Wisconsin
Trump attorney reappointed to judicial panel
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — An attorney for former President Donald Trump who worked to overturn his loss in battleground Wisconsin has been reappointed by the state Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to a second term on a committee that advises judges on judicial conduct.
Jim Troupis’ reappointment to the panel was approved Thursday on a 4-3 vote by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with all three liberal justices dissenting, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
Troupis’ first term on the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee was slated to expire Tuesday. With the court’s reappointment, he will remain on the committee through March 7, 2026. Members of the nine-member advisory committee are limited to two successive three-year terms.
His reappointment comes about a month before an April 4 election that will determine majority control of the court for at least the next two years. One of the four conservative justices who voted to reappoint Troupis is retiring.
Troupis is a former Dane County Circuit Court judge who represented Trump in 2020 when he tried to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin. Troupis also advised Republicans on their plan to have fake electors cast their ballots for Trump in Wisconsin, even though he had lost.
Troupis is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by Democrats seeking $2.4 million in damages from the fake electors and attorneys who advised them. Also on Thursday, liberal attorneys filed an ethics complaint against Michael Gableman, the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice hired by Republicans to review the 2020 election. The complaint filed with the Office of Lawyer Regulation alleges that Gableman “has embraced conspiracy theories, spread lies, rejected facts, impugned the character of people he perceives to be his adversaries, and abused the legal process.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in 2021 when he hired Gableman that he was “supremely confident” in his abilities. But when he fired him in August 2022, Vos called him an “embarrassment.”
The complaint will be reviewed behind closed doors and if any discipline is recommended, it will ultimately be up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide on whether to impose any penalties.
California
Transgender pastor sues Lutheran denomination
The Rev. Megan Rohrer, who was elected as the first openly transgender bishop of one of the largest Christian denominations in the country in May 2021, has filed a lawsuit alleging that he was forced out from his post after enduring several months of discrimination and harassment.
The denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, declined comment, according to an email from spokesperson Candice Buchbinder.
Rohrer, of San Francisco, resigned in June as bishop of the ELCA’s Sierra Pacific Synod amid allegations of racism after he fired the pastor of a predominantly Latino, immigrant congregation in Stanton, California, on the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, for which the community had planned elaborate festivities.
In his lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Rohrer accuses the denomination of discriminating against him for being transgender and deliberately misgendering him and creating a “hostile work environment.” He is seeking monetary damages.
Rohrer, who now works as a senior communications specialist with a Black nondenominational church in San Francisco, said Thursday that he always felt the support of Lutherans in the pews, but not from the higher echelons of the national church. On his first day as bishop, during a video call, Rohrer said he was misgendered and ridiculed for featuring drag queens at his ordination.
Rohrer alleges in the lawsuit that he was scapegoated and “publicly shamed as a racist.”
“All my life, I’ve been an ally for racial justice and to people from marginalized groups,” he said, adding that he chose to remain silent after his removal from office last year so the predominantly white denomination could recognize its shortcomings and pass racial justice reforms. The intent of his lawsuit is not to minimize or undermine any other marginalized group, Rohrer said.
He also accuses the denomination of retaliating against him for blowing the whistle on labor violations in the denomination when he reported to synod officials that they were categorizing employees as independent contractors to avoid paying them a salary, which is a violation of federal and California labor laws.
“Similarly, when Rohrer separately revealed the transgender harassment he had been suffering since beginning his job, the Church terminated him, and falsely accused him of ‘weaponizing’ his own identity as a trans person to ‘avoid being held accountable,’” says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Rohrer by the Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP law firm of Burlingame, California.
In August, the Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, the denomination’s presiding bishop, issued a public apology at the 2022 Churchwide Assembly in Ohio, to members of the Iglesia Luterana Santa Maria Peregrina, describing the events that transpired as “a sharp assault on your dignity.” After the pastor’s firing, the congregation lost the denomination’s financial backing, and was forced to vacate their building and worship in the parking lot.
Rohrer resigned in June and the next day became the target of a church disciplinary process.
“I was pushed out of the church for following the directives of superiors,” he said. “And cast as a racist publicly.”
He hopes the lawsuit will force the church to follow its own policies to treat LGBTQ people fairly and with dignity within the church. Rohrer said he has never wanted to pit two marginalized groups against one another.
“The church is big enough for everyone,” he said, adding that it is important to acknowledge the “tragic history of racism and discrimination” in the church.
The lawsuit states that in addition to enduring “nearly-daily hate mail” including death threats as a result of the denomination’s conduct, Rohrer, because of his firing, cannot work as a bishop of an synod or even as a pastor in the denomination.
Texas
Police ticket man for feeding homeless people
HOUSTON (AP) — Houston police have ticketed a man for giving food to homeless people outside a public library, provoking outrage from a charitable group and plans to challenge a longstanding city ordinance.
City regulations on who can provide free meals outdoors to those in need were enacted in 2012. The ordinance requires such groups to get permission from property owners if they feed more than five people, but it wasn’t enforced until recently, Nick Cooper, a volunteer with Food Not Bombs, said Thursday.
For decades, the group has provided meals four nights a week outside the Houston Public Library without incident. But the city recently posted a notice at the site warning that police would soon start issuing citations, and the first came Wednesday night.
“That was a moment last night we had been waiting for for 11 years,” Cooper said. “One of our volunteers actually got a ticket for this law, which gives us the opportunity to challenge it in court.”
Mayor Sylvester Turner, in his State of the City address in November, said he wanted the group to relocate.
“We’re going to retake the downtown central library to make it more wholesome and inviting to families and to kids,” Turner said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “That is a major asset of the city of Houston. We have a few too many homeless folk and feeding programs in front of Central Houston.”
In a statement on Thursday, the mayor’s office said the city is now providing meals and other services for homeless individuals at an approved facility located about a mile north of the library.
The change was made in part because of an increased number of threats and violent incidents directed at employees and visitors to the library by homeless individuals, the mayor’s office said.
Cooper said that the approved location isn’t ideal because it is close to a police station. Food Not Bombs members are willing to discuss alternatives, he said, but in the meantime hope to prevail in court. In 2021, a federal appeals court sided with a Food Not Bombs chapter in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in a similar case.
Pennsylvania
No bail for man with explosives in suitcase at airport
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Pennsylvania man admitted packing explosive materials, fuses and a lighter in a suitcase he checked for a commercial flight to Florida and fled the Lehigh Valley airport when he feared arrest, federal authorities said in a court document filed Thursday.
Marc Muffley, 40, of Lansford, called his girlfriend for a ride when he heard his name being paged at the airport, and soon switched his phone number to avoid being tracked, prosecutors said.
“The danger he created ... is simply astonishing,” Assistant United States Attorney Sherri A. Stephan said at a Thursday court hearing, when she asked a judge to deny bail. “The fact TSA (the Transportation Security Administration) was able to immediately locate this device and prevent it from being placed on an airplane is to their credit.”
A defense lawyer suggested that Muffley only wanted to set off fireworks on a Florida beach, where he said the one-time construction worker sometimes cares for an ailing grandfather.
However, U.S. Magistrate Pamela A. Carlos agreed to detain him without bail, finding that Muffley was both a flight risk and a danger to the community.
Authorities said the fact the explosive powder was packed in the same checked bag with the other items increased the risk of an explosion.
“The baggage also contained a can of butane, a lighter, a pipe with white powder residue suspected to be methamphetamine, a wireless drill with cordless batteries, and two GFCI outlets taped together with black tape,” prosecutors wrote in a detention memorandum filed Thursday.
“His actions seriously jeopardized the lives of airport workers and patrons, and if the explosive had not been intercepted, the flight’s passengers and the aircraft,” the memo said.
Muffley is charged with possessing an explosive in an airport and possessing or attempting to place an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft, according to a criminal complaint.
The defense lawyer, Jonathan McDonald, argued that the items were not “incendiary” and therefore did not meet the requirements of the second charge. Muffley attended the hearing, which was held via videoconference, from jail but did not speak.
“No one has posited one conceivable theory on how this thing could have gone off. That was not going to happen inside of a bag,” McDonald said.
However, Carlos found probable cause to uphold both charges.
Muffley was arrested at his home Monday night, hours after he had checked in for the Allegiant Air flight at the Lehigh Valley International Airport. The flight was bound for Orlando.
His record includes misdemeanor arrests for drug possession, theft and driving under the influence, which led to a few jail stints, the memo said. His girlfriend told authorities he feared being arrested at the airport on an outstanding child support warrant, authorities said.
They have said they found a three-inch “circular compound” wrapped in paper and plastic wrap that they believe contained a mix of flash powder and other materials used to make commercial grade fireworks.
Attached to it was a “quick fuse” similar to a candle wick — apparently part of the original manufacture of the compound — as well as a slow-burning “hobby fuse” that appeared to have been added later, they said.
Officials believe the materials could be ignited by heat and friction, and posed a significant risk to the plane and its occupants, according to the criminal complaint.
