SCOTUS works, mass shootings, Judge Hannah Dugan’s case, and more this week, from Joyce Vance.

The Week Ahead

Joyce Vance Dec 14, 2025

Saturday was shattered by two mass shootings. The first, at Brown University in Rhode Island, happened as students prepared for exams. Two people were killed and nine injured. A “person of interest,” which is a law enforcement term that means someone law enforcement wants to speak with about a crime, but whom they are not yet prepared to charge, is in custody.

Frequently, a person of interest will evolve into a suspect. But tonight, there is news that individual has been released. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha explained that although there was “some degree of evidence” that pointed to a 24-year-old Wisconsin man who was detained Sunday morning, “that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed, and over the last 24 hours leading into just very, very recently, that evidence now points in a different direction.”

It’s important to give law enforcement the time it needs to do its job here, to ensure that all threats to the community are fully mitigated, and as much as possible is learned about what prompted the shooting, so victims can have closure.

What seems unimaginable to people who graduated before the epidemic of school shootings is all too real for this generation of students. Today is the anniversary of the deadliest school shooting in our history, at Sandy Hook Elementary school, where the shooter killed 26 people, 20 six- and seven-year-old children and six adults. The shooter killed his mother before he drove to Sandy Hook and took his own life as law enforcement arrived at the school.

This post on threads got it absolutely right:

The second shooting was a terrorist attack launched by two men against Jews celebrating Hanukkah at the beach in Sydney, Australia, another incident in a tide of rising antisemitism. The death toll continues to climb. The shooters took the lives of a beloved rabbi and at least 14 others who were at the event for families. A Holocaust survivor and a 10-year-old girl were also among the victims. It seems impossible that this explanation needs to be offered, but increasingly, it is essential: killing innocent Jews does not help people in Gaza, if, indeed, that was the motivation here.

One point of light in the tragedy was the bravery of a local fruit shop owner, Ahmed El Ahmad, who ran towards the violence and snatched an enormous, long gun from the hands of one of the shooters. Ahmad was shot by the other terrorist and is recovering in hospital.

After this turbulent weekend, we head into a week that promises more chaos.

Judge Hannah Dugan’s Trial Starts Monday

After jury selection began late last week, trial gets underway for Wisconsin state Judge Hannah Dugan, who was indicted by the Justice Department last May for helping a noncitizen try to evade arrest by immigration authorities at the county courthouse where she sits, last April.

If you want to review the facts and the background, we discussed this situation when the Judge was first arrested and again when she was indicted.

Judge Dugan’s capable lawyers will put on a solid defense. She has maintained she was simply trying to keep order in her courtroom and permitted the non-citizen to use one of the doors leading out of her courtroom that was less public, but that didn’t prevent agents and officers from accosting him. The message behind the indictment is clear: If they can arrest judges, no one is safe. And in the months since Duggan’s indictment, the administration has certainly expanded on it, indicting Kilmar Abrego Garcia on stale charges in apparent retaliation for his efforts to insist he was illegally deported and bringing now-failed indictments against a former FBI Director, Jim Comey, and current New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, whom Trump views as political enemies.

The good people of Wisconsin seem to understand this threat. They have been protesting even since the Judge was first detained.

We will follow the trial’s progress this week. Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. Central, we’ll be joined by legal reporter Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News, who will be in the courtroom this week and will join us to share what’s transpiring. Make sure you mark your calendars.

Friday, DOJ is required to release the Epstein Files

On the heels of House Democrats’ release of photographs from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate last week, the Justice Department has a deadline on Friday. This is the result of the law Congress overwhelmingly passed in mid-November to force the DOJ to release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Whether DOJ will comply is an entirely different matter. Trump demanded that his attorney general open an investigation into only Democrats whose names have surfaced. Bondi may well try to use that new investigation to block demands for release. We’ve already lived through a government shutdown, which seemed to be contrived at least partially to prevent the passage of the law requiring this disclosure and the record-breaking 50-day delay in swearing in newly elected Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. So it’s clear the administration is determined to protect the president from further disclosures like Friday’s photo of “Trump Condoms.”

Survivors deserve justice and the public demand for it is what’s driving the process here. Keep demanding.

But ultimately, if DOJ balks, that could require intervention in the courts and delay matters. Democrats, who are in the minority in both the Senate and the House, lack the ability to issue subpoenas to obtain further information from Epstein’s estate, information that could provide the source of and context for photos that were released last week and additional information like financial records and testimony from witnesses. A process like this is essential if there is going to be accountability for Epstein’s operation and the people who participated in it, benefited from it, and helped to conceal it. So it’s worth noting that Republicans currently hold a very slender majority in the House, which will narrow further with the departure of Marjorie Taylor Greene and perhaps others, even before the midterm election.

Control of the House likely determines whether the full files ever get released.

SCOTUS

The Court is done hearing oral arguments until it picks back up with them on January 12. But that doesn’t mean we might not hear from them in the form of decisions off of the shadow docket as we head into the holidays, with National Guard cases, among other issues, developing in multiple states.

Trump Excesses

This afternoon, Trump posted “Get Your TRUMP CARD today!” on Truth Social. It’s an advertisement for the so-called Trump Card, a golden ticket for those wealthy (and presumably white) enough to buy immigration status in the U.S.

Trump even helpfully added a link to where people could go to apply—on what’s being billed as “an official website of the U.S.” at trumpcard.gov

There are two options:

• The Gold Card “For a $15,000 DHS processing fee* and, after background approval, a contribution of $1 million, receive U.S. residency in record time with the Trump Gold Card.”
• The Platinum Card, billed as coming soon. “Foreign nationals can sign up now and secure their places on the waiting list for the Trump Platinum Card. When launched, and upon receipt of a $15,000 DHS processing fee and $5 million contribution, they will have the ability to spend up to 270 days in the United States without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income.”

The ick factor is high here. It reduces the presidency and this president to the position of a cheap huckster, hawking U.S. residency to the highest bidder while violently deporting hardworking people, and in some cases, getting it wrong and grabbing American citizens and military veterans.

On September 19, Trump signed Executive Order 14351, which authorized the creation of the Gold Card program, claiming that he was “prioritizing the admission of aliens who will affirmatively benefit the Nation, including successful entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen and women.”

There are obvious questions about the legality of this pay-for-play spectacle and the decision-making process for who qualifies. Potential immigrants make their million-dollar payments, which are referred to as a “gift.” The Executive Order says that suffices as evidence of “exceptional business ability” and “national benefit,” which is sufficient for the person paying the money, regardless of where they got it from, to receive a waiver that permits entry under the statute titled “Allocation of immigrant visas.”

A group of 20 state Attorneys General filed a lawsuit last week challenging the program.

California and Massachusetts are the lead plaintiffs in the case, which alleges that the plan violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the separation of powers and asks the court to enter a ruling that the policy is unlawful and that no action can be taken under Trump’s Executive Order and the Proclamation seeking to implement it. The plaintiffs are also asking the court to enter an injunction that would prohibit the federal government from moving forward with the plan.

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It’s going to be another interesting week.

Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse and staying informed about what’s happening to our democracy. If you value access to the information and analysis you receive here, I hope you’ll consider getting a paid subscription if you don’t already have one.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/the-week-ahead-752?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web