On Friday, a judge will consider whether to give prosecutors an opportunity to revive charges against Olympic canoeist David Hearn at a later date.
All Rise News will provide live coverage from the courthouse.
With the countdown clock ticking before the midterm elections, a federal judge made clear on Thursday that now isn’t the time for experimental overhauls on mail-in voting administration.
“We are 70 days from the election and I have nothing from the USPS about how this will happen," U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani told a Justice Department attorney, according to the Associated Press.
Talwani is presiding over two lawsuits challenging Trump’s mail-in voting executive order: the State of California et al v. Trump, filed by a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general, and League of Women Voters of Massachusetts et al v. Trump, filed by advocacy groups.
As both cases returned to her courtroom on Thursday, Talwani appears likely to affirm her previous conclusion that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional. Democracy Docket reported that Talwani vowed to “get out my decision as soon as possible,” but she didn’t specify a time.
The Supreme Court paused one of Talwani’s earlier injunctions on procedural grounds, finding that the U.S. Postal Service hadn’t yet issued its Final Rule implementing Trump’s order.
Now that the Postal Service has done so, the case appears to be primed for a return trip — potentially on the merits.
Although a blue-state coalition is opposing Donald Trump’s mail-in voting executive order, Texas reportedly appeared in court to support the plan, urging the judge to let the Lone Star State collect “real world evidence” on how it operates.
Talwani reportedly scoffed at the request for a “test run” so close to the election.
“We’re not talking about an intellectual puzzle game,” she said, according to Democracy Docket. “We’re talking about people’s right to vote.”
Days before the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) released a whistleblower’s allegations that the U.S. Postal Service flouted the judge’s prior orders blocking any steps toward implementing the mail-in voting order. The whistleblower said that USPS kept working on a hastily-created and error prone online portal that could trigger a “catastrophic failure” set to “derail” the midterms.
In an interview with All Rise News, the whistleblower’s attorney David Kligerman said that his client believes these dangers can still be averted.
“No one is saying, ‘Don't use mail-in voting,’” Kligerman said. “I think [the whistleblower is] bringing this forward because they want this to be addressed.”
Encouraging the public to remain vigilant, Kligerman encouraged people to continue to trust voting by mail but to stay vigilant: “Historically, it’s been a very safe and effective way to vote, and we are hopeful that that will continue to be the case, and people just need to inform themselves and stay tuned.”
In the immediate term, the whistleblower’s allegations are unlikely to affect Judge Talwani’s ruling: She found that the statement constituted “hearsay” brought to the court outside the record, according to independent journalist John Hawkinson.
But a USPS official confirmed the existence of the portal following the hearing in a sworn declaration.
“We anticipate being in a position to make the Portal available to users for voluntary use by sometime next week,” the Postal Service’s chief customer and marketing officer Steven W. Monteith, a 30-year career official, wrote in a sworn declaration.
Texas is pushing to volunteer to use the system if Talwani’s order allows it.
Look out for my extended interview with the whistleblower later in the week.
Trump’s attacks on nonprofits
Donald Trump’s reported plan to try to revoke the tax-free status of nonprofits that he doesn’t like has sparked a Senate inquiry.
Late last month, the New York Post reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had been considering targeting George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations for revocation. The Trump administration reportedly hopes to get “a good chunk of the crackdown” over the line before the midterms.
Democratic Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Raphael Warnock of Georgia announced on Thursday that they’re seeking information about that plan from Bessent and Internal Revenue Service chief Frank Bisignano.
“Americans of every political persuasion must be able to trust that the IRS applies the tax code objectively under one set of rules,” the senators wrote in a letter. “Organizations that violate section 501(c)(3) should face appropriate enforcement regardless of their politics—and organizations should never face IRS scrutiny because political officials disapprove of their views.”
The reported plan would escalate the Trump administration’s attacks on nonprofits since the SPLC’s indictment earlier this year.
Originally scheduled for October, the SPLC’s trial has been postponed until next April because prosecutors recently indicted its former employee Heidi Beirich. The SPLC sought a speedier trial because of the financial and reputational harm of its ongoing criminal prosecution. Multiple donor-advised funds cut ties with the civil rights group since its indictment.
Read the letter from Senators Wyden and Warnock here.
Leon Black sues over Epstein probe
Billionaire Leon Block filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block the House Oversight Committee from scrutinizing his ties to Jeffrey Epstein by obtaining his non-disclosure agreements with women.
Black’s attorneys, comparing the Committee’s actions to the “Red Scare,” argue that the subpoenas would expose women who have “no known or public connection to Epstein” and do not want to be under the spotlight.
“The subpoenas reach well beyond Mr. Black and are, on their face, overbroad,” the lawsuit states. “As written, they compel production of a vast quantity of agreements of all kinds, including the disclosure of the unredacted identities and private circumstances of women who bargained for confidentiality, whose counsel have affirmatively declined to release Mr. Black from his confidentiality obligations, and who want no association with the Epstein scandal. These women are not before the Committee, received no notice from it, gave no consent to it, and were given no way to be heard.”
In a recent report, Sen. Ron Wyden described Black as “Epstein’s single largest source of funding,” providing more than $170 million for “purported tax and estate planning advice.”
Read Black’s lawsuit here, and check out our prior coverage of scrutiny into the billionaire’s Epstein ties here.
Thanks, Adam, for this update. it would be impossible to keep up with the changing legal landscape without you.
The USPS doesn't care about your, or my, right to vote.