President Donald Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he is "prepared" to nominate as many as three new Supreme Court justices if vacancies open, a statement that lands amid growing speculation about the possible retirement of Justice Samuel Alito, the 76-year-old George W. Bush appointee who has anchored the court's conservative wing for two decades.
Trump did not name anyone on his shortlist. But he made clear he has one, and that the machinery to move a nominee through the Senate is already in place.
Fox News Digital reported that Trump praised Alito in the interview while acknowledging the possibility that the justice could step down. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, separately told reporters this week that his panel is "fully prepared" to process a nominee before the upcoming midterm elections if needed.
For a president who already secured three Supreme Court appointments during his first term, more than any president since Ronald Reagan, the prospect of additional picks would cement a generational shift in American jurisprudence. The current court sits at a 6-3 conservative majority. One or two more Trump-selected justices could extend that alignment for decades.
Trump framed the number of potential vacancies as uncertain but said he was ready for any scenario. In the interview with Bartiromo, he said:
"In theory, it's two, you just read the statistics, it could be two, could be three, could be one. I don't know. I'm prepared to do it. But when you mention Alito, he is a great justice."
He went further in his praise of Alito, calling him a justice who understands the country and follows the law faithfully.
"Justice Alito is an unbelievable justice, and a brilliant justice, and he gets the country."
Trump also acknowledged the tension between wanting a reliable conservative to stay on the bench and welcoming the chance to name a successor. He described the situation with a hint of humor:
"He does what's right for the country. It's the law, and he goes by it as much as anybody, but he gets to the point. That's good for our country. So... one way you should be, 'Oh, I'm thrilled,' but he's so good."
The comment captures the strategic calculus facing the conservative legal movement. Alito has been a dependable originalist vote. But at 76, after two decades on the bench, the window to replace him with a younger conservative, confirmed by a Republican Senate, is finite. That window could close after the midterms if the Senate majority shifts.
Retirement speculation around Alito intensified last month after the justice became ill at a Federalist Society dinner and was treated for dehydration. A Supreme Court spokesperson said Alito was "thoroughly checked" and returned to the bench the following Monday.
A source close to Alito told Fox News Digital that the justice is in the process of hiring the rest of his clerks for the next term, a signal that typically suggests a justice intends to remain. But the health scare, combined with his age and the political calendar, has kept the speculation alive.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court's public affairs office for comment Wednesday evening and had not received a reply. Alito himself has not made any public statement about his plans.
Justice Clarence Thomas, at 77 one year older than Alito and a conservative fixture for more than three decades, has drawn less retirement talk. Thomas holds the record as the second-longest serving justice in history. No credible reporting in the current cycle has placed Thomas near the exit.
Grassley offered reporters two names this week when asked who he would recommend if Alito stepped down: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Both are sitting Republican senators with deep ties to the conservative legal movement.
Trump has previously floated Cruz for a high-court seat, as we reported when the idea first surfaced. But Cruz himself poured cold water on the notion in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"The reason I've said no is that a principled federal judge stays out of policy fights and stays out of political fights.... But I don't want to stay out of policy fights. I don't want to stay out of political fights. I want to be right in the middle of them."
Cruz called having his name in the mix a "high honor" but made clear he prefers the Senate floor to the bench. It is a revealing answer, and an honest one. The Supreme Court demands restraint. Cruz thrives on the fight.
Lee's camp was more diplomatic. A spokesman pointed to a remark Lee made to the Washington Free Beacon, the outlet that also tracked how gun-rights groups rallied behind Trump's 2018 nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, saying Lee wanted Alito "to stay on the court forever." Neither senator appears to be actively campaigning for the seat.
Grassley emphasized that he hoped Alito would not step down. But he made the committee's readiness plain, signaling that Senate Republicans have no intention of being caught flat-footed if a vacancy materializes.
Trump's first term reshaped the court more than any single presidential term in a generation. Three appointments, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, flipped the ideological balance and produced landmark rulings on abortion, gun rights, and executive power. When Trump announced Kavanaugh in a prime-time White House event in 2018, he called the judge the most qualified person in America for the seat. Kavanaugh's confirmation fight previewed the intensity that any future nomination would bring.
By comparison, recent Democratic presidents have had fewer opportunities. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton each appointed two justices. Joe Biden appointed one, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. No Democratic president has matched the pace Trump set during his first four years.
The court's current docket underscores why the composition matters. The justices are weighing major cases on executive authority, including oral arguments on Trump's birthright citizenship executive order. Every seat shapes how those disputes resolve.
Meanwhile, the court's liberal wing has not been shy about dissenting loudly. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has publicly complained about the pace of the administration's emergency appeals, even as the court has repeatedly ruled in Trump's favor on those very motions.
Trump has not disclosed any names from his shortlist. He has not said whether the list overlaps with the Federalist Society, vetted rosters he used during his first term. And Alito has given no public indication that retirement is imminent, or even under consideration.
The clerk-hiring detail, reported through a source close to Alito, cuts against the retirement narrative. Justices who plan to leave typically do not staff up for the next term. But the political logic pushing toward retirement is hard to ignore: a Republican president, a Republican Senate, and a midterm election that could change both.
The broader constitutional landscape adds urgency. Cases involving executive power and birthright citizenship are already testing the court's fault lines. A younger, more reliably originalist replacement for Alito could tip close calls for a generation.
Whether Alito stays or goes, one thing is clear: the White House and the Senate majority are not waiting to find out. They are ready now. That kind of preparation is not speculation. It is governance.
Presidents who reshape the judiciary do not do it by accident. They do it by being ready when the moment arrives, and making sure the Senate is ready, too.
Rep. Lauren Boebert wants Congress to strip former Reps. Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales of their taxpayer-funded retirement benefits after both men resigned Tuesday amid separate sexual misconduct allegations. The Colorado Republican told CNN's Manu Raju outside the House steps that the two lawmakers should never have been allowed to walk away quietly, and that their pensions should go with them.
As The Hill reported, Boebert argued that resignation let both men dodge the accountability that expulsion would have delivered. She framed the pension question as a test of whether Congress takes misconduct seriously or simply lets disgraced members cash out on the public dime.
The push raises a straightforward question that taxpayers deserve an answer to: Why should someone who leaves office under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations keep drawing a government check for life?
Speaking to Raju on Tuesday, Boebert laid out her position bluntly. She told CNN:
"I think they should've been expelled and not resigned. And I think that we actually need to look into ways to censure, with other aspects to say you can't have your pension, you can't leave here with all your taxpayer-funded benefits after such shameful acts that cause you to bow out and resign from Congress."
Boebert had already signaled this fight before Tuesday's resignations. After the allegations against Swalwell became public last Friday, she said she would introduce a resolution to censure the California Democrat. On the social platform X, she wrote that Swalwell's pension "should be redirected to his victims."
In a separate post, she cited what she described as witness accounts. "According to 4 witnesses, including a former employee, Rep. Swalwell has been sexually harassing and raping women," Boebert wrote, adding that this "is exactly why Americans hate politicians and I am going to make sure that every member has an opportunity to condemn his conduct."
Swalwell has denied wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged. But the allegations were serious enough to prompt his resignation, and serious enough, Boebert argues, to justify stripping his retirement benefits.
Both Swalwell and Gonzales are 45 years old. Members of Congress become eligible for retirement benefits after five years of federal service. Swalwell served nearly 13 years in the House, making him eligible under either the Federal Employees Retirement System or the Civil Service Retirement System.
A National Taxpayers Union analysis cited by the Washington Examiner found that Swalwell would be eligible for a taxpayer-funded pension of roughly $22,000 per year starting at age 62. That amounts to tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, paid by the same taxpayers whose trust he is accused of betraying.
Neither man would qualify for the temporary FERS supplement, which requires at least 20 years of federal service. But the core pension remains intact under current law unless a member is convicted of certain felonies committed while in office.
That conviction requirement is the legal obstacle Boebert faces. Fox News reported that current law generally requires a criminal conviction tied to conduct in office before pension benefits can be revoked. Without charges, let alone convictions, the existing statutory framework offers no mechanism to block the payouts.
It was not immediately clear how Boebert would attempt to close that gap. But she told the Washington Examiner directly: "We should pass a law blocking it."
Boebert is now working on legislation that would prevent former lawmakers who resign under misconduct allegations from collecting congressional pensions. Newsmax reported that Boebert is preparing the bill to cover cases like Swalwell's, where a member departs before any criminal process can play out.
In a fuller statement, Boebert described the current arrangement as unacceptable. "Former Congressman Eric Swalwell abused his position of power in Congress to assault and victimize women," she said. "Now as things stand, taxpayers will be sending him tens of thousands of dollars every year for the rest of his life. This is totally unacceptable."
The broader pattern around Swalwell has drawn scrutiny for months. House Democrats stayed largely silent as the misconduct accusations mounted, declining to push for expulsion or any formal disciplinary action before his resignation.
Congressional history suggests the censure route is rare but not unprecedented. Only six representatives have been expelled from the House in U.S. history, and 28 have been censured. Some members who resigned before the chamber could hold an expulsion vote have been retroactively censured, a precedent that could matter if Boebert moves forward.
Boebert described her legislative effort as bipartisan. The Washington Examiner reported that Democratic Reps. Sarah McBride and Johnny Olszewski indicated openness to considering pension revocation in cases involving criminal convictions, admissions, or sufficient findings of misconduct.
Rep. McBride said: "I think that's a worthwhile, holistic solution that should be looked into, not just in this context, but I think in any context where the circumstances are similar."
That measured language stands in contrast to the broader Democratic response. Nancy Pelosi claimed Democrats had "no idea whatsoever" about the Swalwell misconduct allegations, a claim that strains credulity given the number of witnesses Boebert cited and the length of Swalwell's tenure.
The Gonzales case adds a bipartisan dimension that makes the pension question harder for either party to dismiss. Gonzales, a Texas Republican, also resigned Tuesday amid sexual misconduct allegations. Boebert's call to revoke benefits applies to both men equally, removing any suggestion that this is a purely partisan exercise.
Swalwell, for his part, has a long record of demanding accountability from others while resisting it himself. He demanded the benefit of the doubt that he once refused to extend to Justice Brett Kavanaugh during those confirmation hearings, a contradiction that has not gone unnoticed.
The core problem Boebert has identified is real, regardless of whether her specific legislative vehicle succeeds. Under current law, a member of Congress can face the most serious allegations imaginable, resign before any formal proceeding, and walk away with a pension funded by the people he is accused of harming.
The felony-conviction requirement was designed to protect due process. But it also creates a perverse incentive: resign fast enough, and the system cannot touch your benefits. That is the loophole Boebert wants to close.
Swalwell's troubles extend well beyond the misconduct allegations. A separate complaint alleged he used campaign funds to pay an illegal immigrant nanny off the books, adding to a pattern of conduct that raises serious questions about his judgment and ethics throughout his time in office.
The Hill reached out to Boebert's office for additional comment on the specifics of her legislative plan. Several open questions remain: What exact mechanism would the bill use to revoke benefits? Would it apply retroactively? Would it require a formal finding of misconduct, or would resignation under allegations be sufficient?
Those details will matter. But the principle Boebert is pressing is one most taxpayers would recognize immediately. Public service is a privilege, not a pension guarantee, and people who abuse their office should not be rewarded for it on the way out the door.
Congress wrote the rules that protect these pensions. Congress can rewrite them. The only question is whether enough members have the will to do it, or whether they would rather keep the escape hatch open for themselves.
Two Omaha police officers fatally shot a 31-year-old woman in a Walmart parking lot after she slashed a 3-year-old boy across the face with a stolen kitchen knife, ignoring repeated commands to drop the weapon, authorities said. The child survived. The woman, identified as Noemi Guzman, did not.
Officers responded to the Omaha Walmart just after 9:10 a.m. on reports of an armed woman holding a young child, the New York Post reported. What they found in the parking lot, Guzman standing beside a shopping cart with the boy inside, a large kitchen knife in her hand, forced a split-second decision that Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer later called an act of courage.
The sequence that led to the shooting, captured on store surveillance footage and body-worn cameras, began inside the Walmart. Police said the footage showed Guzman shoplifting the knife, then approaching the 3-year-old and his female guardian in an aisle. She brandished the blade, forced the guardian to walk ahead of the cart, and led them through the store and out into the parking lot.
Deputy Chief Scott Gray described Guzman's actions bluntly at a press conference. She "took possession of the child, essentially kidnapping the child," Gray said. The boy's guardian, whose identity police did not release, was powerless to intervene while Guzman held the knife.
A two-officer patrol unit arrived and found Guzman in the parking lot. Body-worn camera images showed the standoff: the woman, the blade, and a toddler in a shopping cart. Officers pleaded with her multiple times to put the knife down.
She refused. Then, authorities said, she slashed the boy.
Both officers fired. Guzman was struck and went down. Lifesaving measures were administered at the scene, but she died there. The toddler's guardian and a bystander pulled the child from the cart and began medical aid. The boy suffered a large laceration across the left side of his face and a wound on his hand. He was taken to a hospital and was expected to survive.
The incident is a grim reminder that violent attacks in everyday public spaces, grocery stores, restaurants, parking lots, keep confronting American families and the officers who respond.
Guzman was not unknown to law enforcement. Fox News reported that she had a prior violent arrest in 2024 involving an alleged knife attack on her own father, an attempt to start a fire, and a barricade inside a church. Omaha police at the time described the episode as a mental health crisis.
"She was in a mental health crisis," Lt. Jake Ritonya said of the 2024 church incident, Fox News reported. Yet Guzman was subsequently freed, free enough to walk into a Walmart, steal a kitchen knife, and seize someone else's child.
That timeline raises hard questions. A woman who allegedly attacked a family member with a knife and barricaded herself in a house of worship was back on the street with no apparent barrier between her and the next victim. The next victim turned out to be a 3-year-old boy shopping with his guardian on an ordinary morning.
Across the country, cases keep surfacing in which individuals with documented violent histories cycle through the system and emerge to harm again. In Charlotte, a man accused of fatally stabbing a woman on a light rail train was later found incompetent to stand trial, another instance of the justice system struggling to keep dangerous people away from the public.
Chief Schmaderer issued a statement defending the two officers who fired:
"The responding officers acted with professionalism and direct action to intervene and save a child's life."
He added that the community should take reassurance from the response.
"The community can be reassured in knowing that Omaha police officers stand ready to act with courage and decisiveness in the most serious situations to protect the public."
The Omaha Police Department also extended condolences to Guzman's family, saying in a statement: "The Omaha Police Department offers its sincere condolences to the family and friends of Ms. Guzman during this difficult time." That gesture, even toward a woman police say attacked a child, reflects an institutional discipline worth noting.
The department's Officer-Involved Investigations Team will review the shooting alongside the Nebraska State Patrol and the Douglas and Sarpy County Sheriff's Offices. The names of the two officers who fired have not been released.
Multiple agencies investigating a single officer-involved shooting is standard protocol in Nebraska, and the multi-agency review should provide accountability on both sides of the encounter. But the larger accountability question, how Guzman ended up free to commit this act, sits with a different set of institutions entirely.
Several facts remain unclear. Police have not identified which Walmart location in Omaha was involved. The guardian's name has not been released. The exact terms under which Guzman was freed after her 2024 arrest, whether charges were dropped, reduced, or resolved through a diversion program, have not been publicly detailed.
Nor has any motive been established. Nothing in the police account explains why Guzman walked into a store, stole a knife, and seized a stranger's child. Whether mental illness, substance abuse, or something else drove her actions, the public deserves answers, and the boy's family deserves them most of all.
Violent episodes like this one shake communities. In recent weeks, gunfire near the White House and deadly attacks in public transit systems have reinforced the sense that no setting is automatically safe. When the system fails to contain someone with a proven record of violence, ordinary people, in this case, a toddler, pay the price.
Body-worn camera footage exists. Surveillance footage exists. Police have spoken publicly. The factual record here, at least on the question of what happened in the parking lot, appears strong. The harder question is what happened before, in the courts, in the mental health system, in whatever process returned Guzman to the community after she allegedly attacked her father and barricaded herself in a church.
Violent crime in public spaces, from subway platforms in New York to Walmart parking lots in Omaha, does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in the gap between what the system knows and what the system does about it.
Two officers arrived at a parking lot and found a woman holding a knife over a 3-year-old child. They gave her every verbal chance to stop. She didn't stop. She cut the boy. They fired.
In a culture that has spent years second-guessing police at every turn, this case is clarifying. The officers did exactly what the public expects them to do: they protected a child who could not protect himself. Chief Schmaderer was right to say so plainly.
The boy is alive because those two officers acted. The real failure happened long before they ever drew their weapons.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., called on the House of Representatives Tuesday to impeach Chief Judge James Boasberg after a federal appeals court shut down the judge's contempt investigation of Trump administration officials and labeled it a "clear abuse of discretion." The demand came minutes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling ordering Boasberg to end his probe into whether officials defied his earlier order halting deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.
Schmitt, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, posted his call on X shortly after the ruling dropped. Newsmax reported that the Missouri senator framed the appeals court's own language as grounds for removal.
Schmitt wrote on X:
"The D.C. Circuit ruled Boasberg's contempt crusade against Trump officials is an 'improper investigation' and 'clear abuse of discretion.' He tried to imprison Trump officials for deporting Venezuelan gang members. I'm calling on the House: Impeach Rogue Judge Boasberg."
The ruling marks the second time the D.C. Circuit panel has intervened against Boasberg in this dispute. In an earlier ruling, the same panel halted the judge's initial contempt-related actions in the case. Tuesday's decision went further, ordering him to end the probe entirely.
The three-judge panel's majority opinion was written by a judge appointed by President Donald Trump. The majority warned that Boasberg's investigation risked becoming an open-ended review of executive branch decisions on national security and immigration enforcement, territory the appeals court found the district judge had no business occupying.
The New York Post reported that the majority described Boasberg's contempt effort as "intrusive" and a "legal dead end," in addition to calling it a clear abuse of discretion. That language handed Schmitt, and any House member inclined to act, a ready-made set of appellate findings to cite.
A judge appointed by former President Joe Biden dissented. The dissenting opinion argued the ruling could undermine the courts' contempt power and the rule of law. But the dissent did not carry the day, and the majority's order stands.
The broader pattern of Republican efforts to impeach federal judges over Trump policy rulings has been building for months, and Tuesday's appeals court decision gave those efforts fresh ammunition.
The confrontation traces back to March 2025, when the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants, some accused of gang ties, to El Salvador. Boasberg issued an emergency order halting the removals and requiring due process. Administration officials allowed the flights to proceed anyway.
That defiance triggered Boasberg's contempt investigation, which the appeals court has now dismantled in two stages. The first intervention halted the judge's initial contempt-related actions. The second, on Tuesday, ordered him to shut the investigation down for good.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche welcomed the decision in his own post on X:
"Today's decision by the DC Circuit should finally end Judge Boasberg's year-long campaign against the hardworking Department attorneys doing their jobs fighting illegal immigration."
Blanche's characterization, "year-long campaign", underscores how long the legal standoff has dragged on, consuming Justice Department resources while immigration enforcement remained in limbo.
Schmitt's impeachment call did not land in a vacuum. Breitbart reported that Sen. Bill Hagerty previously urged the House to open impeachment proceedings against Boasberg on separate grounds, accusing the judge of conspiring with Biden-aligned figures to approve surveillance targeting Republican lawmakers, Trump staff, and Trump himself. Sens. Ted Cruz and Schmitt had also backed impeachment calls at that time.
Cruz stated at a press conference: "I am right now calling on the House to impeach Judge Boasberg." That earlier push centered on alleged surveillance-related overreach. Tuesday's call adds a second, distinct set of grievances, the contempt probe, to the impeachment argument.
The growing list of senators calling for Boasberg's removal reflects a broader frustration among conservatives with judges who, in their view, have used the bench to obstruct lawful executive action. Similar accountability debates have surfaced in other contexts, including Sen. Blackburn's call for the Chief Justice to investigate Justice Jackson's conduct at a public event featuring anti-ICE statements.
Federal judges serve during "good behaviour" under the Constitution, and impeachment is the only mechanism for removal. The House would need a simple majority to approve articles of impeachment. A Senate trial would follow, requiring a two-thirds vote to convict and remove the judge from the bench.
No immediate steps toward impeachment proceedings were announced Tuesday. The New York Post noted that while House Republicans could pursue the effort, the Senate would likely lack the two-thirds majority needed to convict. That political reality has not stopped the calls from growing louder, or from gaining new factual footing each time a higher court rebukes Boasberg's conduct.
The ruling itself does not affect Boasberg's ongoing duties as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He remains on the bench, presiding over cases, a fact that frustrates the senators pressing for his removal.
The question of when judges cross from legitimate oversight into political overreach has become one of the defining tensions of the Trump era. Past episodes, from declassified documents raising new questions about Trump's first impeachment to state-level clashes over judicial conduct, have all tested the same boundary.
The D.C. Circuit's majority did not mince words. Calling the contempt investigation "improper" and an abuse of discretion is among the sharpest rebukes an appellate panel can deliver to a sitting district judge. The majority's warning, that the probe risked becoming an open-ended review of executive branch decisions on national security and immigration enforcement, draws a bright line around the separation of powers.
For the Trump administration, the ruling validates its position that the deportation flights were lawful exercises of executive authority under the Alien Enemies Act, and that a single district judge had no business launching what amounted to a criminal investigation of senior officials for carrying out immigration policy.
For Boasberg's defenders, the dissent's argument, that reining in contempt power weakens the judiciary's ability to enforce its own orders, will remain a talking point. But the dissent lost, and the majority's language is now part of the permanent record.
In Florida, a parallel debate played out when Gov. DeSantis demanded the state House impeach a judge over a separate controversy, a reminder that the impeachment tool, rarely used, is gaining traction across the conservative movement as a response to judicial conduct that elected officials view as lawless.
Just The News reported that the appeals court described Boasberg's proceedings as an improper judicial investigation into "high-level executive branch deliberations." Whether any House member introduces actual articles of impeachment remains to be seen. No such filing has been announced.
Several questions remain unanswered. Which specific contempt-related conduct was Boasberg investigating? What procedural effect does the D.C. Circuit order have beyond ending the probe? And which, if any, House members plan to act on calls from Schmitt, Hagerty, and Cruz?
When an appeals court calls a judge's conduct an abuse of discretion and an improper investigation, and then orders him to stop, the question isn't whether accountability is warranted. It's whether anyone in the House has the nerve to deliver it.
Two NYPD narcotics detectives lost their guns and shields this week after a bystander's cellphone video captured them punching, kicking, and dragging a man inside a Brooklyn liquor store, a man police later admitted had nothing to do with the drug transaction they were investigating.
The incident, recorded Tuesday afternoon at a shop on Hoyt and Baltic streets in Cobble Hill, has drawn swift condemnation from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. The department's Internal Affairs Bureau opened an investigation. The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said it will dismiss the charges filed against the man.
That sequence, officers rough up an innocent person, charge him anyway, then watch prosecutors toss the case, is the kind of chain that erodes public trust in law enforcement. And the speed with which city leaders rushed to condemn the officers, before an investigation could even begin, raises its own set of questions about who is actually running the NYPD.
ABC7 New York reported that the footage shows two plainclothes narcotics detectives wrangling with an unnamed man inside the store. At one point the man crashes into a wine shelf. The officers throw punches. One kicks him.
Witness Abelee Moran, who recorded the video, told reporters the officers never identified themselves as police or detectives. They never told the man he was under arrest. They never ordered him to put his hands behind his back. They just started hitting him.
Moran described the scene plainly:
"We thought we were getting stuck up. The officers did not say we're NYPD. They didn't say that we're detectives. They didn't tell him you're under arrest, put your hands behind your back. They just started hitting him. The guy, I can hear him say, 'Wait. What's going on?' So as soon as I heard that, I looked, and I started recording immediately."
If Moran's account is accurate, the detectives skipped the most basic steps of a lawful arrest. That matters, not just for the man who was beaten, but for every officer in the city who follows procedure and still gets lumped in with the ones who don't.
The NYPD said the detectives had just witnessed a narcotics purchase of crack cocaine nearby and believed the man matched the description of a suspect. No drugs were found during a police search. The man was issued a desk appearance ticket for resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration, charges the Brooklyn DA's office now plans to drop.
Mayor Mamdani posted on social media calling the video "extremely disturbing and unacceptable." He added that "officers should never treat a person this way" and said the NYPD was conducting a full investigation. The mayor, already under scrutiny over his leadership decisions, wasted no time positioning himself on the side of the cameras.
Commissioner Tisch, speaking Wednesday at an unrelated press conference, called it an "upsetting video" and confirmed the two detectives had been placed on modified duty with their guns and shields removed.
The New York Post identified the man as Timothy Brown, reporting that the resisting arrest and obstruction charges against him were dropped and that Tisch described the video as "deeply disturbing." The Post also noted that police unions criticized the mayor for speaking out before the investigation concluded.
Hawk Newsome of Black Lives Matter NY held a press conference outside the liquor store on Wednesday. He framed the incident in historical terms:
"I feel like everybody saw everybody beating a man like it's the 1950s and 1960s, in 2026, these police officers should be under control."
Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro offered a sharply different take. He said he wanted facts before anyone rushed to judgment, a reasonable position, and one that city hall did not share.
Munro defended his members directly:
"NYPD detectives put their lives on the line daily, doing the dangerous work politicians would never have the courage to do."
He also posed a blunt question: "Narcotics detectives arrest you and tell you to put your hands behind your back, and don't comply, what do you think happens?" That framing clashes directly with Moran's account, which says the officers never gave any such command. If Internal Affairs can establish what was said and when, the facts will settle that dispute. Until then, both versions are on the table.
This is the tension that sits at the center of every use-of-force controversy. Officers working narcotics details operate in dangerous, fast-moving situations. Mistakes happen. But when the wrong man gets beaten in a liquor store and charged with crimes the DA won't prosecute, something went wrong well before the first punch was thrown.
The Mamdani administration's record on law enforcement has been anything but consistent. The mayor scrapped 5,000 planned NYPD hires in his budget proposal, signaling that a smaller police force is acceptable. He has drawn criticism for prioritizing visits with Rikers inmates over injured officers. And he has faced backlash for how he has framed violent crime in the city.
Now the same mayor who has been cutting police resources and siding publicly against officers is quick to call their conduct "unacceptable" before an investigation produces findings. That doesn't mean the officers in this case acted properly. The video is hard to watch, and the fact that they had the wrong man makes it worse. But a mayor who undercuts the department at every turn and then demands accountability when a camera rolls is sending officers an impossible message.
Munro's complaint, that politicians condemn officers before the facts are in, is not new. It is also not wrong. Public officials can acknowledge concern without prejudging an outcome. Mamdani chose the louder path.
The Internal Affairs investigation will determine whether the detectives violated department policy or the law. The Brooklyn DA's decision to dismiss the charges against the man effectively concedes that the arrest lacked merit. Whether the detectives face departmental discipline, criminal referral, or reinstatement depends on what the investigation finds.
Several questions remain unanswered. What injuries, if any, did the man sustain? What specific suspect description did the detectives claim he matched? Why were charges filed at all if no drugs were found and the man was not the person they were looking for? And why, if Moran's account holds, did the detectives fail to identify themselves before using force?
The broader pattern of public-safety controversies around this administration makes the stakes higher. New Yorkers need officers who follow the rules and leaders who let investigations run before turning every incident into a political statement.
Good policing and accountability are not opposites. But you cannot gut the force, publicly shame officers before the facts arrive, and then wonder why morale collapses and the streets get more dangerous.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi flatly denied this week that Democrats turned a "blind eye" to sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell, insisting she had no knowledge of the accusations that have now driven the California congressman toward resignation.
"No. That's not true," the 86-year-old California Democrat told a reporter at the American Public Transportation Association's legislative conference when asked whether her party had ignored the mounting accusations. "That is absolutely positive, and it is true that they may say that, but it is absolutely not true."
The denial came days after Swalwell announced on Monday his intention to resign from the U.S. House, a move that followed accusations from several women, as Breitbart reported, and the suspension of his gubernatorial campaign. The speed of the collapse raises a question Pelosi's blanket denial does not answer: how did a sitting congressman face allegations from multiple women without anyone in Democratic leadership catching wind?
Pressed on whether she had any prior knowledge of the accusations against Swalwell, Pelosi did not hedge. She repeated herself three times in a single breath.
"None whatsoever. None whatsoever. I had none whatsoever."
She then endorsed Swalwell's decision to step down, calling it "the right thing to do, yes." Her reasoning, however, leaned more on political convenience than on accountability for the accusers. Pelosi framed the resignation as a way to spare House members from casting an uncomfortable vote on expulsion, and to spare Swalwell's family additional exposure.
Pelosi told reporters at the conference:
"Not to subject members to have to take a vote on something like that, and not to subject your family... If you have a challenge that you have to address, it's best addressed not as a candidate for governor and not as a member of Congress."
Notice what is missing from that calculus. Not a word about the women who came forward. Not a word about what the party plans to learn from the episode. The concern, as Pelosi articulated it, was for the caucus and for Swalwell's household, not for the accusers who set the chain of events in motion.
The accusations against Swalwell began with a former staffer who told the San Francisco Chronicle that he had allegedly sexually assaulted her on different occasions. Several other women subsequently came forward with their own misconduct claims. The specific details of each woman's account were not fully outlined in the initial reporting, and their names have not been publicly disclosed.
Swalwell first suspended his gubernatorial campaign. Then, on Monday, he announced his plan to leave Congress entirely. His public statement acknowledged the political pressure bearing down on him but framed the decision around his constituents.
Pelosi has long wielded outsized influence in Democratic politics, backing favored candidates in high-profile races and shaping the party's internal power structure for decades. That influence makes her claim of total ignorance harder to accept at face value, particularly when the allegations involved a fellow California Democrat who served in her caucus.
"I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong. But it's also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties."
Swalwell added that he would work with his staff "in the coming days to ensure they are able, in my absence, to serve the needs of the good people of the 14th congressional district."
Swalwell's resignation announcement did not come in a vacuum. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna warned before noon on Tuesday that she would continue her resolution to expel Swalwell if he did not formally resign by 2 p.m. that day. Luna cited the lack of specifics in Swalwell's Monday statement, he said he "planned" to resign but did not set a firm date or file the paperwork immediately.
That pressure from Luna and other members made clear that the House was not going to let Swalwell run out the clock. Whether Swalwell met the 2 p.m. deadline or whether Luna proceeded with her expulsion resolution remains an open question based on available reporting.
The episode is the latest in a string of moments where Pelosi's public positioning has drawn scrutiny. She has clashed publicly with the Trump administration while simultaneously navigating criticism from within her own ranks and from outside observers who question whether Democratic leadership holds its own members to the same standards it demands of others.
Pelosi's "none whatsoever" defense is familiar. When uncomfortable facts surface about members of her caucus, the former Speaker's instinct is to claim distance rather than ownership. The question is not whether Pelosi personally witnessed misconduct. The question is whether Democratic leadership created an environment where allegations could circulate, and where multiple women could come forward to a major newspaper, without anyone in the chain of command asking questions.
Several women accused Swalwell. A former staffer went on the record with the San Francisco Chronicle about alleged sexual assault. And yet Pelosi, who has spent decades as the most powerful Democrat in the House, says she knew nothing.
Pelosi remains an active force in Democratic politics even now, endorsing candidates for Congress and working to shape the party's future. Her continued influence makes questions about her knowledge, or lack thereof, more than academic. If she truly had no idea, that itself is an indictment of how Democratic leadership monitors conduct within its own caucus.
Meanwhile, challengers are already eyeing Pelosi's own San Francisco seat, a sign that her grip on California's political landscape may not be as firm as it once was.
Key questions hang over this story. Did Swalwell formally file his resignation, or did he leave the door open with his "I plan to resign" language? Did Luna proceed with the expulsion resolution after her 2 p.m. deadline? And did any other Democrat, not just Pelosi, receive complaints or warnings about Swalwell's conduct before the San Francisco Chronicle report brought the accusations into public view?
Pelosi's triple denial may satisfy her allies. It should not satisfy anyone else. When several women accuse a sitting congressman of misconduct and the most powerful figure in his party says she had "no idea whatsoever," the options are limited: either leadership was willfully incurious, or the party's internal accountability structures are so weak they might as well not exist.
Neither answer reflects well on the people who spent years lecturing the rest of the country about believing women.
Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped his California gubernatorial bid late Sunday under pressure from his own party's leadership, but the same Democrats who pushed him out of that race have gone conspicuously quiet on the harder question: Should the 45-year-old congressman keep his seat in the House?
At least four women have accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct. The House Ethics Committee announced Monday that it will investigate the accusations. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is separately probing at least one allegation involving a former staffer in New York, reportedly from 2024. One woman was allegedly left bleeding and bruised.
And yet the top three House Democrats, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California, have not called for Swalwell's expulsion or even his resignation from Congress. Their offices did not respond to fresh requests for comment from the New York Post, instead referring reporters back to a joint statement issued last week.
That statement asked for a "swift investigation" and told Swalwell to quit the governor's race. It said nothing about quitting Congress.
The joint statement from Jeffries, Clark, and Aguilar read in part:
"This is unacceptable of anyone, certainly not an elected official, and must be taken seriously. We commend the courageous women for sharing their experiences."
The leaders also called "for a swift investigation into these incidents and for the Congressman to immediately end his campaign to be California's next Governor." Swalwell complied with the campaign demand late Sunday. But the statement drew a careful line: drop the governor's race, not the House seat.
Nancy Pelosi, the top California Democrat in the House and a figure whose political moves always draw attention, also did not respond to the Post's request for comment on possible expulsion. Pelosi, who has faced her own share of public backlash recently, has offered no public position on whether Swalwell should remain in Congress.
A Democratic aide described the situation more bluntly, telling the Post there is "real hesitation" among party leaders to push for expulsion. The aide predicted Swalwell "either resigns or is expelled within a week or so", but that prediction came from a staffer, not from leadership.
Swalwell, a married father of three, has tried to split the difference in his public statements. He pledged to "fight the serious, false allegations" while simultaneously apologizing for "mistakes in judgment I've made in my past." Those two positions sit uneasily together. If the allegations are false, what mistakes in judgment require an apology?
The California Democrat had already been in political hot water before these accusations surfaced. He was previously scrutinized for his interactions with Christine Fang, described as a suspected Chinese spy. That episode raised questions about Swalwell's judgment but did not cost him his seat or his committee assignments in the long run.
Now the stakes are higher. Multiple women have come forward. A district attorney's office is involved. And the House Ethics Committee has opened a formal investigation.
In the House's 237-year history, only six lawmakers have been expelled. The most recent was former Rep. George Santos, the Long Island Republican removed in 2023. That precedent looms over the current debate, and it applies to more than just Swalwell.
The House is currently wrestling over whether to expel four members: Swalwell, Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of New Jersey, and Rep. Cory Mills of Florida. Gonzales, also 45, has been accused of making sexual advances on a subordinate and pestering another staffer for sex several years earlier while married. Cherfilus-McCormick and Mills have long faced scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee for various issues.
Pelosi's silence on Swalwell is notable given her long history of wielding political influence within the California delegation and the broader Democratic caucus. She has been active in backing candidates in competitive primaries and shaping the party's direction, yet on this question she has offered nothing.
Democrats built a significant portion of their political brand in recent years around the idea that accusations of sexual misconduct against public officials must be believed, investigated, and acted upon swiftly. The party pressured former Sen. Al Franken out of office. It made "believe women" a rallying cry.
Now, with one of their own facing accusations from at least four women, with a criminal investigation underway in Manhattan and a formal ethics probe launched, the party's leaders have limited their response to telling Swalwell to stop running for governor. That is the political equivalent of asking someone to return a library book while the building is on fire.
The contrast with the Santos expulsion is instructive. Republicans voted to remove Santos from their own ranks in 2023. Democrats cheered that decision. Now the question is whether Democrats will apply the same standard to Swalwell, or whether "real hesitation" will harden into permanent inaction.
Meanwhile, Pelosi's broader political activity continues apace. She has been endorsing candidates for Congress and making headlines on other fronts, yet she cannot find the words to address whether a colleague accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct should keep his seat.
The ethics investigation announced Monday will proceed on its own timeline. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office investigation adds a criminal dimension that the House process does not carry. Swalwell has signaled he intends to fight the allegations, which means he is unlikely to resign voluntarily.
That puts the decision squarely on Democratic leadership. If Swalwell will not leave on his own, the party must decide whether to push for expulsion, a step that requires a two-thirds vote of the full House. The Democratic aide's prediction of resolution "within a week or so" may prove optimistic if leadership continues to dodge.
The open questions are significant. What specific conduct is the Manhattan DA investigating? What did Democratic leaders know, and when? Will the ethics committee's probe produce findings before political pressure forces a resolution? And will any senior Democrat actually say the word "expulsion" on the record?
So far, the answer to that last question is no. Jeffries, Clark, Aguilar, and Pelosi have all declined to go there. Even as challenges emerge to long-held Democratic seats, the party's leaders seem more concerned with managing the political fallout than with acting on the principles they have loudly claimed to hold.
When Republicans expelled George Santos, Democrats said it proved the system works. Now that system is pointed at one of their own, and the leaders who cheered loudest have gone silent. Principles that only apply to the other party aren't principles. They're tactics.
A federal judge in Florida threw out President Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal on Monday, ruling that the complaint failed to meet the legal standard required for a public figure to prove he was defamed. The dismissal, issued in a 17-page order by U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, centered on Trump's inability to show the newspaper acted with "actual malice" when it published a story about an alleged birthday letter tied to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The ruling does not necessarily end the fight. Judge Gayles gave Trump until April 27 to file an amended complaint, and his legal team has already signaled it intends to do exactly that.
The case stems from a Wall Street Journal article published last July that claimed Trump had signed a sexually suggestive letter included in a 2003 birthday album assembled for Epstein's 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter, denied signing it, and sued for $10 billion in damages. The White House pushed back on the story's legitimacy from the start, and the administration has maintained that position ever since.
For a public figure like a sitting president to win a defamation case, he must clear a high bar. Under the Supreme Court's New York Times v. Sullivan framework, the plaintiff must show the publisher acted with "actual malice", meaning the outlet either knew the material was false or published it with reckless disregard for the truth.
Judge Gayles found that Trump's complaint did not come close. As the Daily Mail reported, the judge wrote plainly:
"This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite."
The judge elaborated further, directly rejecting Trump's core argument. As the Washington Times reported, Gayles wrote that the complaint and the article itself confirmed that the Journal's reporters attempted to investigate the story before publishing it. The paper sought comment from Trump, the Justice Department, and the FBI, and included Trump's denial in the published piece.
"President Trump argues that this allegation shows that Defendants acted with serious doubts about the truth of their reporting and, therefore, with actual malice. The Court disagrees."
That finding, that the Journal followed normal journalistic practices by seeking comment and printing the denial, cut directly against the claim of reckless disregard. The judge noted that by including Trump's denial, the paper allowed readers to decide for themselves what to conclude.
The underlying story involves a birthday album that Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and convicted Epstein associate, reportedly collected, scanned, and bound into an album she gave to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. The Journal's article alleged the album contained a letter from Trump. It also reportedly contained a handwritten note from former President Bill Clinton, who had a social and professional relationship with Epstein during the 1990s and 2000s.
Trump has consistently denied any involvement with the letter. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on X that the Journal's own subsequent reporting undermined the original story. She wrote:
"The latest piece published by the Wall Street Journal proves this entire 'Birthday Card' story is false. As I have said all along, it's very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it."
The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a detail that adds an unusual wrinkle to the dispute. Trump's decision to sue a Murdoch-owned property, not a legacy left-leaning outlet, underscored how seriously the administration viewed the story's potential to damage the president. This is a president who has repeatedly pushed back against media narratives he considers unfair, regardless of the outlet's ideological leanings.
Despite the dismissal, Trump's legal team made clear the case is far from finished. A spokesman for the team told Fox News Digital:
"President Trump will follow Judge Gayles' ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants."
Leavitt reinforced that message, stating that "President Trump's legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation." The April 27 deadline gives the team roughly two weeks to craft an amended complaint that might better address the actual-malice standard the judge found lacking.
For its part, the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones, expressed satisfaction with the outcome. A Dow Jones spokesperson told Fox News Digital: "We are pleased with the judge's decision to dismiss this complaint. We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal's reporting."
As National Review noted, the dismissal came in a detailed 17-page order, not a brief procedural brush-off. Judge Gayles engaged with Trump's arguments and rejected them on the merits of the actual-malice standard, which has long been one of the most difficult hurdles in American defamation law.
The ruling arrives at a moment when Trump-related legal matters continue to command national attention. The president has faced a steady stream of litigation and political challenges throughout his tenure, from questions about pardons for administration officials to confrontations with congressional opponents.
Defamation law for public figures remains one of the most protective frameworks in American jurisprudence, protective, that is, of the press. The actual-malice standard, established more than sixty years ago, requires a plaintiff to prove not just that a story was wrong, but that the publisher knew it was wrong or didn't care. Courts have consistently interpreted that bar as extraordinarily high.
In this case, the Journal's decision to contact Trump before publication and to include his denial in the article gave Judge Gayles a straightforward basis for his ruling. The judge wrote that the complaint and the article together confirmed that the defendants "attempted to investigate." That language suggests any amended complaint will need to bring substantially new allegations, not just a repackaging of the same arguments.
The Epstein connection, of course, is what gave the original story its charge. Epstein's network of wealthy and powerful associates has been a source of public fascination and political weaponry for years. The birthday album reportedly contained messages from multiple prominent figures, including Clinton. Yet the Journal's article focused on Trump, a choice the administration has characterized as part of a broader pattern of media hostility toward the president.
Whether an amended complaint can clear the actual-malice bar remains to be seen. Breitbart reported that Trump's legal team views the judge's order as a roadmap for refiling rather than a dead end. The April 27 deadline will test that confidence.
Several open questions remain. The full text of the alleged letter has not been publicly released beyond excerpts. The specific court docket number has not been widely reported. And the substance of any amended complaint, what new facts or arguments Trump's team might marshal, is unknown.
What is clear is that the first round went to the Journal. The paper followed standard reporting practices, included the subject's denial, and a federal judge found nothing in the complaint that suggested malicious intent. That is a factual outcome, not an editorial judgment.
Trump's team says it will be back before the deadline. The Journal says it stands behind its reporting. The actual-malice standard, as always, stands between them, a legal wall that has protected the press for decades, and that public figures of every political stripe have struggled to scale.
If the president's lawyers can bring new evidence of reckless disregard, the case may yet have a second life. But if the amended complaint reads like the first one, Judge Gayles has already told them what he thinks. And he was not subtle about it.
Rep. Eric Swalwell is fighting for his political life after multiple women accused the California Democrat of sexual misconduct, allegations he calls "flat false." But conservatives have long memories, and Swalwell's own words from the 2018 Brett Kavanaugh confirmation battle are making his defense far harder to swallow.
Nearly eight years ago, Swalwell stood among the loudest Democratic voices demanding that unproven accusations against Kavanaugh be treated as near-gospel. He urged a pause in the Supreme Court confirmation proceedings, called for additional investigation, and insisted that accusers be heard, even before their claims were tested. Now, facing accusations of his own, he wants the opposite standard applied to himself.
The contradiction is not subtle. It is the kind of double standard that corrodes public trust in Washington, and it deserves a full accounting.
Newsmax reported that several women have come forward with accusations against Swalwell ranging from inappropriate messages to more serious misconduct. The specific details of those allegations, including the identities of the accusers, the dates, and the locations of the alleged incidents, have not been publicly disclosed in full.
Swalwell responded with a video posted to his X account, in which he denied the claims categorically. He said the allegations "did not happen" and vowed to fight them.
"They did not happen. They have never happened."
He acknowledged making "mistakes in judgment" in his personal life but drew a firm line, calling the accusations "flat false" and pledging to contest them "with everything that I have."
That language, the blanket denial, the appeal for fairness, the insistence that unproven allegations should not define a man, will sound familiar to anyone who watched the Kavanaugh hearings in 2018. The difference is that Swalwell spent those hearings arguing the exact opposite.
During the bitter fight over Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, Democrats seized on accusations of sexual misconduct to try to derail the confirmation. Swalwell was among the most vocal. He called for a pause in the proceedings to allow additional investigation. He urged that accusers be heard, even when their claims had not been proven.
In an interview on MS NOW at the time, Swalwell made a pointed argument about the weight of multiple accusations. He posed a question that now reads like an indictment of his own situation:
"What are the chances that three or four women, independently, who never met each other, would have similar experiences with one person?"
That was the standard Swalwell applied to Kavanaugh, a man who denied every allegation, who cooperated with an FBI review, and who was ultimately confirmed to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh has since served on the bench and established a judicial record that defies easy partisan caricature.
But in 2018, Swalwell was not interested in nuance. He was interested in a scalp. The mere existence of multiple accusers, he argued, was itself evidence. Due process was an inconvenience. The accusers deserved belief; the accused deserved suspicion.
Apply Swalwell's own 2018 logic to his current situation. Several women, apparently unconnected, have made similar accusations against one man. By the congressman's own test, that pattern should be treated as significant. It should trigger investigation, a pause in his political ambitions, and a presumption that the accusers deserve to be heard.
Instead, Swalwell wants the benefit of the doubt. He wants the public to accept his blanket denial. He wants his acknowledgment of vague "mistakes in judgment" to serve as a firewall against more serious charges.
That is his right. Every American, including every member of Congress, deserves the presumption of innocence. Conservatives have always believed that. It was conservatives who defended Kavanaugh's right to due process when Democrats tried to destroy his career on the basis of uncorroborated accusations.
The issue is not whether Swalwell deserves fairness. He does. The issue is that he denied that same fairness to someone else when it was politically useful, and now expects the rest of us not to notice.
The political damage is already spreading. Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign has been thrown into turmoil. Some allies have distanced themselves. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are weighing possible disciplinary action, including potential expulsion votes.
That last detail is worth pausing on. Expulsion from the House of Representatives is an extraordinary measure, reserved historically for the most serious offenses. The fact that it is even being discussed, however preliminarily, signals that the allegations against Swalwell are being taken seriously by his own colleagues.
The Supreme Court itself has remained a flashpoint in recent months. Kavanaugh and Justice Jackson recently clashed publicly over the Court's emergency docket, a reminder that the institution Democrats tried to reshape by destroying Kavanaugh's reputation continues to function, and to generate fierce debate on its own terms.
Swalwell, meanwhile, spent years positioning himself as a champion of women and a crusader against misconduct. He has said he spent decades advocating for victims of sexual assault. That record now sits in direct tension with the accusations against him, and with the way he chose to weaponize similar accusations against a political opponent.
The broader emergency-docket battles at the Supreme Court, including complaints from Justice Sotomayor about the pace of rulings, show that the Court Kavanaugh joined remains at the center of the country's most consequential legal fights. Democrats failed to keep him off the bench. The tools they used, including Swalwell's brand of accusation-as-evidence reasoning, did lasting damage to the confirmation process and to public faith in fair proceedings.
None of this means Swalwell is guilty. The allegations against him remain just that, allegations. They have not been proven. The accusers have not been publicly identified. The details are thin. A fair process should determine the truth.
But that is precisely the point. A fair process is what Swalwell refused to grant Brett Kavanaugh. He demanded that the mere number of accusers be treated as dispositive. He argued that a pause, an investigation, and a presumption of credibility for the accusers were the minimum requirements of decency.
Now he wants a different set of rules. He wants his denial accepted at face value. He wants his "mistakes in judgment" to be treated as a separate matter from the accusations. He wants the public to wait for evidence before passing judgment.
That is exactly the standard conservatives argued for in 2018. Kavanaugh himself has continued to defend process and institutional norms even as critics attack the Court from the left. The principle that accusations must be tested, not simply believed, was right then and it is right now.
Swalwell's problem is not that he is asking for fairness. His problem is that he spent years telling the country fairness was optional when the accused was on the other side of the aisle.
Washington is full of people who set standards they never expect to live by. Every so often, the bill comes due.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Reconstruction-era federal law that banned Americans from distilling spirits in their own homes, ruling that Congress exceeded its taxing authority when it criminalized the practice in 1868. The decision, handed down Friday, affirms a lower court ruling and marks a significant win for individual liberty and limited government.
The case was brought by the Hobby Distillers Association and several of its members, including Rick Morris, a man who manufactures stills for legally approved distilling operations. Morris wanted to distill bourbon whiskey at home for his brother and friends. When he discovered that doing so could land him in federal prison, he founded the association and took the fight to court, UPI reported.
The law in question dates to July 1868, when Congress imposed excise taxes on distilled spirits and tobacco. Alongside the tax came a flat prohibition: no one could produce spirits at home, period. Violators faced penalties of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The government's rationale was simple, a home distiller could more easily hide the strength of a spirit or conceal an entire operation from tax collectors.
For 158 years, that reasoning held. It doesn't anymore.
The Fifth Circuit's opinion drew a sharp line between Congress's power to tax and its power to prohibit. The federal government argued the ban was necessary to prevent tax evasion. The court disagreed, writing:
"Congress's taxing power 'reaches only existing subjects,' not activity that may generate subjects of taxation."
In other words, Congress can tax distilled spirits. But it cannot use the threat of taxation as a pretext to ban an activity outright, especially one conducted privately, in a citizen's own home. The court went further, warning that the government's theory had no limiting principle.
Circuit Judge Edith Hollan Jones, writing for the panel, put it bluntly. The New York Post reported her opinion stated:
"Without any limiting principle, the government's theory would violate this court's obligation to read the Constitution carefully to avoid creating a general federal authority akin to the police power."
The court also found the ban failed the "necessary and proper" test, the constitutional standard for whether a law is a legitimate exercise of an enumerated power. Banning an entire category of private activity to make tax collection easier, the court held, goes well beyond what that clause permits.
The ruling upheld a July 2024 decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, who first found the ban unconstitutional. The government appealed. It lost again.
The decision fits into a broader judicial trend of courts scrutinizing the outer boundaries of federal power. In recent months, appellate courts have shown increasing willingness to push back when the government stretches constitutional authority past its plain meaning, whether the issue involves legislative overreach in state redistricting or longstanding criminal statutes that rest on shaky constitutional footing.
Attorney Andrew Grossman, who represented the Hobby Distillers Association, called the ruling "an important victory for individual liberty" that lets the plaintiffs "pursue their passion to distill fine beverages in their homes." Grossman is also involved in a separate case in Ohio, where a man named John Ream is challenging the same federal ban through the Sixth Circuit after a district court dismissed his suit on standing grounds. The Washington Examiner reported that the Buckeye Institute argues Ream should be allowed to contest the law's constitutionality without first risking criminal prosecution.
That parallel case underscores just how broadly the old ban reached, and how many Americans it affected. Home brewing of beer and wine has been legal at the federal level since 1978. Home distilling never got the same treatment.
The Hobby Distillers Association said the ruling was a major victory and a turning point for hobby distillers nationwide. The organization noted that under the decision, people can obtain permits from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, follow federal regulations, and pay applicable taxes, the same framework that already governs commercial distilling operations.
The ruling does not automatically legalize home distilling across the country. The Washington Times noted that state laws still apply, and many states maintain their own restrictions on home production of spirits. The federal government may also appeal the decision, potentially setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court.
Before the ruling, the U.S. Department of Treasury stated on its website that producing spirits at any location not qualified and licensed by the bureau was illegal. That position now stands in direct conflict with a federal appellate court's finding. How the Treasury Department responds, whether it updates its guidance, seeks further review, or simply digs in, remains an open question.
The broader legal landscape is shifting, too. The Supreme Court has shown a growing appetite for re-examining the scope of federal authority, from administrative law to criminal statutes. The recent vacating of Steve Bannon's contempt conviction is just one example of the judiciary revisiting cases where the government's legal footing looked less solid on closer inspection.
And in the Minnesota protest-rules case, another federal appeals court weighed the boundaries of government power against individual rights. The direction of travel is clear: courts are asking harder questions about what Washington can and cannot do.
The 1868 law was a product of its time. The federal government, desperate for revenue after the Civil War, cast a wide net over anything that could generate tax dollars. Distilled spirits were a prime target. The prohibition on home distilling was aimed at preventing people from skirting tax collectors, a reasonable concern in an era of limited enforcement capacity.
But the Constitution doesn't grant Congress a blank check to ban private activity simply because that activity might, in theory, make tax collection harder. That was the Fifth Circuit's core finding. The government's argument, taken to its logical end, would have allowed Congress to criminalize any private conduct that could conceivably touch a taxable good. Bake bread at home? That's flour that wasn't commercially sold and taxed. Grow tomatoes in your garden? Same logic.
The court refused to go there. And it was right to refuse.
Rick Morris just wanted to make bourbon for his brother. The federal government told him that doing so, in his own home, with his own equipment, for personal consumption, was a crime punishable by five years in prison. He fought back, built an organization, and won. Twice.
The case now sits as binding precedent in the Fifth Circuit, covering Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Whether it spreads further depends on the government's next move and whether other circuits follow suit. The Sixth Circuit case involving John Ream could provide an early signal.
For now, the 158-year-old ban is dead in three states. The principle behind the ruling, that the taxing power is not a general police power, is alive everywhere.
When the federal government can't even articulate a limiting principle for its own authority, it shouldn't be surprised when a court draws the line for it.