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Commentary: A California lawyer takes the civil rights fight home to Minneapolis

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Commentary: A California lawyer takes the civil rights fight home to Minneapolis

How do you find the missing?

If you do find them, how can you help?

Oakland civil rights attorney James Cook has been on the ground in Minnesota for months figuring out answers to these question as he goes.

A fast-talking Minneapolis native who still lives in the Twin Cities part time, Cook is one of a handful of attorneys who have dropped everything to aid (for free) those caught up in the federal crackdown — protesters, immigrants and detained citizens — too many of whom have found themselves facing deportation, arrest or even been disappeared, at least for a time.

Civil rights attorney James Cook in the rear view mirror as he makes phone calls in his car in Minneapolis.

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(Caroline Yang/For The Times)

“They are leaders that are on the ground really helping people through this process,” Minnesota school board member Chauntyll Allen told me.

She’s one of the protesters arrested inside a local church, charged with conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights by Pam Bondi’s politicized Department of Justice, which also Friday arrested journalist Don Lemon for the same incident. Cook is one of the lawyers now representing Allen.

“It shows us that the judicial arm, or some of the judicial arm of our democracy, is willing to step up and ensure that our democracy stands strong,” Allen said of Cook and others like him.

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While it’s the images of clashes in the streets that captivate media and audiences, it’s lawyers like Cook who are fighting an existential battle in the background to preserve the rule of law in a place where it is increasing opaque, to put it gently.

The legal work behind detentions has largely been an overlooked battlefield that will likely rage on years after ICE departs the streets, leaving in its wake hundreds if not thousands of long-and-winding court cases.

Beyond the personal fates they will determine, the outcome of the civil litigation Cook and others are spearheading will likely force whatever transparency and accountability can be pulled from these chaotic and troubling times.

It’s time-consuming and complicated work vital not just to people, but history.

Or, as Cook puts it, “I’ll be 10 years older when all this s— resolves.”

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Federal agents stand guard against a growing wall of protesters on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis.

Federal agents stand guard against a growing wall of protesters on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis, just hours after Alex Pretti was shot by federal agents.

(Caroline Yang/For The Times)

Cook told me this while on his way to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building where some detainees are being held, maybe. It’s hard to find out. A few years ago, when immigration enforcement in Minnesota ramped up under the first Trump term, activists tried to get the name of the building changed, arguing Whipple, the first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the state, had been an advocate of the marginalized and wouldn’t want his name associated with what the feds were up to.

It didn’t work, but the movement’s slogan, “What would Whipple do?” still has resonance in this town, where two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, have been fatally shot while protesting — incidents ugly enough that Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about them.

Cook is well aware that the guns carried by the federal agents are not for show, even without the Boss’ new ballad. Just a few days ago, one of the first times he drove his beat-up truck up to the gate, the federal guards at Whipple pointed their guns at him.

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“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m going to take my keys out of the ignition, drop them on the ground. So please don’t shoot,’” he said.

They lowered the guns, but Cook was scared, a feeling that doesn’t come easy.

Long before his law degree, when he was a punk-rock loving teen in the 1980s, fresh out of Southwest High, the public school not too far from Whipple, a former coach convinced him to give up college dreams and instead pursue a shot at making the first Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Olympics.

The martial art ended up not making it as an official Olympic sport, but the experience launched Cook into a professional boxing and kickboxing career that took him to competitions around the world, and taught him fear is not a reason to back down.

But, “Father Time is undefeated,” Cook said. “I got older and I started losing fights, and I was like, all right, time to get back to life.”

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That eventually led him to obtaining a law degree in San Francisco, where after an intern stint as a public defender, he decided he wanted to be a trial attorney, fighting in court.

Civil rights attorney James Cook steps into his car to warm up and make phone calls in Minneapolis.

Civil rights attorney James Cook has been doing pro bono immigration work since the crackdown began in Minneapolis.

(Caroline Yang/For The Times)

He started cold-calling John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer who is an icon of civil rights and police misconduct cases. Burris, who has been called the “Godfather of Police Litigation,” was involved in the “Oakland Riders” case in 2000, when officers were discovered to have planted evidence. He also represented Rodney King, the family of Oscar Grant, and the family of Joseph Mann among many others.

But Burris, a boxing fan, didn’t respond to Cook’s calls until the young lawyer offered him free tickets to one of his fights, which he was still doing on the side.

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“And then immediately I got a call back,” Cook said.

Burris said Cook’s history as a fighter intrigued him, but “I did say to James, you can’t be a fighter and lawyer. You can’t get punched in your head all the time.”

Cook did not take this advice.

Still, Burris said, “It was his persistence that I admired, because the type of work we’re involved in, you need people who are dedicated, who have some real commitment to the work, and he showed that kind of consistency and dedication.”

Cook’s been working with Burris more than 20 years now, but until recently, the labyrinth of the immigration system wasn’t his area of expertise. It’s been a crash course for him, he said, on the often arcane laws that govern who gets to stay in America and who doesn’t.

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It’s also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like. Along with his work looking for locked-up immigrants, Cook spends a lot of time on the streets at protests, helping people understand their rights — and limitations — and seeing first hand what is happening.

“If you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany, now is the time,” he said. “Now is the time to do something. People are being interned.”

In the hours after Pretti was shot, Cook was at the location of the shooting, in the middle of the tear gas, offering legal help to anyone who needed it and bearing witness to conduct that will almost certainly face scrutiny one day, even if government leaders condone it now.

Law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.

Law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters as they work to push the crowd back and expand their perimeter in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.

(Caroline Yang/For The Times)

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“The way the officers chase people down, protesters who were really just protesting lawfully and were beaten and pepper sprayed and gassed — all those are civil rights violations,” Burris said. “And so the law is the guardrails. So there has to be lawyers who are prepared to protect those guardrails and to stand as centurions, as I refer to us.”

Cook has tried to calm protesters, he told me, and prevent clashes. But people are mad, and resolute. His greatest fear is summer — when warm weather could bring even larger crowds if enforcement is still ongoing. He’s worried that the actions of the federal agents will spill over into anger at local cops enforcing local laws, leading to even more chaos.

“I’ve always supported cops as long as they do their job correctly,” Cook said.

For now, he’s taking it one day at a time, one case at a time, one name at a time.

Protesters raise an inverted American flag as law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis.

Protesters raise an inverted American flag as law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents.

(Caroline Yang/For The Times)

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Tuesday, Cook passed through the armed checkpoint at Whipple carrying a list of about seven people, folks who have been picked up by federal agents for one reason or another, or reasons unknown, and now cannot be located. They are not in the public online system that is meant to track detainees, and family and friends have not heard from them.

If he’s lucky, Cook will get information on one or two, that they are indeed inside, or maybe at a detention center in Texas, where many have been sent. But there will be more whose location remains unknown. He’ll make calls, fill out forms and come back tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that.

“This is what we do,” he said. “I’m always in it for the long run. I mean, you know, shoot, yeah, that’s kind of the way it works.”

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Gorsuch says ideological divides on Supreme Court come down to ‘how you read law,’ not politics

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Gorsuch says ideological divides on Supreme Court come down to ‘how you read law,’ not politics

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Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said differences among his colleagues on the high court are often less about politics than they are about diverging approaches to constitutional interpretation — a dynamic, he said, that influences both the court’s rulings and its internal relations.

“That has nothing to do with politics,” Gorsuch told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “That has to do [with] how you read law. Interpretive methodologies.”

Gorsuch, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2017, has described himself as a “textualist,” noting his approach focuses on interpreting legal texts based on the ordinary meaning of the words as written. The philosophy is linked to originalism — or the view that the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original public meaning when it was adopted. 

Other justices have different interpretations, including ones that allow for evolving interpretations over time. Gorsuch stressed that differences, while significant, are not inherently personal.

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JUSTICE THOMAS WARNS PROGRESSIVISM IS A THREAT TO AMERICA IN RARE PUBLIC REMARKS

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch speaks at the Reagan Library on May 5, 2026, in Simi Valley, Calif. (Getty Images)

“At the end of the day, you’re trying to get to the right answer under the law,” he said, adding that disagreement is an expected, and healthy, part of the process.

His remarks come as the federal judiciary and members of the Supreme Court have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, including by Trump and his allies, who have criticized the courts for impinging on what they see as the duties of the executive branch. 

Trump took to Truth Social last month to criticize the Supreme Court’s conservative majority for showing him “very little loyalty” in blocking his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs in February.

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He also suggested they might block his executive order seeking to end so-called “birthright citizenship” in the U.S.

“Certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for,” Trump said. 

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President Donald Trump greets Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts as he arrives to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress in 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

He contrasted this with liberal justices on the court, whom Trump said “stick together like glue, totally loyal to the people and ideology that got them there.”

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Gorsuch, for his part, stressed that the justices often share plenty of common ground, even if their interpretation of the Constitution prompts them to reach different conclusions.

That approach, he suggested, carries over into how the justices work together behind closed doors — where collaboration and debate are central to the high court to perform its constitutional duties.

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The U.S. Supreme Court building is shown in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 13, 2023, as the court unveiled a new ethics code following scandals involving gifts and vacations received by some justices. (Mandel Ngan/AFP)

“The framers understood that people would come to the table with different views,” Gorsuch told Fox News Digital. “The goal is to reason together.”

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While ideological divides can be sharp, Gorsuch emphasized that culture at the high court is built on mutual respect.

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“If you sit and listen to someone long enough, you’re going to find something you can agree on,” he added. “Maybe you start there.”

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Press freedom groups allege Larry Ellison promised to fire CNN anchors

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Press freedom groups allege Larry Ellison promised to fire CNN anchors

Two press freedom groups that own shares in Paramount Skydance are demanding to see the company’s books and internal documents, citing allegations that the company’s leaders may have promised favors to the White House to win approval for Paramount’s deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

The letter, sent Thursday to Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim, says that media reports alleging that Paramount owner David Ellison and others promised favors to the Trump administration “create credible concern that Paramount leadership has offered, solicited, or effectuated a corrupt exchange,” which the groups argue would “constitute a breach of fiduciary duties” and open the company up to a “range of potential civil and criminal penalties.”

The letter cites Delaware law that allows stockholders to inspect the company’s books and records “for any proper purpose.”

Paramount declined to comment on the letter.

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Among the issues raised in the letter are promises reportedly made by David Ellison and his father, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, that they would make “sweeping” changes at the news network CNN, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

The Ellison family acquired Paramount, which includes CBS and the storied Melrose Avenue film studio, last summer.

The letter cites changes implemented in CBS since their acquisition, including their decision to end late night television house Stephen Colbert’s show days after he characterized a settlement Paramount reached with Trump as a “big fat bribe.”

Under Ellison’s ownership, the letter says, numerous high-profile reporters have left the network and its ratings have dropped to “historic lows.”

Larry Ellison, who is backing the financing of Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner, reportedly told White House officials that Paramount would “implement the CBS playbook” at CNN if the merger is approved, and remove anchors and commentators at the cable news network that Trump doesn’t like, according to the letter.

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The effort comes just two weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders overwhelmingly approved the proposed merger. Investors have supported the Larry Ellison family takeover, which would become the biggest Hollywood merger in nearly a decade. The deal would pay Warner stockholders $31 per share — four times the stock price a year ago.

The letter was written on behalf of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which develops secure communication tools for journalists and tracks violations of press freedom, and Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom globally.

The organizations are being represented by former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou, who established the Public Integrity Project this year to challenged alleged government corruption, as well as Delaware attorney Ronald Poliquin.

The missive, which could be a precursor to a lawsuit, opens another avenue of attack against the controversial $111-billion deal, which would transform the smaller Paramount into an industry titan.

With Warner Bros. Discovery, the Ellisons would also control HBO, TBS and the vast film and TV library of Warner Bros., which includes the Harry Potter, DC Comics, and Scooby-Doo, in addition to CNN.

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Paramount, led 43-year-old David Ellison, wants to finalize its Warner Bros. takeover by the end of September. President Trump favors the deal; he has long agitated for changes at CNN.

But the proposed merger would saddle the combined company with $79 billion in debt, stoking fears that Paramount would be forced to make steep cost cuts to juggle such a large debt load.

Politicians, unions and progressive groups separately have pressed California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to scrutinize the proposed merger, hoping that he brings an antitrust lawsuit in an attempt to upend the deal.

More than 4,000 film industry workers, including Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, Ted Danson, J.J. Abrams, Jane Fonda and Kristen Stewart, have signed an open letter imploring Bonta and other regulators to block the merger. The group lamented the proposed tie-up, saying it “would reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four.”

Opponents fear the consolidation would lead to massive layoffs and diminish the quality of programming that Warner Bros., CNN and HBO are known for.

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Hollywood has sustained thousands of layoffs over the last seven years since Walt Disney Co. swallowed Fox’s entertainment assets in another huge merger. In addition, the film production economy hasn’t recovered from shutdowns during the 2023 labor strikes. An estimated 42,000 entertainment industry jobs were lost from 2022 and 2024.

On Thursday, 34 California Democrats in Congress also sent a letter to Bonta, encouraging him to look closely at the merger.

The deal is expected to become one of the largest leveraged buyouts ever.

Ballou, who is working with the press freedom groups, previously served as a Justice Department special counsel with expertise in private equity transactions.

He resigned from the Justice Department in January 2025 when Trump returned to office. In his book, “Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America,” Ballou examined large leveraged buyouts and found that many of which resulted in bankruptcies.

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U.S. Strikes Iranian Targets; Iran Says It Returned Fire

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U.S. Strikes Iranian Targets; Iran Says It Returned Fire

The United States and Iran traded missile fire and accusations on Thursday as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz ratcheted up, threatening an already fragile cease-fire.

U.S. Central Command said that American forces had “intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes” while U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers were traversing the strait to the Gulf of Oman on Thursday.

In a statement, Central Command said Iranian forces launched multiple missiles, drones and small-boat attacks as three U.S. warships were transiting the strait. None of the American naval vessels were hit, Central Command said.

The U.S. vessels that were traversing the strait were the U.S.S. Truxtun, the U.S.S. Rafael Peralta and the U.S.S. Mason. The warships had steamed into the Persian Gulf earlier in the week as part of the Navy’s short-lived effort to guide merchant ships stranded in the Persian Gulf through the strait.

In response, U.S. forces struck targets on Qeshm Island and Bandar Abbas along the Iranian coast in the strait, U.S. officials said.

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It was the latest twist in a head-spinning week in the region, as President Trump, searching for an off-ramp in the war that he started Feb. 28, has contradicted his senior administration officials on the state of the war, the state of American efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the status of peace talks with Iran.

After the exchange of fire on Thursday, the president said the cease-fire was still in effect and downplayed the Iranian attacks.

“They trifled with us today,” Mr. Trump told reporters late Thursday. “We blew them away.”

The president added, however, that Iran needed to sign on “fast” to a proposal from the United States that would have both sides reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and refrain from fighting for 30 days while they try to reach a comprehensive deal.

Even as the president and senior officials described peace negotiations that they said were advancing, Central Command has forcefully hit Iranian vessels that it says have violated an American-imposed blockade of the strait.

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Central Command “eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking U.S. forces, including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes,” the command’s Thursday statement said. It added that Central Command “does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces.”

Iran, for its part, accused the United States of launching “unprovoked” attacks as the U.S. ships traversed the strait.

In a statement carried by state media, Iran’s armed forces said the U.S. military had violated the month-old cease-fire by carrying out airstrikes on Qeshm Island and two other cities on the country’s southern coast. Central Command said the ship attacks had emanated from those sites.

When asked if the U.S. response to the Iranian drone, missile and small-boat attacks went beyond self-defense, a senior U.S. military official said that an effective defense sometimes involves a carefully calibrated offense.

Erica L. Green contributed reporting.

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