National
3 arrested at White House protest
Choi, Pietrangelo to be arraigned in D.C. Superior Court
U.S. Army Lt. Dan Choi was arrested Thursday after handcuffing himself to the White House fence in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” (Photo by Joe Tresh)
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A gay Army lieutenant and two others were arrested Thursday outside the White House in an unannounced protest against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that bars gays from serving openly in the military.
Lt. Dan Choi, who is in the process of being discharged from the U.S. Army because he’s gay, and Jim Pietrangelo, a former Army captain who was discharged in 2004 for being gay, were charged with failing to obey a lawful order to disperse after they handcuffed themselves to the White House fence along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Uniformed officers with the U.S. Secret Service separately arrested Robin McGehee of GetEqual.org, who helped organize the protest, on the same charge. McGehee was one of the lead organizers of the October 2009 LGBT march on Washington.
A crowd of about 100 people cheered as the Park Police officers cut the handcuffs that Choi and Pietrangelo used to attach themselves to the White House fence and placed a new set of handcuffs on the men before escorting them into a police wagon.
Prior to their arrest, Choi, while handcuffed to the fence, led the crowd in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Many of the supporters in the crowd carried American flags.
A Park Police spokesperson said the men were taken to a Park Police station at Anacostia Park, where they were booked. A Secret Service spokesperson said McGehee was expected to be taken to a D.C. police facility to be booked and processed.
For reasons that could not be immediately determined, Choi and Pietrangelo were held overnight at the Central Cellblock, which is operated by D.C. police. McGhee was released after the Secret Service dropped the charge against her when she agreed to pay a $35 “post and forfeit” fine. Choi and Pietrangelo were scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon in D.C. Superior Court.
Choi announced plans for the White House protest about a half hour before it began during a noon rally in Freedom Plaza that the Human Rights Campaign organized in support of efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Choi was not a scheduled speaker at the rally. In a statement, HRC spokesperson Trevor Thomas said that Choi first asked HRC President Joe Solmonese if the solider could have a speaking role at the event.
“Joe explained that it wasn’t his sole decision to make on the spot given that there was already an established program that included Kathy Griffin, other organizations and veterans,” Thomas said.
Choi then spoke with Griffin, Thomas said, and she agreed to bring him on stage and speak to the crowd during time allocated for her remarks.
Once on stage, Choi urged rally attendees to march with him to the White House to send a message to “repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ — not next year, not tomorrow, but now. Now is the time.”
“I am going to the White House right now,” he said. “I want you all to take out your cell phones and any recording devices and document this moment right now with me as we together make history.”
Choi then turned to Griffin and asked, “Kathy, will you go with me?” In response, Griffin said, “Of course.” Choi then asked Solmonese if he would join the march. Solmonse said nothing, but raised his arm and gave Choi a thumbs up.
“Will you all here go with me?” Choi asked, and the audience roared with applause. Choi did not tell those attending the rally that he and Pietrangelo planned to handcuff themselves to the White House fence.
After Choi left the stage, Griffin continued the rally by telling attendants what number to text on their phones to learn the names of their congressional representatives. Griffin then asked for a moment of silence, allowing the crowd to pose with miniature American flags for a photo shoot.
A crowd of about 200 then followed Choi and Pietrangelo for the four-block walk from Freedom Plaza to the White House.
Thomas said that Solmonese and Eric Alva, a gay veteran who appeared alongside Solmonese and Griffin at the rally, chose to remain at Freedom Plaza to build on the efforts underway there.
“Joe Solmonese along with Eric Alva and others felt it was important to stay and engage those at the rally in ways they can continue building the pressure needed for repeal,” Thomas said. “This does nothing to diminish the actions taken by Lt. Choi and others. This is the nature of social change and everyone has a role to play.”
Phil Attey, a gay D.C. activist who attended the HRC rally, expressed particular distaste with Choi’s march to the White House and called it “politically unsophisticated beyond belief.”
“It’s a shame that our community needs to be educated about the political process and they don’t get it,” Attey said. “They don’t understand that Congress needs to be moved on this issue and that people across the country have the power to do that. And if they’re going to get them to yell and scream at the president, we’re going to fail, we’re going to lose.”
Shortly after Choi and Pietrangelo arrived at the White House, they handcuffed themselves to the fence, an action that drew a fast response from Secret Service personnel. Some uniformed Secret Service officers and U.S. Park Police quickly pushed the crowd away from the White House fence and into the street, and others erected yellow police tape around the area. About officers agents stayed behind the tape with Choi and Pietrangelo.
It was at around this time that McGehee was arrested near the White House fence.
In the moments that followed, the crowd began to chant “keep your promise, Obama,” a reference to the president’s oft-repeated pledge to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” As the chanting continued, four D.C. police cars joined an estimated 20 Secret Service and U.S. Park Police officers at the scene.
At one point, officers directed the protestors to stand at the nearby Lafayette Square. One woman in the crowd kneeled with her hands raised, praying aloud for the souls of gay people. At least one person told the woman that she should instead pray for equality.
About one hour after the protest began, uniformed officers released Choi and Pietrangelo from the handcuffs holding them to the White House fence. Both men were then arrested and taken from the scene in a white van.
Half or more of the crowd that arrived with Choi and Pietrangelo left the scene between the time the two men handcuffed themselves to the fence and the time police arrested them.
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said Thursday’s protest demonstrated the growing unrest the White House and Congress faces on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“The events that unfolded today should be a clear sign that people are worried that [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] repeal is getting derailed this year, they are angry that the ones most affected by this issue are being shut out of the process by ineffective insiders, and their patience is wearing thin with the standard ‘trust us, they have a plan’ line,” he said.
Staff writers Chris Johnson and Joshua Lynsen contributed to this article.
DC Agenda videos by Steve Fox
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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