California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of running a campaign of “blatant authoritarianism” against him personally, citing newly surfaced federal court exhibits in which his own immigration agents admitted they were ordered to descend on a Los Angeles press conference he held last summer. The claim, made in a post on X, escalates a year-long standoff between the Democratic governor and the White House over the use of federal law enforcement in California — a fight now playing out in sworn depositions, leaked internal text messages, and a federal courtroom.
Newsom’s post, published at 1:38 p.m. Eastern time, read in full: “Trump’s own immigration agents admit it: they were ordered to target last summer’s redistricting rally in LA. Use federal law enforcement to target political opponents. Politicize the Department of Justice. Defy court orders. That is blatant authoritarianism, ordered by Trump.”
The post was published in direct response to a Daily Beast report detailing hundreds of court exhibits filed as part of a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, and other advocacy groups and private attorneys. The filing seeks to halt what it describes as an “ongoing campaign of suspicionless and discriminatory detentive stops” carried out by federal immigration agents across the Central District of California.
What the Leaked Texts Show
Among the documents is a text exchange from a Homeland Security Investigations agent who described the deployment of Border Patrol personnel outside an August 14, 2025 press conference held by Newsom and other California Democrats as “political” and “a stunt.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson had claimed at the time that agents were “focused on enforcing the law, not on [Newsom].” The agent’s own account contradicted that framing, describing the operation as Border Patrol having “essentially raided the Newsom press conferences.”
“We got pulled off the [Home Depot] and car wash to run this stunt,” the agent wrote to a colleague, according to the exhibits. “We’re told to assist with targeted enforcement… That is not target enforcement. That was just a political agenda. Hopefully I can get replaced soon.” The same thread showed two Homeland Security Investigations agents separately raising concerns that the broader pattern of enforcement operations in Los Angeles may have been violating a federal court order.
That order, a temporary restraining order issued the previous month, had barred agents from using racial profiling for indiscriminate arrests in Southern California and was intended specifically to stop the targeting of Home Depot parking lots and car washes to detain Spanish-speaking day laborers. “I complained about the Home Depot stuff saying I think it violates the TRO,” one male agent wrote. A female colleague responded, “Yeah I’m pretty sure it does,” later adding that she doubted the agency would change its tactics: “I think they only know one way to operate. See bodies, chase bodies.”
The male agent, who has worked in immigration enforcement since 2008, testified in a deposition that operations grew progressively less targeted over time, culminating in the press conference deployment, which he said had no identifiable targets at all. “They marched to a democratic governor’s press conference. It seemed to be purely political,” he testified. “It did not seem like there was a good operational basis to be doing that.” He described the “overall aggression” of the 2025 Los Angeles raids as “a little intense for like a large city” and called the press conference operation the final straw that made him want off the assignment.
The filing also included body camera footage and additional text exchanges in which agents used slurs to describe immigrants, including a term derived from “wetback” and another the ACLU says refers to the sound of a flashlight striking a migrant’s head. Asked about the slurs, a DHS spokesperson said agents “are focused on protecting the American people, not entertaining performative outrage,” and asked, “Where is the media’s outrage for Angel families who lost a loved one to illegal alien crime?”
Newsom’s Office Responds Formally
Hours after the Daily Beast report published, Newsom’s office issued a formal statement through the governor’s official press office, arguing that the documents corroborated what he had said publicly since the raid occurred. “Employees of Trump’s own immigration enforcement agency have put it in writing: they were ordered to target a political rally, a move right out of the dictator’s playbook,” the statement read. “They weren’t chasing dangerous criminals or doing targeted enforcement — their bosses wanted a stunt.”
The statement went further, framing the episode as part of a broader enforcement strategy. “Their strategy has become one of dangerous quotas over public safety and headlines over results,” it read, adding that families have been separated, U.S. citizens wrongfully detained, and Californians wrongfully deported under the administration’s tactics. “That’s not public safety. That’s the weaponization of federal law enforcement for political gain.”
A Year of Escalating Conflict
The August 2025 raid at the center of the new filings was not an isolated incident but the latest flashpoint in a confrontation stretching back to June 2025, when Newsom publicly warned that “what we’re witnessing is not law enforcement, it’s authoritarianism” as federal agents conducted sweeps across Los Angeles. That same month, Trump said he supported the arrest of Newsom, telling reporters “I would do it if I were Tom” in reference to border czar Tom Homan, and adding, “I think it’s great… Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.” Newsom responded that a sitting American president threatening to arrest a political opponent was “what we see around the globe in authoritarian regimes.”
The Los Angeles operations also included the forcible removal of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., from a Homeland Security press conference in June 2025, after he attempted to ask Secretary Kristi Noem a question. Padilla was dragged from the room, pushed to the ground, and briefly handcuffed. At that same appearance, Noem said federal agents intended to “liberate” Los Angeles from what she called the “socialist and burdensome leadership” of Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass.
When Border Patrol agents appeared outside Newsom’s August 14, 2025 press conference at the Japanese American National Museum, the governor called the operation “pretty sick and pathetic” and directly accused the White House of orchestrating it. “Donald Trump, you think it’s coincidental? Donald Trump and his minions, Tom Homan, tough guy, decided coincidentally or not, that this was a location to advance ICE arrests,” Newsom said at the time. Mayor Bass, who also appeared at the scene, called the federal presence a source of “disorder” in the city.
The Redistricting Fight Behind the Rally
The press conference that federal agents allegedly targeted was tied to Newsom’s push for the Election Rigging Response Act, a legislative package he signed on August 21, 2025, alongside Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire. The measure, which became Proposition 50 on the November 2025 ballot, temporarily empowered California lawmakers to redraw congressional maps in response to Republican-led mid-decade redistricting efforts in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and other states, which Newsom’s office described at signing as an attempt “to shred democracy.”
Broader Political Stakes
The dispute unfolds against the backdrop of Newsom’s emergence as one of the Democratic Party’s most closely watched potential 2028 presidential contenders. Polling throughout 2026 has shown Newsom consistently ranked among the top tier of possible candidates, typically trailing former Vice President Kamala Harris but ahead of other prospective rivals such as Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with some surveys showing the two Californians in a statistically close race in ranked-choice simulations. Newsom told CBS News in October 2025 that he would decide on a run after the 2026 midterm elections. (source)
Newsom’s office and DHS have both been contacted for further comment on the newly released depositions, according to the Daily Beast report, and the preliminary injunction motion remains pending before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The case adds a new evidentiary record to a fight over the limits of federal immigration enforcement power that has already reshaped the relationship between Washington and the nation’s most populous state.