California Supreme Court Orders Sheriff to Halt Ballot Probe

California's highest court just told a powerful sheriff to stand down, NBC News reports. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to halt his probe into alleged fraud in the state's November 2025 special election and to preserve more than 650,000 ballots his office had seized. The justices agreed to review the case, temporarily freezing an investigation Bianco launched after self-described citizen auditors claimed they spotted irregularities in the vote. (Politico digs into the conservative group, finding it has yearslong ties to Bianco.) California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who had tried to block the seizure, called Bianco a "rogue sheriff" and said the ruling curbs his "destabilizing actions."

The disputed election involved a single ballot measure: approval of a Democratic-drawn congressional map that voters in Riverside County and statewide backed, potentially boosting Democrats by as many as five House seats in this year's midterms. Riverside County approved the measure by 56%; statewide, it passed with 64%, the Washington Post reports. A coalition of news outlets is separately pressing the court to unseal the warrant used to grab the ballots. The clash unfolds as President Trump continues to falsely insist he won in 2020 and as federal authorities investigate claims related to that election—and as Bianco, a Republican running for governor, faces a new political complication: Trump just endorsed his GOP rival, ex-Fox News host Steve Hilton.