Politics
Rep. Katie Porter obtains temporary restraining order against ex-boyfriend on harassment allegations
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) secured a temporary restraining order Tuesday against a former boyfriend, saying in dozens of pages of court filings that he had bombarded her, as well as her family and colleagues, with hundreds of messages that she described as “persistent abuse and harassment.”
Porter, 50, alleged in a filing with Orange County Superior Court that her ex-boyfriend Julian Willis, 55, was contacting her and her family with such frequency that she had a “significant fear” for her “personal safety and emotional well-being.”
Judge Stephen T. Hicklin signed a restraining order Tuesday barring Willis from communicating with Porter and her children until a mid-December court hearing. He also barred Willis from communicating about Porter with her current and former colleagues.
In the court filing, Porter said that Willis had been hospitalized twice since late 2022 on involuntary psychiatric holds and had a history of abusing prescription painkillers and other drugs.
She said in a statement to The Times that Willis’ mental health and struggles with addiction seemed to have gotten worse since she asked him in August to move out of her Irvine home. She said she sought the court order after his threats to her family and colleagues “escalated in both their frequency and intensity.”
“I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs,” Porter said.
Willis declined to comment. He will have an opportunity to file a legal response to the temporary restraining order and challenge Porter’s allegations.
Porter is leaving the House of Representatives in January after losing in California’s U.S. Senate primary in March. She has been discussed as a front-runner in the 2026 governor’s race in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom is termed out, but has not said whether she will launch a campaign.
The 53-page court filing, first reported by Politico, included 22 pages of emails, text messages and other communications among Porter, family members and colleagues who had received messages from Willis, as well as messages that Willis sent to Porter’s attorney and to her political mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The filing also included messages between herself and Willis’ siblings as they discussed trying to help him during his psychiatric holds and while he was staying in a sober-living facility.
Porter said that since she ordered Willis to move out, he had sent her more than 1,000 text messages and emails, including texting her 82 times in one 24-hour period in September, and 55 times on Nov. 12 before she blocked his number.
Porter said in the filing that her ex-boyfriend had “already contacted at least three reporters to disseminate false and damaging information” about her and her children, which she said “poses a serious risk to [her] career and personal reputation.”
The filing includes an email that Porter said Willis sent to her attorney late Monday, in which Willis said he had visited Porter’s son at college in Iowa and told him that he would “bring the hammer down on Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”
Another screenshot shows Willis telling Porter’s attorney that he would file a complaint about Porter, who has children ages 12 and 16, with child protective services.
One of Porter’s congressional staff members received a text message from Willis saying he would “punish the f—” out of him if he did not agree to “cooperate” with a New York Times reporter and Willis’ attorneys, according to a screenshot included in the court document.
Willis previously made the news in 2021, when he was arrested after a fight that broke out at a Porter town hall at a park in Irvine.
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.
Politics
Column: Trump shoots his mouth off as L.A. burns. His claims about fire hydrants don’t hold water
SACRAMENTO — OK, I admit it. I’m biased. I hate it when an opportunistic politician capitalizes on other people’s miseries and tries to score political points.
I’m especially biased when it’s a president-elect who shoots off his mouth without regard for facts and blames a governor for fire hydrants running dry.
Not that Democrat Gavin Newsom is a perfect governor. But his California water policies had no more to do with Pacific Palisades hydrants drying up during a firestorm than did Republican Donald Trump’s turning on sprinklers at his golf course.
News reporters shouldn’t allow personal biases to seep into their stories, as Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong has reminded us. Reporters have long strived to not do so and mostly succeeded. But I’m not a reporter. I’m a columnist who analyzes and opines. And yes, I’m biased — but on issues, not politics.
It has always been my view that liberals, moderates and conservatives all have good and bad ideas. Neither party has a monopoly on truth and justice — except in relating to Trump.
I wanted to give Trump the benefit of the doubt and watch whether he really intended — as promised — to be a president for all Americans. But the guy just can’t help himself.
When Trump blamed Newsom for water hydrants going dry as Pacific Palisades burned, it wasn’t something people should dismiss as just another Trumpism.
Here was a president-elect mouthing off and showing his ignorance in a barrage of vindictiveness and insensitivity as thousands of people fled for their lives and hundreds of homes blazed into ashes.
Yes, I’m biased against anyone who’s that uncivil, especially when he disrespects facts or — worse — is a pathological liar.
So, let’s recap what Trump did.
As scores of hydrants went dry while fire crews battled flames in Pacific Palisades, the president-elect instinctively went on social media to point the finger at his left coast political adversary, the Democrat he tastelessly derides as Gov. “Newscum.”
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snow melt from the north to flow daily into many parts of California, including the parts that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump asserted.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt … but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid.
“I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to flow into California. He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster.”
True drivel, putting it politely.
First, what was this so-called water restoration declaration?
“There’s no such document,” responded Izzy Gardon, Newsom’s communications director. “That is pure fiction.”
Trump probably was referring to his policy differences with Newsom on water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley. In his first presidency, Trump wanted to drain more fresh water from the delta for irrigation in the valley. But both Govs. Jerry Brown and Newsom took a more centrist approach, striving for a balance between farms and fish.
Second, it’s not the demise of the tiny smelt — the Republicans’ favorite target — that’s so concerning to many conservationists. It’s the rapid decline of iconic salmon that previously provided world-class recreational angling in the delta and fed a healthy commercial fishery on the coast. Salmon fishing seasons have been closed recently to save what’s left of the fish.
Third, despite Trump’s claptrap, plenty of fresh delta water is being pumped south to fill fire hydrants and the tanks of firefighting aircraft. Hundreds of millions of gallons of water flow daily down the California Aqueduct. Major Southland reservoirs are at historically high levels. Anyway, much of L.A.’s water doesn’t even come from the Delta. It flows from the Owens Valley and the Colorado River.
Fourth, the hydrants went dry simply because there were too many fires to fight, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power explained. Storage tanks went dry.
“We pushed the system to the extreme,” Janisse Quinones, DWP chief executive and chief engineer, said. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight.”
Yes, I’m biased against politicians who make up stuff.
But you’ve got to listen to Trump because he could follow through on what he’s bellowing about.
For example, Trump vowed during the presidential campaign to deny Newsom federal money to fight wildfires unless the governor diverted more water to farms.
That apparently wasn’t an idle threat.
Trump initially refused to approve federal wildfire aid in 2018 until a staffer pointed out that Orange County, a beneficiary, was home to many voters who supported him, Politico reported. And in 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency rejected an aid request during several California wildfires until Republicans appealed to Trump.
So, what’s Trump going to be like when he actually becomes president again and is wielding real power, not just running off at the mouth?
Will he try to annex Greenland? Seize the Panama Canal? When a reporter asked him whether he’d commit to not using “military or economic coercion” to achieve these goals, he immediately answered: “No.”
Will he keep calling Canada our “51st state?”
Yep. I’m biased against such immature and dangerous political leaders.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. received a call on his cellphone Tuesday. It was President-elect Donald J. Trump, calling from Florida.
Hours later, Mr. Trump’s legal team would ask Justice Alito and his eight colleagues on the Supreme Court to block his sentencing in New York for falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a pornographic film actress before the 2016 election. And the next day, the existence of the call would leak to ABC News — prompting an uproar about Mr. Trump’s talking to a justice before whom he would have business with substantial political and legal consequences.
Justice Alito said in a statement on Wednesday that the pending filing never came up in his conversation with Mr. Trump and that he was not aware, at the time of the call, that the Trump team planned to file it. People familiar with the call confirmed his account.
But the fact of the call and its timing flouted any regard for even the appearance of a conflict of interest at a time when the Supreme Court has come under intense scrutiny over the justices’ refusal to adopt a more rigorous and enforceable ethics code.
The circumstances were extraordinary for another reason: Justice Alito was being drawn into a highly personalized effort by some Trump aides to blackball Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump from entering the administration, according to six people with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
The phone call centered on William Levi, a former law clerk of Justice Alito’s who seemingly has impeccable conservative legal credentials. But in the eyes of the Trump team, Mr. Levi has a black mark against his name. In the first Trump administration, he served as the chief of staff to Attorney General William P. Barr, who is now viewed as a “traitor” by Mr. Trump for refusing to go along with his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
Mr. Levi has been under consideration for several jobs in the new administration, including Pentagon general counsel. He has also been working for the Trump transition on issues related to the Justice Department. But his bid for a permanent position has been stymied by Mr. Trump’s advisers who are vetting personnel for loyalty, according to three of the people with knowledge of the situation.
As Mr. Trump puts together his second administration, Mr. Barr is among a handful of prominent Republicans who are viewed with such suspicion that others associated with them are presumptively not to be given jobs in the administration, according to people familiar with the dynamic. Republicans in that category include Mr. Trump’s former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and his former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley. To be called a “Pompeo guy” or a “Haley person” is considered a kiss of death in Mr. Trump’s inner circle. Resistance to such people can usually be overcome only if Mr. Trump himself signs off on their hiring.
Tuesday’s phone call took place against that backdrop. Several people close to the Trump transition team on Thursday said their understanding was that Justice Alito had requested the call. But a statement from Justice Alito framed the matter as the justice passively agreeing to take a call at the behest of his former clerk.
The disconnect appeared to stem from Mr. Levi’s role in laying the groundwork for the call in both directions. It was not clear whether someone on the transition team had suggested he propose the call.
Mr. Levi did not respond to a request for comment. The Supreme Court press office said it had nothing to add to the statement it put out from Justice Alito on Wednesday. In that statement, Justice Alito said that Mr. Levi “asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position. I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon.”
He added: “We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed. We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the president-elect.”
During the call, according to multiple people briefed on it, Mr. Trump initially seemed confused about why he was talking to Justice Alito, seemingly thinking that he was returning Justice Alito’s call. The justice, two of the people said, told the president-elect that he understood that Mr. Trump wanted to talk about Mr. Levi, and Mr. Trump then got on track and the two discussed him.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.
While it is unusual for an incoming president to speak with a Supreme Court justice about a job reference, it is routine for justices to serve as references for their former clerks. Justices traditionally treat their clerks as a network of protégés whose continued success they seek to foster as part of their own legacies.
Seemly or not, there is a long history of interactions between presidents and other senior executive branch officials and Supreme Court justices who sometimes will have a say over the fate of administration policies.
In 2004, a controversy arose when there was a lawsuit seeking disclosure of records about Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force meetings. One of the litigants, the Sierra Club, asked Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself from participation in the case because he had recently gone duck hunting with Mr. Cheney. Justice Scalia declined, issuing a 21-page memorandum that explained why he believed stepping aside was unjustified.
Part of Justice Scalia’s argument was that Mr. Cheney was being sued over an official action. That makes Mr. Trump’s pending attempt to block his sentencing for crimes that he was convicted of committing in his private capacity somewhat different, although the basis of Mr. Trump’s argument is that being sentenced and then fighting an appeal would interfere with his ability to carry out his official duties.
In trying to justify his decision not to recuse, Justice Scalia noted that justices have had personal friendships with presidents going back years, including some who played poker with Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman but did not recuse themselves from cases challenging their administrations’ policies and actions.
Mr. Trump has long sought to pressure the Supreme Court, in some cases by publicly hectoring the justices on social media for decisions he disagrees with. Mr. Trump has often privately complained that the three justices he appointed in his first term — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — had “done nothing” for him, according to a person who has discussed the matter with Mr. Trump.
One week after the 2018 midterm elections, Mr. Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, had lunch with Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas. Ms. Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, made suggestions about personnel shake-ups to Mr. Trump and later supported his efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election results.
In December 2020, Mr. Trump attacked the Supreme Court as “incompetent and weak” for refusing to address his legal team’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election. Two years later, he attacked the court again for giving Congress access to his tax returns.
The Supreme Court redeemed itself in Mr. Trump’s eyes last summer when the six Republican-appointed justices ruled that former presidents have broad immunity from being prosecuted over actions they took in their official capacity. That ruling threw into doubt how much of the indictment brought against Mr. Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election could actually survive to go to trial — even after prosecutors filed a revised version trying to account for the court’s decision.
The Supreme Court’s intervention also seriously delayed the case’s progress, effectively making it impossible to get the charges to a jury before the election. And once Trump won the 2024 race, he could no longer face prosecution under Justice Department policy.
Kirsten Noyes contributed research from New York.
A federal appeals court rejected a bid to block the release of a portion of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report detailing his investigation and prosecution of President-elect Trump’s alleged 2020 election interference and alleged improper retention of classified records.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit denied a request from Walt Nauta, an aide to Trump, and Carlos de Oliveira, the former property manager at Mar-a-Lago, who were charged with obstructing a separate federal investigation into Trump’s handling of sensitive government records.
The court left a three-day hold on DOJ’s release of the report.
JUDGE GRANTS JACK SMITH REQUEST TO DISMISS JAN. 6 CHARGES AGAINST TRUMP, APPEAL DROPPED IN FLORIDA DOCS CASE
Jack Smith, U.S. special counsel, speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Justice Department said it would proceed with plans to release the first of two volumes centered on the election interference case but would make the classified documents section of the report available only to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for their private review as long as the case against Trump’s co-defendants is ongoing.
It was not immediately clear when the election interference report might be released.
The election interference case was narrowed by a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, which ruled that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.
Following Trump’s presidential victory, Smith’s team abandoned both cases in November, citing Justice Department policy that prohibits federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
TRUMP SAYS HE RESPECTS SUPREME COURT’S DECISION TO DENY HIS RESQUEST TO STOP SENTENCING, VOWS TO APPEAL
Justice Department regulations call for special counsels appointed by the attorney general to submit a confidential report at the conclusion of their investigations. It is then up to the attorney general to decide what to make public.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has made public in their entirety the reports produced by special counsels who operated under his watch, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information and John Durham’s report on the FBI’s Russian election interference investigation.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
In a statement, Trump Communications Director Steven Cheung said that it was time to “put a final stop to the political weaponiziation of our Justice system.”
“Deranged Jack Smith was sent packing after losing both of his Witch Hunts against President Trump. Deranged was unconstitutionally appointed and paid for, so he cannot be allowed to do anything more in perpetuation of his election-interfering hoaxes, let alone prepare an unconstitutional, one-sided, falsehood-ridden screed,” he said.
“Today’s decision by the 11th Circuit keeps Judge Cannon’s injunction in place and prevents any report from being issued. It is time for Joe Biden and Merrick Garland to do the right thing and put a final stop to the political weaponization of our Justice system,” Cheung said. “The American People elected President Trump with a historic and overwhelming mandate, and we look forward to uniting our country in the new Administration as President Trump makes America great again.”
Fox News’ Brooke Signman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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