DC police says ‘suspect is in custody’ following shooting of national guard soldiers
The DC police has said that a “suspect is in custody” following the reported shooting of two members of the national guard.
They note that the shooting took place at 17th and I Street in Northwest DC. The scene is now secured, per law enforcement.
Key events
A reminder that Donald Trump is not in Washington. He’s actually in Palm Beach, Florida at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
As we noted earlier today, this is his 19th day on this particular golf course since he returned to office. The White House said that he’s been briefed on today’s shooting.
Noem sas DHS is ‘working with law enforcement’ on national guard shooting
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem said that her agency is “working with law enforcement to gather more information” on the shooting of two national guard soldiers in downtown DC.
Robert Tait
Reporting from the scene
After the incident, police cordoned off several streets around Washington’s Farragut Square. From nearby offices, large numbers of police cars and fire and rescue vehicles could be seen flooding into the square.
Office buildings in the square were put under lockdown, with workers told to leave by rear door if they wished to leave the premises. Law enforcement officers also ordered staff in the buildings to stay away from glass doors adjoining the square.
White House in lockdown and ‘actively monitoring situation’
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the White House was “aware and actively monitoring this tragic situation”. She added that Donald Trump had been briefed.
A White House official confirmed that the White House was in lockdown.
DC police says ‘suspect is in custody’ following shooting of national guard soldiers
The DC police has said that a “suspect is in custody” following the reported shooting of two members of the national guard.
They note that the shooting took place at 17th and I Street in Northwest DC. The scene is now secured, per law enforcement.
Two national guard soldiers shot near the White House – reports
Two members of the national guard have been shot in downtown DC, near the White House, according to the Associated Press. Emergency vehicles were seen responding to the areas. The condition of the soldiers is currently unknown.
The streets around Farragut West station, near the White House, have been closed off, per my Guardian colleagues.
We’ll bring you the latest as we get more information on this developing story.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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The final criminal case against Donald Trump ended on Wednesday with a filing for dismissal by the state prosecutor who took over the case. Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, wrote in a 22-page memo today that he would not be pursuing charges against Donald Trump, or the Republican electors who were accused of taking part in a conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in the Peach state. A reminder that Skandalakis appointed himself to replace Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, after she was removed from the case by the Georgia supreme court.
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The US supreme court has postponed a decision on whether to let Donald Trump fire the government’s top copyright official, leaving her in place for now in the latest battle over the president’s targeting of federal officials. The justices declined to immediately resolve the justice department’s request to lift a lower court’s ruling that had blocked Trump’s firing of Shira Perlmutter as the US register of copyrights and US Copyright Office director while her legal challenge to her removal proceeds.
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Certain Republicans have criticized Steve Witkoff and his relationship with Moscow, after Bloomberg published the transcript of a call between Trump’s envoy and a senior Kremlin official yesterday. “It is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired,” said outgoing Republican congressman Don Bacon, of Nebraska. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania representative Brian Fitzpatrick said the published details of Witkoff’s conversation were a “major problem”.
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Senator Mark Kelly said that he’s “not backing down” amid a Pentagon investigation that claims the former navy captain broke military law by appearing in a video that tells service members to “refuse illegal orders”. While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talkshow on Tuesday, the Arizona Democrat slammed defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans. “He’s going to prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Kelly said. “It is so ridiculous. It’s almost like you can’t make this shit up.”
Trump eyes reflecting pool revamp in Truth Social post
The president said in a Truth Social post today that the iconic reflecting pool, which sits in between the Washington Monument and the white marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, is due for an upgrade.
Without going into any details, Trump shared a black‑and‑white video of a pool being cleaned, set to Andrea Bocelli’s Time to Say Goodbye.
“This is the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool before Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and I fix it,” the president wrote. “Study it hard because you won’t be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!”
Trial set for Wisconsin judge charged with helping undocumented immigrant evade federal agents
A federal judge has said a trial will begin on 11 December in the case of a Milwaukee judge who is charged with helping an undocumented immigrant evade immigration agents.
In May, federal prosecutors charged Judge Hannah Dugan with concealing an individual to prevent arrest and obstruction. Dugan allegedly escorted Eduardo Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer out of her courtroom through a back jury door on 18 April after learning that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were in the courthouse seeking his arrest. After Flores-Ruiz left the courthouse, federal agents chased him on foot and arrested him down the street.
Dugan’s attorneys maintain she’s innocent, and looks forward to proving so in court.
According to court documents, Flores-Ruiz illegally re-entered the US after being deported in 2013. He was in Dugan’s courtroom the morning of 18 April for a hearing, after having been charged with three counts of misdemeanor domestic abuse in Milwaukee county in March. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Flores-Ruiz had been deported.
Anna Betts
The Department of Justice said in a statement that homeland security secretary Kristi Noem was the official who made the decision to continue with the deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge’s directive that the flights must be returned to the United States.
In a court filing on Tuesday, the justice department said that “Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove provided DHS with legal advice regarding the court’s order as to flights that had left the United States before the order issued, through DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara” and that “after receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador”.
The justice department argued that “as explained below, that decision was lawful and was consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Court’s order”.
The filing came as James Boasberg, a US district judge, recently resumed his inquiry into whether the Trump administration violated his March orders to halt the deportation flights.
That month, the Trump administration had invoked the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, designed primarily for use in wartime, to deport roughly 250 alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison.
Supreme court leaves copyright official targeted by Trump in place for now
The US supreme court has postponed a decision on whether to let Donald Trump fire the government’s top copyright official, leaving her in place for now in the latest battle over the president’s targeting of federal officials.
The justices declined to immediately resolve the justice department’s request to lift a lower court’s ruling that had blocked Trump’s firing of Shira Perlmutter as the US register of copyrights and US Copyright Office director while her legal challenge to her removal proceeds.
The supreme court’s order indicated that it would issue a decision concerning Perlmutter after it hears arguments already scheduled in two other cases involving Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission Democratic member Rebecca Slaughter and his attempt to oust Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. Those arguments are set for 8 December and 21 January respectively.
Conservative justice Clarence Thomas publicly dissented from the court’s order, noting that he would have granted the department’s request.
Here is my colleague George Chidi’s report:
Trump’s defense lawyer Steve Sadow praised the decision in a statement.
“The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over,” he wrote on X. “This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”
George Chidi
A reminder that a grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in Georgia.
The case remained the only criminal prosecution of Trump, but Fani Willis’s disqualification by the Georgia supreme court doomed the effort. The court ruled that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, revealed in dramatic court filings in January 2024, created an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest.
Skandalakis concluded in his motion to dismiss that the inquiry undertaken by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the DoJ under Joe Biden, was the more appropriate venue for an investigation of Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election.
“The criminal conduct alleged in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit’s prosecution was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia,” Skandalakis wrote. “The federal government is the appropriate venue for this prosecution, not the State of Georgia.”
Pete Skandalakis noted in his filing that the US supreme court’s ruling last year, which granted presidents “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts within their constitutional authority, meant that it would take “months, if not years” to litigate immunity issues in the Georgia courts.
“Bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030 or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat,” he wrote, adding that “the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years”.
He said the decision was “not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law”.
Judge dismisses final criminal case against Trump
Shortly after Skandalakis moved to drop the charges against Trump and his allies, Georgia superior court judge Scott McAfee dismissed the final criminal case against the president.
A reminder that Skandalakis appointed himself to replace Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, after she was removed from the case by the Georgia supreme court.
Georgia prosecutor moves to drop charges against Trump in final criminal case
Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, wrote in a 22-page memo today that he would not be pursuing charges against Donald Trump, or the Republican electors who were accused of taking part in a conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in the Peach state.
“There is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment. Donald J. Trump’s current term as President of the United States of America does not expire until January 20, 2029; by that point, eight years will have elapsed since the phone call at issue,” Skandalakis wrote, referring to the now-infamous phone call that the president made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes”.
We’ll bring you more details as they come in.
Senator Kelly says he’s ‘not backing down’, amid Pentagon investigation
Senator Mark Kelly said that he’s “not backing down” amid a Pentagon investigation that claims the former navy captain broke military law by appearing in a video that tells service members to “refuse illegal orders”.
While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talkshow on Tuesday, the Arizona Democrat slammed defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans. “He’s going to prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Kelly said. “It is so ridiculous. It’s almost like you can’t make this shit up.”
Kelly also called out the president for accusing Kelly, and the other five Democratic members of Congress who appear in the video posted to social media, of sedition, and saying their behavior is “punishable by death”.
“When [Trump] says these things, there are consequences,” Kelly added. “Isn’t this the guy two months ago that said, ‘we’ve got to stop this, like political violence issue’. He didn’t even make it to Thanksgiving.”
