California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has filed a request for information from the Trump administration over border patrol agents’ appearance at a news conference he hosted on Thursday.
In a statement, Newsom said the presence of federal agents at his press briefing in Los Angeles was “intended to intimidate those defending a fair electoral process”.
Dozens of armed and masked agents descended on the Japanese American National Museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, where Newsom was announcing a redistricting plan for California, in a raid widely condemned by the governor’s fellow Democrats.
“Trump’s use of the military and federal law enforcement to try to intimidate his political opponents is yet another dangerous step towards authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on social media. “This is an attempt to advance a playbook from the despots he admires in Russia and North Korea.
“The Trump administration needs to answer for this pathetic and cowardly behavior.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that Newsom had submitted a freedom of information request with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), asking for “all documents and records” related to the operation.
The request seeks “any records referencing Governor Newsom or the rally that was scheduled to occur”, the Times reported, as well as any communications between federal law enforcement officials and Fox News, which embedded a reporter with the border patrol.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, condemned the raid on Thursday, stating it was not “a coincidence” the action took place steps from where Newsom was speaking.
“The White House just sent federal agents to try to intimidate elected officials at a press conference,” she said in a social media post. “The problem for them is Los Angeles doesn’t get scared and Los Angeles doesn’t back down. We never have and we never will.”
The DHS said Bass “must be misinformed”.
“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law – not about Gavin Newsom,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, wrote in a post on social media. McLaughlin added that border patrol agents work in “all areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams on the ground to make LA safe”.
Newsom was unveiling a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through electoral maps that could hand the president’s Republican party five extra US House seats in time for the 2026 midterm election. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.
