Justice Department opens investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor and a top candidate for New York City mayor, following a referral from congressional Republicans who accused Cuomo of lying during an investigation of his administration's Covid-19 response, a person briefed on the matter said.
The nascent inquiry follows an earlier request to the Biden administration that didn't result in an investigation.
It also comes after Justice officials ended a separate corruption prosecution of Eric Adams, the current New York mayor who is one of Cuomo's rivals for the job. That move prompted upheaval in the Manhattan US Attorney's Office after prosecutors refused to drop the case as ordered. Adams has vowed to assist the Trump administration's immigration efforts.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the Cuomo investigation, reported earlier by The New York Times.
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for the former governor, said that they had not been informed of the federal investigation and defended Cuomo's testimony to Congress.
'We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now? The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple—something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against,' Azzopardi said in a statement. 'Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the Subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political.'
A Justice official defended the timing of the moves on Adams and Cuomo, saying 'This Department of Justice has ended the weaponization of government and will continue to follow the facts in every case in order restore one tier of justice for all America.'
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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WIRED
14 minutes ago
- WIRED
The ‘Long-Term Danger' of Trump Sending Troops to the LA Protests
Jun 10, 2025 12:24 PM President Trump's deployment of more than 700 Marines to Los Angeles—following ICE raids and mass protests—has ignited a fierce national debate over state sovereignty and civil-military boundaries. LAPD officers and National Guard soldiers stand on patrol as demonstrators protest outside a jail in downtown Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids on June 8, 2025. Photograph:As hundreds of United States Marines deploy in Los Angeles under presidential orders to protect federal property amid growing protests over immigration enforcement, constitutional scholars and civil rights attorneys warn of long-term implications for American democracy and civil-military relations. President Donald Trump revealed Monday that he had ordered the deployment of more than 700 activity-duty Marines out of Camp Pendleton—an extraordinary use of military force in response to civil unrest. The move, widely condemned by his critics, follows Trump's federalization of the National Guard. Some 3,800 guardsmen have since been deployed in California against the objections of its government, spurring debate among legal observers over the limits of the president's power to send troops into American streets. Trump ordered the deployments in response to thousands of Angelenos who took to the streets on Friday in protests. LA residents responded after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carried out sweeping raids of local businesses, arresting, among others, dozens of day laborers who were vying for work outside a local Home Depot. Larger demonstrations soon formed and remained largely peaceful until residents were engaged by police with riot shields and crowd control weapons. Over the weekend, the clashes between police and protesters escalated across many neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Numerous buildings were vandalized with anti-ICE messages, and several Waymo autonomous vehicles were set ablaze. Videos captured by protest attendees show police firing upon demonstrators with rubber bullets and other crowd control agents, including waves of asphyxiating CS gas. Members of the press shared images online showing injuries they incurred from the police assault. In widely shared footage, a Los Angeles police officer appears to intentionally target an Australian reporter, Lauren Tomasi, shooting her from feet away with a rubber bullet as she delivers a monologue into a camera. On Monday, CNN correspondent Jason Carroll was arrested live on air. California governor Gavin Newsom condemned Trump's troop deployment in posts on social media, calling the president's actions an 'unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.' His attorney general, Rob Bonata, has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the order violated the state's sovereignty, infringing on Newsom's authority as the California National Guard's commander in chief. In response to a request for comment, the Department of Defense referred WIRED to a US Northern Command press release detailing the deployment of Marines and National Guardsmen. Federal troops in the United States are ordinarily barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities. This rule, known as 'posse comitatus,' may be suspended, however, by a sitting president in cases of civil unrest or outright rebellion. This exception—permitted under the Insurrection Act—allows the president to deploy troops when circumstances make it 'impracticable' for state authorities to enforce federal law by 'ordinary' means. While these powers are most often invoked at the request of a state government, the president may also invoke the act when a state chooses to ignore the constitutional rights of its inhabitants—as happened multiple times in the mid-20th century, when southern states refused to desegregate schools after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. President Trump, however, has so far not invoked the Insurrection Act, relying instead on a theory of 'inherent authority' advanced by the US Justice Department in 1971 during the height of the anti–Vietnam War protests. This interpretation of presidential power finds that troops may be deployed in an effort to 'protect federal property and functions.' Notably—unlike the Insurrection Act—this does not permit troops to engage in activities that are generally the purview of civilian law enforcement agencies. Trump also invoked statutory power granted to him by Congress under Title 10 of the US Code, which enabled him to federalize elements of California's National Guard. These activations typically occur when guardsmen are needed to support overseas military operations, as happened routinely this century during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Domestically, however, guardsmen are not usually federalized without the agreement of a state's governor—unless the Insurrection Act has been invoked. Legal experts interviewed by WIRED offered a range of opinions on the president's authority to deploy active-duty military troops or federalize the National Guard. While most believe it is likely within Trump's power to ignore Newsom's express objections, doing so without an invocation of the Insurrection Act, they say, is a decision fraught with legal complexities that carries serious implications, from altering—perhaps permanently—the fundamental relationship between Americans, states, and the federal government, to disturbing the delicate balance between civilian governance and military power. Liza Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, underscores the 'unprecedented' nature of Trump's approach. 'He's trying to basically exercise the powers of the Insurrection Act without invoking it,' she says. A key issue for Goitein is that the memorandum signed by Trump last week federalizing the National Guard makes no mention of Los Angeles or California. Rather, it states that the guardsmen are being mobilized to address protests that are both 'occurring' and 'likely to occur.' In essence, the memo 'authorizes the deployment of federal troops anywhere in the country,' Goitein says, 'including places where there are no protests yet. We're talking about preemptive deployment.' Goitein argues that the administration's justifications could undermine both judicial accountability and civil‑military boundaries. Under the Insurrection Act, federal troops can take on the responsibilities of local and state police. But without it, their authority should be quite limited. Neither the guardsmen nor the Marines, for instance, should engage with protesters acting peacefully, according to Goitein. 'He says they're there to protect federal property,' she says. 'But it looks a lot like quelling civil unrest.' Anthony Kuhn, a 28-year US Army veteran and managing partner at Tully Rinckey, believes, meanwhile, that there is really 'no question' that Trump would be justified in declaring a 'violent rebellion' underway in California, empowering him to ignore Newsom's objections. The images and video of protesters hurling rocks and other items at police and lighting cars on fire all serve as evidence toward that conclusion. 'I know people in California, the governor, the mayor, are trying to frame it as a protest. But at this point,' says Kuhn, 'it's a violent rebellion. You can draw your own conclusions from the pictures and videos floating around.' Kuhn argues that the intentions of the protesters, the politics fueling the demonstrations, don't matter. 'They're attacking federal facilities. They're destroying federal property. So in an attempt to restore the peace, the president has the authority under Title 10 to deploy troops. It's pretty straightforward.' In contrast, Rutgers University professor Bruce Afran says deploying military forces against Americans is 'completely unconstitutional' in the absence of a true state of domestic insurrection. 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Milwaukee judge not immune from charges after allegedly helping illegal immigrant evade ICE, prosecutors say
Federal prosecutors are pushing back against Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan's motion to dismiss an indictment filed against her for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in the Milwaukee County Courthouse last month. Dugan, 65, was indicted last month on federal charges of obstruction of proceedings before a U.S. agency and unlawful concealment of an individual subject to arrest. Her attorneys say she is entitled to judicial immunity and that the federal government overstepped its authority by arresting and charging her, violating her 10th Amendment rights and the principle of separation of powers, according to court documents filed in late May. On Wednesday, prosecutors filed a response to her motion to dismiss, noting that "the Supreme Court has made clear that judges are not immune from criminal liability." "In the end, Dugan asks for this Court to develop a novel doctrine of judicial immunity from criminal prosecution, and to apply it to the facts alleged in the indictment, all without reasonable basis—directly or indirectly—in the Constitution, statutes, or case law," prosecutors wrote. "In her lengthy memorandum, Dugan concedes that '[j]udges, like legislators and executive officials, are not above the law,'" they said. "Dugan's desired ruling would, in essence, say that judges are 'above the law,' and uniquely entitled to interfere with federal law enforcement," prosecutors added. Federal prosecutors allege that the Milwaukee Circuit Court judge personally escorted Mexican illegal immigrant and domestic battery suspect Eduardo Flores-Ruiz out of the courthouse on April 18 while ICE agents were attempting to serve a warrant. The surveillance footage recently released by Milwaukee County in response to an open records request appears to show Dugan, wearing her black robe, confronting ICE agents in the courthouse hallway. Federal prosecutors say members of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), along with federal partners from the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, were preparing to serve Flores-Ruiz with a warrant in a public courthouse hallway on April 18 before his scheduled court appearance with Dugan. WATCH THE SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE: After becoming aware of what federal officials described as a valid immigration arrest warrant for Flores-Ruiz, Dugan allegedly told agents that they needed a judicial warrant and told them to go to the chief judge's office. The agents then left their place in the hallway, at which point Dugan allegedly chose not to hold a hearing for Flores-Ruiz and "personally escorted" the suspect and his attorney through a private exit while the victims of his alleged crimes were in the courthouse at the time, the Justice Department said in a press release. While Dugan argues that ICE agents interrupted goings-on in the courthouse on April 18, prosecutors say it was Dugan who disrupted proceedings. "The evidence also will show that agents were not in the courtroom when Dugan took the bench, but that—after being told by a member of her staff that ICE agents were present in the hallway—Dugan chose to pause an unrelated case, leave her courtroom, disrupt proceedings in a colleague's courtroom to commandeer her assistance, and then confront agents in the public hallway," the filing says. Prosecutors say evidence also shows Dugan directing agents to the chief judge's office even while knowing he was out, then she "quickly returned to her courtroom and, among other things, directed [Florez-Ruiz's] attorney to 'take your client out and come back and get a date; and then to go through the jury door and down the stairs' before physically escorting [Flroes-Ruiz] and his attorney into a non-public hallway with access to a stairwell that led to a courthouse exit," filings say. Dugan "did this all just days after thanking a colleague for providing information which explained that ICE could lawfully make arrests in the courthouse hall," prosecutors stated Wednesday. "Put simply, nothing in the indictment or the anticipated evidence at trial supports Dugan's assertion that agents 'disrupted' the court's docket; instead, all events arose from Dugan's unilateral, non-judicial, and unofficial actions in obstructing a federal immigration matter over which she, as a Wisconsin state judge, had no authority," the document reads. "At the very least, for purposes of deciding this motion, Dugan's claims to the contrary find no support in the indictment and should be rejected." One of Dugan's defense attorneys, Dean Strang, told Fox News Digital that her counsel has a "good reply" to prosecutors' Wednesday filing, but her team is waiting until their reply brief, due next Monday, to make it. The Milwaukee judge has pleaded not guilty to charges filed against her, and a federal judge has set her trial date for July 21. A federal indictment accuses Dugan of "falsely" telling federal officials in April that they needed a warrant to come into her courtroom during a scheduled appearance by Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented Mexican national facing three misdemeanor battery charges. Video footage appears to show Flores-Ruiz exiting the courthouse with his attorney, while an ICE agent follows him, and then running alongside the building for about a block before agents capture and arrest him. Federal officials arrested Dugan a week after the courthouse incident. Dugan could face a maximum sentence of six years. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges filed against her. Fox News Digital has reached out to her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, for comment on the footage. In April, Dugan's legal team also filed a motion to dismiss the federal case against her, saying the judge "is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts." "Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset," the motion said.
