Protesters crowd outside federal courthouse ahead of Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan's appearance
Protesters gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee, shortly before Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was set to appear May 15 on charges that she tried to help an undocumented immigrant escape arrest from her courtroom last month.
"We are here today, this morning, because we know we have to hold the line on defending the constitutional rights of immigrants and others," Christine Neumann-Ortiz of Voces de la Frontera told the crowd to applause. She later led the crowd in chants of "Si se puede!" before switching to English and chanting "Yes we can!"
State. Sen. Chris Larson, a Milwaukee Democrat, accused the Trump administration of lying to ruin Dugan's life. He called on the crowd of protesters who gathered in the early morning fog to shine 'a bright light through the fog of disinformation.'
Protesters held signs that read things like 'We are a nation of laws' 'Defend Democracy' and 'Only Fascists Arrest Judges.'
One speaker led the crowd in chants of 'Hands off Hannah Dugan' and 'Hands off our immigrant brothers and sisters.'
The hearing came two days after a federal grand jury indicted Dugan on a two charges that she tried to help Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant, escape from an ICE arrest team last month, putting her at the center of the growing dispute between President Donald Trump and the judiciary.
The two-page indictment accuses Dugan, 66, of obstructing a U.S. agency and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. The two charges carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $350,000 fine, but sentences in cases involving nonviolent offenses typically are much shorter.
Dugan is expected to enter a plea at the May 15 hearing. Members of her defense team have sharply criticized the government's handing of the case.
"As she said after her unnecessary arrest, Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court," her attorneys said.
Dugan's defense team filed a motion to dismiss the case May 14, citing judicial immunity and federal overreach issues.
Dugan, now in her ninth year on the bench, was placed on paid administrative leave by the Wisconsin Supreme Court shortly after her arrest.
Check back for updates to this developing story.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Protesters crowd outside federal courthouse ahead of Dugan appearance
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump, trashing N.J. as ‘blue horror show,' again urges support for ex-assemblyman for governor
GOP gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli and President Trump at Trump's Bedminster country club on March 21. (Courtesy of the Ciattarelli campaign) President Donald Trump urged his New Jersey supporters during a virtual rally Monday night to vote for Republican Jack Ciattarelli for governor in the June 10 GOP primary, calling Ciattarelli a 'true champion' for the Garden State. 'It's being watched actually all over the world because New Jersey's ready to pop out of that blue horror show and really get in there and vote for somebody that's going to make things happen,' Trump said. Trump's push for Ciattarelli came on the eve of the early in-person voting period for the primary, which begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. and runs through Sunday. Ciattarelli is one of five men seeking the Republican nod for governor next week. His opponents include longtime New Jersey 101.5 radio host Bill Spadea, who also competed for Trump's endorsement, and state Sen. Jon Bramnick, a Trump critic. Whoever wins the nomination on June 10 will compete against one of six Democrats in November to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat. The president said Monday that Ciattarelli has his 'complete and total endorsement.' 'Other people are going around saying I endorsed them. It's not true,' Trump said. Trump's support for Ciattarelli came even after Ciattarelli in 2015 called Trump a 'charlatan.' Appearing on Spadea's show last year, Trump said Ciattarelli 'made some very big mistakes' when Ciattarelli sought unsuccessfully to unseat Murphy in 2021. Spadea has said he was disappointed in Trump's endorsement of Ciattarelli, and has even referenced the endorsement in a recent campaign ad, telling Republican voters that 'it's OK for you to disagree with' Trump. Several polls have shown Ciattarelli with a substantial lead in the GOP primary. A May 15 Emerson College/Pix 11/The Hill poll shows Ciattarelli with 44% support compared to Spadea's 18%, with roughly a quarter of voters undecided. That poll also shows Trump has a split job approval rating in the state, with 47% approving and 47% disapproving. Trump on Monday blasted New Jersey as a sanctuary state with 'crippling regulations and rampant corruption.' Just 10 days ago, the Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities and their mayors — including two Democratic candidates for governor, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop — over their sanctuary city policies. Trump also touched on his usual rally talking points, like easing illegal immigration at the southern border, transgender issues, crime, congestion pricing, and ending the 'radical left war on suburbs.' 'New Jersey's economy will wither and die, and you'll be living in a nightmare of chaos and crime, and you sort of have that to a certain extent now. But it's going to be changed, and it's going to be changed fast with Jack,' Trump said. Ciattarelli told the president that his first executive order as governor would be ending the Immigrant Trust Directive — that's the state policy that bars law enforcement from assisting federal agents with civil immigration enforcement — and pledged that his attorney general won't sue the White House. The state's current attorney general, Matt Platkin, a Democrat, has led and joined numerous legal complaints against the Trump administration. 'I'm honored, and I will not let you down, nor will the Republicans across New Jersey,' Ciattarelli said. 'They're going to turn out in record numbers this year because we see what's going on across the state.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Socialist Kshama Sawant announces bid to defeat U.S. Rep. Adam Smith
Former socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant announced Monday that she's running to unseat longtime U.S. Rep. Adam Smith. Smith, a Democrat, has represented Washington's 9th Congressional district for nearly three decades. The district stretches over portions of Seattle and Bellevue, as well as Seattle's southeast suburbs. Sawant served on Seattle City Council from 2014 to 2024. She left that role last year to launch Workers Strike Back, a national labor movement. In a Federal Election Commission document filed last week, Sawant is listed as an Independent. 'Most of the time, working people have no political representation under capitalism,' Sawant said Monday during a livestreamed news conference. 'Both the Democrats and Republicans serve the interests of the billionaires, and both are war-mongering parties down to their bones.' Early in her political career, Sawant spearheaded a push to secure a $15 hourly minimum wage for Seattle. She has fought to impose more taxes on big businesses such as Amazon and is an advocate for rent-control efforts. Sawant is calling for 'an immediate end to the genocidal war and occupation of Gaza,' according to her campaign website. She wants to see more funding for health care, schools and jobs, and is demanding that the U.S. cease all military aid to 'both the Israeli state and the bloody inter-imperialist proxy war in Ukraine.' Sawant has also criticized Smith as 'pro-corporate' and a 'warmonger.' 'We aren't going to stop right-wing attacks and defeat Trump by staying silent and allowing Democrats like Adam Smith to remain in power,' she said at Monday's event. In a statement to McClatchy, Smith welcomed Sawant to the race. But he contends Sawant played a part in ensuring President Donald Trump's return to the White House by campaigning against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The Congress member said Sawant deployed 'divisive' and 'extreme' tactics during her time on Seattle City Council. 'Voters in Washington's 9th Congressional District deserve thoughtful, effective leadership focused on real results — not ideological stunts,' he said. 'This election will offer a clear contrast, and I look forward to the challenge.' At the June 2 campaign announcement, Sawant condemned other progressive Democrats. She took aim at U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, accusing them of having long since yielded to their party's 'corporate and war-mongering agenda.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump's funding bill runs into Senate GOP fiscal hawks
As the Senate prepares to put its imprint on President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act this week, Republicans are grappling over the potential impact the megabill might have on the national debt, which has ballooned to nearly $37 trillion. With a 10-year budget bill, deficit hawks in the Senate like Rand Paul and Ron Johnson are drawing a red line — pushing for deeper cuts than those in the bill the House sent to them. As lawmakers aim to send a bill to Trump by the Fourth of July, those demands could complicate the Senate's calculus for passage — where Republicans can only afford three defections. On one hand, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduces outlays by more than $1.5 trillion against current baseline spending — according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's preliminary analysis, meeting reconciliation's target for between $1.5 to $2 trillion in spending reductions. On the other hand, the bill still adds about $3.1 trillion to the debt, according to the CBO — though some Republicans like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky predict it could add up to $20 trillion to the debt over the next decade. Paul and Johnson are directly at odds with the White House, which points to an analysis from the White House Council of Economic Advisors that finds the legislation will save $1.6 trillion over 10 years. "There's $1.6 trillion worth of savings in this bill," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a May 19 press briefing. "That's the largest savings for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation's history." In a press briefing on Thursday, Leavitt attacked the CBO and other scorekeepers, saying they used "shoddy assumptions and have historically been terrible at forecasting across Democrat and Republican administrations alike." The Senate is expected to alter the House-passed proposal and some of the Senate's fiscal hawks have conditioned their support on the implementation of even steeper cuts. But any cuts these members want implemented will have to be balanced by Senate leadership against the desires of moderates who wish to preserve key social safety net programs, creating major challenges for hopes of offsetting the cost of the package. Another complication: any changes to the bill made by the Senate must be approved by the House, which narrowly sent the bill to the upper chamber by just one vote. Speaker Mike Johnson, who guided the bill through the House over the objections from both fiscal hard-liners and moderates in his conference, declared "It's not going to add to the debt," when asked if Trump would take ownership of an increase of the deficit. And he said he and Trump has the same concerns as Johnson and Paul. "He's also concerned as I am, as Ron Johnson is, as Rand Paul is, as all of us are about the nation's debt, and he and I talk about this frequently, and he is excited about changing that trajectory," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The bill sent to the Senate would also hike the federal debt limit by $4 trillion dollars, another sticking point with fiscal hawks. "There's nothing fiscally conservative about expanding the debt ceiling more than we've ever done it before," Paul said after the bill passed through the House two weeks ago. "This will be the greatest increase in the debt ceiling ever, and the GOP owns this now." At an event last week in Iowa, Paul repeated his disdain for the bill, calling the current cuts "wimpy and anemic" and suggesting that additional cutbacks could happen to entitlement programs like Medicaid and Social Security — areas where a line has been drawn by Trump and fellow GOP senators like Josh Hawley of Missouri, who called building the bill on cutting health insurance for the working poor "morally wrong and politically suicidal." Paul told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he thought there were enough votes among his Senate Republican colleagues to block the bill. "I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," he said. Trump called Paul out over the weekend, writing on his Truth Social platform that if the senator votes against the bill, "Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him!" Talking to reporters on Monday, Leavitt suggested there will be a price to pay for those who vote against it. "Their voters will know about it. That is unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters across the country who elected this president in a Republican majority to get things done on Capitol Hill," she said. Budget reconciliation, the tactic congressional Republicans are using to get the bill passed, is not subject to the filibuster, enabling the Republican majority to enact sweeping changes with only a simple majority. But changes to Social Security and Medicare are exempt from the fast-track budgeting process. Any changes to those entitlements would require 60 votes and bipartisan cooperation from Democrats — a prospect Republicans are not entertaining as they go it alone on the bill. Paul called for steeper spending cuts so that raising the debt limit would not be part of this bill. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called on Congress to increase the statutory debt limit by the end of July to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt obligations. "I want [Trump's 2017] tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don't wanna raise the debt ceiling five trillion," he told CBS on Sunday. "The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this." Sen. Johnson, a notable fiscal hawk, has also signaled strongly that he would not support the bill in its current form, given that it adds to the debt. "It's so far off the mark. It's so bad," he told reporters at the Capitol while the House was still advancing the bill through the Rules Committee. "I've been trying to interject reality. I've been trying to interject facts and figures. They're on my side." At a Newsmaker luncheon Wednesday in Milwaukee hosted by WisPolitics and the Milwaukee Press Club, Johnson claimed there was "no amount of pressure" that Trump could place on him in order to support it in its current form. Asked Sunday on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" if he was willing to push so far as to blow up Trump's agenda, Johnson stressed his loyalty was with the American people. "I want to see [Trump] succeed. But again, my loyalty is to the American people, to my kids and grandkids. We cannot continue to mortgage their future," Johnson said. Trump adviser Elon Musk, who left the White House on Friday after his role as a special government employee reached its 130-day limit, broke publicly with the president during an interview with CBS a couple days earlier in which he said he was "disappointed" by the massive spending bill. "I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful," Musk told CBS News, "but I don't know if it can be both. My personal opinion." -ABC News' Isabella Murray and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
