Hinojosa would have meaningfully interacted with Becerra.
Pretty weak sauce. But at least Hinojosa, who delivered her gibe on one of CNN’s talking-head shows, was willing to publicly attach herself to the criticism.
Six former Biden administration officials were quoted by Politico “reacting with a mix of incredulity, mockery and resignation” to Becerra’s sudden ascendance in the governor’s race. Critics also unloaded to NBC News and other outlets. All of them spoke anonymously.
Therefore, it’s impossible to discern their motivations. Jealousy? Ego? An attempt to stay politically relevant?
Or maybe Becerra was, indeed, a feckless, flailing and thoroughly awful Cabinet member, deserving of scorn and shame.
Ron Klain, who was Biden’s chief of staff during the first two years of his presidency, doesn’t believe so.
“I think he did an excellent job as HHS secretary and I think the record shows that,” Klain said, citing, among other accomplishments, Becerra’s work helping negotiate a drop in the price of prescription drugs and expanding healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
On COVID-19, Becerra “wasn’t confirmed until several months into the Biden administration. Dr. [Anthony] Fauci had been on the job and was quite a well-known figure to Americans. So, of course, he became more the face of the COVID response.”
“On immigration,” Klain went on. “Xavier’s part was small and discreet. He wasn’t the secretary of Homeland Security. He didn’t run the border. He oversaw an office called the Office of Refugee Resettlement” responsible for processing children who crossed the border alone. “I was in meetings where he was a passionate and forceful advocate for these minors,” Klain said.
Still, there are legitimate questions, notwithstanding Becerra’s deflections — Trump! MAGA! Trump! — about his handling of the migrant children, some of whom died, suffered horrible abuse or were catastrophically injured, according to revelatory reporting by the New York Times. It’s worth noting, however, that Becerra inherited a plan to deal with unaccompanied minors that was drafted and phased in by Rice and her Domestic Policy Council.
There is an unhappy history between the two; apparently Becerra was not alone in drawing Rice’s ire. In 2022, an article in the American Prospect accused her of creating an “abusive and dehumanizing workplace,” in which Rice routinely berated others, including the Health and Human Services secretary.
On social media, Rice has made no secret of her continued contempt for Becerra, a display that carries no small whiff of ax-grinding and score-settling. She highlighted the refusal of Biden’s Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, to endorse Becerra in the governor’s race, though it would be surprising if Mayorkas, Biden, Kamala Harris or any high-level Democrat picked a favorite in such a fiercely contested primary.
Becerra “had big things to do and he got them done,” said Neera Tanden, who succeeded Rice as head of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council and has vigorously defended Becerra against attacks on social media.
“I am not on or coordinating with the Becerra campaign,” Tanden said. “I just know these attacks are ridiculous.”
If Becerra makes it past Tuesday’s primary to the November runoff, his career merits careful scrutiny — and not just those years spent in the Biden Cabinet. Many voters are still getting to know Becerra, who is the likeliest candidate to be California’s next governor. Anonymous quotes, drive-by commentary and incendiary mailers may be standard campaign fare. But voters deserve better.
Politics
Trump floats replacing 250th anniversary concert with massive MAGA rally after artists pull out
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President Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of hosting a massive MAGA rally to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary after numerous artists pulled out of a planned concert this summer.
In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump suggested scrapping the Great American State Fair’s Freedom 250 concerts. He also took aim at a federal judge who on Friday ordered that his name be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” Trump wrote.
“Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before!” he continued.
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President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 3, 2025. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The comments came as several artists backed out of performing at the Great American State Fair, a large-scale national celebration planned on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., stretching from the U.S. Capitol to the Washington Monument.
The event is scheduled to run from June 25 through July 10, 2026, as part of the nation’s America 250 celebration.
Earlier this week, Freedom 250 organizers released a list of performers slated to appear at the event, but several artists later withdrew, including Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, Young MC, Morris Day and The Time, and C+C Music Factory.
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President Trump floats hosting a massive MAGA rally for the nation’s 250th anniversary after several artists pulled out of planned Freedom 250 concert events. (Doug Mills/Getty Images/Pool)
Other performers, including rapper Vanilla Ice, have said they are “honored” to participate.
In a separate social media post Saturday, Trump suggested he could replace the concert with a major speech after several artists got “the yips.”
“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance on Wednesday, so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!” Trump wrote.
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Vanilla Ice is “honored” to get to play during the Great American State Fair in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary of independence. (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)
Trump said he was considering delivering the speech and holding a rally June 24 to kick off the festivities.
“I don’t want so-called ‘Artists’ that get paid far too much money, who aren’t happy,” he wrote. “I only want to be surrounded by Happy People, Smart People, Successful People, and People that know how to WIN.”
Freedom 250 later announced that Trump would, in fact, deliver a speech ahead of the Great American State Fair.
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“As the visionary behind the Great American State Fair, we are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24 in an opening ceremony celebrating America’s 250th birthday,” Freedom 250 spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez wrote on X.
Fox News Digital’s Lori A Bashian and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
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