The Dictatorship
Supreme Court rejects Virginia’s gerrymandering appeal after state court loss
In the Supreme Court’s latest action that helps Republicans ahead of the midterms, the justices rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency bid to save the state’s redistricting effort that voters approved last month.
Friday’s order follows the GOP-appointed majority’s recent Voting Rights Act ruling in Louisiana v. Callaiswhich prompted Republican-led states to try to make their maps redder ahead of November’s elections. Earlier this week, the high court majority granted emergency relief to Alabama Republicans who cited Callais as justification to use a congressional map that was previously deemed discriminatory.
The justices didn’t explain their decision in their unsigned order Friday, as is typical for emergency appeals. None of the justices noted any dissent.
The rejection of Virginia’s appeal is another court win for Republicans in this election season because the state’s voters had approved a process for new congressional districts that were poised to deliver more seats to Democrats. At President Donald Trump’s urging, Texas set off a wave of mid-decade redistricting last year that led other states, including Virginia, to follow suit. In prior orders affecting congressional maps, the Supreme Court approved the Texas effort as well as a Democratic countermeasure in California while also helping New York Republicans hold onto a seat.
The GOP-appointed majority said in a 2019 ruling that federal courts can’t do anything about partisan gerrymandering. Combined with Callais, that set the stage for Republicans to erase districts across the South that have been led by Black representatives and supported by Black voters, under the legal guise of partisanship rather than race. The Callais ruling makes it even more difficult to prove that map-makers are motivated by improper racial considerations rather than the partisan ones that the high court majority has effectively approved.
The Virginia rejection was expected because, although the Supreme Court can hear appeals from state high courts, this case posed a challenge for Virginia officials. That’s because the state court ruling they challenged was based largely on Virginia jurists’ interpretation of their state’s constitution, and the Supreme Court gets involved when there are federal issues to resolve. The Virginia case didn’t squarely call into question the Voting Rights Act or other federal matters of the sort the justices have been ruling on in election cases.
Still, in their emergency appealVirginia Democrats maintained that their case presented federal issues warranting the justices’ attention. The NAACP supported that position in an amicus briefwriting that invalidating Virginians’ votes “constitutes a deprivation of constitutional due process that requires this Court’s immediate intervention.”
Opposing the application, state Republicans arguedamong other things, that the state high court’s ruling rested on “pure state-law grounds” and so “no federal issue is present” for the justices to take up.
The meaning of ‘election’
In the state court ruling that struck down the measure, Virginia’s justices split 4-3 in deciding that the process that put it on the ballot had violated Virginia’s Constitution.
The state’s amendment procedures are, per the state court majority, admittedly “laborious” and “slow-walk[ed]” to “guard against hasty changes.” With that in mind, the majority explained that the process gives voters two chances to weigh in on a proposed amendment, the first time indirectly and the second time directly. The first, indirect time is after legislators initially propose the amendment, when voters can choose to retain those representatives based on their position on the amendment. The second, direct time occurs if it gets on the ballot, as this one did when voters approved itin April.
To get an amendment on the ballot, it actually needs to be approved twice by the state legislature before it goes to the voters. In this case, the proposed amendment first passed the legislature on Oct. 31 and then in January before voters backed it at the ballot box last month.
The legal issue in the ruling centered on the first step in late October when the legislature voted after early voting began but before Election Day on Nov. 4. That timing turned out to be crucial because the state constitution says the second approval must happen “after the next general election.” So the case raised the question of whether the first vote technically happened prior to the November election.
The state court majority said it did not, reasoning that the phrase “general election” in this context included early voting. The majority rejected what it called the state’s “thesis” that early voters “unknowingly forfeited their constitutionally protected opportunity” to base their November election votes on whether their representatives supported the amendment.
The dissent said the majority’s reading was an unnatural one that “broadened the meaning of the word ‘election’” and was “in direct conflict with how both Virginia and federal law define an election.”
As for why the court didn’t rule until after voters approved the measure, the majority said that’s a “fair” question to ask but that Virginia officials have no right to complain because, the majority recalled, they insisted that the court couldn’t rule prior to the vote.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
The Dictatorship
Maricopa County official fears Stephen Miller’s group has taken over election office
Even the Republican county attorney in Arizona’s most populous locality is sounding the alarm on potential election meddling by MAGA world.
That’s the crux of a court filing submitted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell this week. For those unaware, Mitchell garnered national attention after Senate Republicans tapped her to question Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegation.
Two years later, Mitchell successfully ran for Maricopa County attorney, and she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 — in other words, she is not an opponent of the MAGA movement. So it’s noteworthy that she and her legal team are accusing America First Legal, the right-wing activist group founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, of effectively taking control of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which helps administer elections.
The office is led by Justin Heap, who has egged on the Trump administration’s push to acquire sensitive voter data in Arizona. And the disturbing context to all this is Trump has openly declared that Republicans should nationalize voting processes and “take over the voting” in several cities — like Phoenix, perhaps.
According to The Arizona Republic:
In a June 8 legal filing, Mitchell’s lawyers asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney to rein in Recorder Justin Heap’s politically connected firm, the America First Legal Foundation, which it said has undertaken “an unprecedented power grab.”
“The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on ‘all’ matters under his ‘purview,’” Mitchell’s lawyers wrote.
America First Legal is advising Heap’s office as he battles the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to claim official powers for himself. As Democracy Docket reportedthe dispute at one point allegedly involved Heap seizing election equipment and provisional ballot envelopes while votes were being cast in a local election in March, causing county supervisors to warn about “grave chain-of-custody concerns.”
The Arizona Republic said Mitchell listed several examples of America First Legal wielding unauthorized power in Heap’s office amid the dispute with the board:
Mitchell’s request, handled by the law firm of Snell and Wilmer, identified six examples of what she contends involves America First Legal going beyond Blaney’s intended role for them: litigating the power-sharing agreement with the board.
Now, Mitchell argues, America First Legal has claimed authority over all matters relating to early voting, told election officials to disregard directives from or seek advice from Mitchell’s office, threatened prosecution over drop boxes and sent a warning letter signaling new litigation against the board.
Let’s not downplay the crisis playing out here. The GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors and the Republican county attorney overseeing the largest county in Arizona, where the majority of the state’s voters live, are calling out the pro-MAGA county recorder, who stands accused of allowing a right-wing activist group, founded by a White House official, to have unchecked power over electoral processes. (Heap’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.)
The fact that even conservative officials are sounding the alarm here shows how extreme, unprecedented and potentially threatening to democracy this situation could prove to be.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.
Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.
Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.
Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.
The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”
Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.
Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”
Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.
A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
‘Incredibly dangerous’: Capitol officer badly beaten by Jan. 6 rioters says Trump pardons absolved them
When FBI agents confronted Daniel Rodriguez about using a stun gun on a Washington police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he wept, seeming to express remorse.
“I’m sorry,” he said through tears in a recorded interview after he was arrested in March 2021. “He’s a human being with children, and he’s not a bad guy. He sounds like he’s just doing his job and he’s — I’m an asshole.”
Two years later, as he was being led away after a judge sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, Rodriguez raised his fist and screamed, “Trump won!”
Rodriguez is now a free man. The hefty prison sentences imposed on him and four other people convicted of assaulting police officer Michael Fanone — who was dragged into the crowd and severely beaten — were all wiped away in one of Donald Trump’s first acts as president in January 2025: He pardoned almost 1,600 people charged or convicted for their involvement in the riot.
Trump has used the clemency power like no president in history, freeing fraudsters, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians.
But his pardon of Jan. 6 defendants, more than 170 of whom pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers, stands apart. MS NOW is spotlighting the clemency granted to Jan. 6 defendants as part of a series on Trump’s pardons, “Justice Interrupted.”
“It’s incredibly dangerous,” Fanone told MS NOW in an interview. “You have individuals who were inspired by Donald Trump’s lies to storm and assault the Capitol and try to prevent the certification of a free and fair election. Donald Trump then absolved them of all of their criminal culpability.”
Trump’s first attorney general and his FBI director each told Congress they opposed pardons for people who hurt police officers, but the president did it anyway. Afterward, even some of his biggest backers balked.
“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently, I think, was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do,” Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after the pardons in 2025.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said on the Senate floor this past January, “People that harm police officers and destroy federal buildings should go to prison, and it’s a damn shame they’re out.”
Trump has never explained why he freed those rioters who violently assaulted police officers. When correspondent Peter Alexander confronted the president about his pardon of the man who shocked Fanone in the neck, Trump brushed aside the question.
“Among those you pardoned, D.J. Rodriguez,” Alexander said to Trump. “He drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon?”
Trump replied, “Well, I don’t know. Is it a pardon? Because we’re looking at commutes and we’re looking at pardons.” Told it was a pardon, he responded, “OK, well, we’ll take a look at everything. But I can say this: Murderers today are not even charged.”
But there was nothing, as Trump commented, to “look at.” Pardons are not reversible.
Fanone believes Trump knew exactly what he was doing: rewarding people who committed violence on his behalf.
“I know that he knows that it was violent. I know that he knows that, and I think that that was intentional,” he said.
In addition to Rodriguez, three others who attacked him were spared most or all of their prison terms:
- Albuquerque Cosper Head got 7 1/2 years for dragging Fanone into the mob while yelling, “I got one!”
- Kyle Young was sentenced to seven years, and Lewis Wayne Snoots to six, for helping to restrain Fanone during the attack.
- Thomas Sibick was sentenced to just over four years for assaulting Fanone and stealing his badge and radio.
Liz Oyer, a former Justice Department pardon attorney, said Trump has disregarded the normal tradition of presidential clemency.
“The things that the Justice Department traditionally looks for are acceptance of responsibility, remorse, rehabilitation, a significant track record of good conduct in the community before we would recommend someone for consideration of a presidential pardon,” she said, adding that few, if any, of the Jan. 6 defendants met that qualification.
“This president’s use of the pardon system is really undermining the legitimacy of our justice system,” she said.
In fact, a Lawfare analysis found that at least 97 of the roughly 1,600 people charged in the Capitol attack have been accused of new crimes since Jan. 6, 2021. At least 19 were accused after being pardoned.
One of the first rioters to breach police barricades, Christopher Moynihanpleaded guilty in February in New York to a harassment charge over threats to kill House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Moynihan was later sentenced to three years’ probation.
Zachary Alama man a judge called “one of the most violent and aggressive rioters,” was sentenced in May to seven years in prison after a jury convicted him of committing a home invasion burglary in Virginia.
Andrew Paul Johnsonconvicted of illegally entering the Capitol, was pardoned despite having been accused of molesting children. In May, he was sentenced to life in prison for the sex crimes.
Fanone wasn’t supposed to be at the Capitol that day, but he rushed there when he heard the distress calls.
He was pulled into a crowd of attackers as he was trying to keep them out of the building. He was holding on to his service weapon to keep it from being taken from him. But once he felt the excruciating, debilitating shock from Rodriguez’s weapon, he knew he was in a dire situation; in fact, he thought he might be killed.
“I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to fight my way out of this,” Fanone remembered. “I wasn’t even going to be able to maintain control of my weapon. The only solution here was that people in the crowd helped me, and when I yelled out that I have kids, it worked.”
His doctors say Fanone suffered a heart attack.
Trump supporters have wrongly called Fanone a “crisis actor,” disputing that he really was attacked. Ed Martin, who once represented Jan. 6 defendants and is now the Justice Department’s pardons attorney, called him a “fake cop.”
Fanone says his life, and the lives of his loved ones, has never been the same.
“My mother’s been the target of swatting events eight times. She had a credible bomb threat called into her home,” he said.
“She had an individual pull up to her house in a pickup truck, approach her in her front yard while she was raking leaves, and throw a bag of dog feces at her.”
In an apparent attempt to wipe the charges, convictions or sentences of Jan. 6 offenders from public knowledge, the Justice Department recently took down press releases naming them from its website, calling it “partisan propaganda.”
Anyone who tries to find the official DOJ announcements of the convictions or sentencing of the men who attacked Fanone will see only broken links.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
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