The attorney for President Donald Trump argued in court Friday that while he has no evidence to support a claim that a 2024 pre-election poll constituted fraud, the president’s lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and its pollster should be allowed to proceed.

The president has claimed in court that the opinion poll, published just three days before the November 2024 election and showing him trailing his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, by 3 points in Iowa, was fraudulent. He is suing the newspaper and pollster J. Ann Selzer, alleging consumer fraud and citing the fact that he ultimately beat Harris in Iowa by more than 13 points.

The Register and Selzer recently filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that an election poll, regardless of its results, does not fit the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act’s definition of a commercial transaction, and that the lawsuit is also barred by the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

In written briefs filed with the court this week, Selzer’s attorney, Robert Corn-Revere, called the legal claims made by the president and his attorneys “not just wrong — they are ridiculous.” He asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that even if all of the president’s factual assertions were deemed true, there’d still be no legal basis for the lawsuit.

On Friday, a Polk County District Court judge heard oral arguments on the motions to dismiss.

At the hearing, Corn-Revere attacked the underlying premise of the lawsuit — that the polling results themselves were a “lie” or were fabricated, perhaps without any polling ever actually being conducted — and the legal foundation for the claims asserted by the president.

“Your honor, there’s an old saying that everything looks like a conspiracy to those who don’t know how anything works,” Corn-Revere, told the court. “And that sums up this case in a nutshell. The plaintiffs here do not understand how election polling works, so they have tried to concoct a case made from the tissue of campaign slogans and conspiracy theories. The issue here, for this motion to dismiss, is whether any of that adds up to a cognizable legal claim. It doesn’t. This is a frivolous case that doesn’t belong in this, or any, court. It’s based on a label — ‘fake news’ — and not on any recognized claim.”

The president’s lawsuit hinges in part on an assertion by his attorneys that the polling results fall under the category of “commercial speech,” which is afforded less protection by the First Amendment. Corn-Revere argued otherwise on Friday, citing the lack of any legal precedent for treating news stories produced for revenue-generating media organizations as commercial speech.

Polk County District Court Judge Scott J. Beattie directed most of his questions during the hearing to the Iowa attorney representing the president, Alan R. Ostergren, and twice expressed the concern that there could a “chilling effect” on the exercise of free-speech rights should the lawsuit be allowed to proceed at this stage.

Ostergren acknowledged the president’s case is based on a “novel” legal theory that has not been tested by the courts, but argued that’s only because the defendants’ alleged conduct — concocting a phony election poll — has no precedent.

Judge cites potential ‘massive chilling effect’

The attorney for The Des Moines Register, Nicholas Klinefeldt, argued that the courts are required to dismiss lawsuits when there’s a finding that the claims are legally deficient and there is no right, as a matter of law, to recover damages.

He told the court the lawsuit was filed immediately after the 2024 election and that now, a year and half later, there still is no valid legal claim being asserted by the president.

Klinefeldt noted that the election poll that’s at issue is not a statement of fact, but “is a poll, it’s a scientific opinion,” and said that in order for the president to show a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act, he must show that he relied on the polling results and that he did so in the context of purchasing consumer merchandise.

“There can be no set of conceivable facts that would result in damages” in the case, Klinefeldt told the court.

In arguing against dismissal, Ostergren said he had no obligation at this point in the proceedings to show evidence supporting the president’s claim that the poll was fabricated or rigged in some fashion. “The law is that all we have to do is put the defendants on notice as to why they are being sued,” Ostergren said.

In response, Judge Beattie asked Ostergren whether he still has some obligation to articulate the specific elements of the legal claims being made.

Ostergren rejected that position and said that after discovery takes place and evidence is gathered, the defendants can argue for summary judgment in their favor but until then, the case should be allowed to proceed.

“Do you believe that is even the case when there is an issue with First Amendment import?” Beattie asked Ostergren. “It seems like there’d be a massive chilling effect if any case is allowed get past the motion-to-dismiss phase for a defendant of this nature.”

Ostergren argued the First Amendment does not protect against fraud and said it will be impossible to determine to what extent that exception to the First Amendment applies in the case at hand until the discovery process produces documents and evidence.

“We need to know how the poll was conducted and whether a poll was conducted,” Ostergren said. “We take it just on a simple assertion from the defendants that this was actually calling people and asking their views. What was the process when these flawed numbers were being considered and vetted? … What decisions were made about going ahead in the face of information that were so utterly implausible that it defies belief, that it could be anything other than deliberate misconduct? … These are all things we have to know.”

President’s lawyer questions poll’s existence

Beattie reiterated that Ostergren’s position “gives me pause,” particularly because of the potential impact the case could have on First Amendment rights of free speech.

“Because of the massive – I’ll say it – because of the massive First Amendment implications that are here, there is an element of chilling that would come with that,” Beattie said.

Judge Beattie also noted that with regard to the president’s argument that the polling results should be treated as commercial speech, “there’s not a lot of support” for such a position and characterized it as “fairly unprecedented.”

Ostergren acknowledged that there is no case law to cite to support that critical point.

“I will readily admit that there is a certain novelty to the claim that we are pursuing,” he admitted, but added that “this is a historic manipulation by a news organization, in our view, of abusing its position and putting a product out into the market on the eve of a highly contested election, which all indications show was fabricated — or to the point of such colossal mistake upon mistake upon mistake and then pushed out the door that it becomes misconduct. And I don’t know of anything like that that has ever happened in the history of our political and media system in that exact way.”

Ostergren argued that while the defendants have First Amendment rights, individuals have the right to run for office without a “manipulation” of the electoral process. He called the polling results a “lie dropped in the middle of our political process.”

Beattie asked Ostergren how he could show the president relied on the polling results and was then damaged by that reliance.

“You, in your own pleadings, spend a fairly significant amount of time talking about how the polls previous to this one were not reliable and you guys knew about it and President Trump, immediately after it being released, talked about how it was garbage,” Beattie said. “So how can you say you relied upon (the poll results) in any way, shape or form?”

In response, Ostergren said that at this point in the case, reliance need not be proven and he reiterated his belief that the poll represented “a news organization creating a lie, and people were damaged terribly trying to deal with the consequences of that three days before Election Day.”

On rebuttal, Corn-Revere argued that “even if you accept the conspiracy theories and even if you accept the wildest claims these people are willing to make,” there still is no legal basis for the lawsuit that Trump is pursuing, which means dismissal of the case is required of the court.

“No matter how false Mr. Ostergren has convinced himself the poll is, or how nefarious the motives behind it, it simply is not a claim that would be recognized under the First Amendment,” he said.

Beattie said he will review the arguments and briefs related to the motion to dismiss and said he doesn’t expect to have a decision for “several weeks,” given the other cases he’s currently handling.

A federal judge has ordered the Polk County Jail to immediately release an asylum seeker, ruling that the Russian immigrant was illegally detained through a “legal fiction” constructed by the federal government.

Since July 2025, immigration courts around the nation have been denying bond hearings for people detained in county jails by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The denials are based on the Trump administration’s newly adopted legal theory that longstanding federal laws require that ICE detainees who are at risk of being deported be held in jail without the possibility of bond.

As reported by Politico, more than 300 U.S. District Court judges in 1,600 cases have rejected that theory, finding the new interpretation of the law is contrary to ICE’s own regulations, its published enforcement guidelines, previous court rulings, and “the overall logic” of the nation’s immigration system.

Even so, Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice have continued to use that interpretation of the law to argue for mandatory detention in cases where immigrants have lived in the United States for months, years or decades.

Some of the immigration judges — who are not part of the Judicial Branch and instead function as administrative employees of the Executive Branch led by the president – continue to deny detainees bond hearings unless otherwise ordered by a federal judge in U.S. District Court.

One such case involves 26-year-old Arsen Kulumbekov, a Russian immigrant who came to the United States in March 2023 through the so-called “CBP One” process that at the time allowed migrants, at U.S. ports of entry, to request asylum or other legal pathways to residency.

Upon his entry to the United States, Kulumbekov was released, or paroled, with the understanding that he would have one year to formally apply for asylum. After filing for asylum in 2024, Kulumbekov was granted authorization to work in the United States and, by all accounts, he complied with the requirements of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to remain in the United States while his asylum case was pending.

Court records show that at some point, ICE issued an undated notice canceling Kulumbekov’s asylum application, and then forwarded his information to immigration court. In October 2025, ICE notified Kulumbekov that he was considered an alien who had been apprehended while in the process of entering the United States and that he was therefore subject to being detained without bond.

A few weeks later, in November 2025, ICE agents took Kulumbekov into custody and placed him in the Polk County Jail. Homeland Security then scheduled an immigration-court hearing for him in Texas, mistakenly believing he was being held in Polk County, Texas.

Kulumbekov then took Polk County, ICE and Homeland Security to U.S. District Court, where a judge ordered Homeland Security to show why Kulumbekov was not being unlawfully detained and then barred the agency from moving Kulumbekov outside Iowa’s Southern District without first giving the court notice and offering Kulumbekov a chance to be heard on the matter.

In response, the U.S. Department of Justice argued Kulumbekov was subject to mandatory detention without a bond hearing, citing the Trump administration’s new legal theory.

On Jan. 20, 2026, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ruled against the government, citing the fact that ICE detained Kulumbekov 32 months after he entered the country, and not while he was in the process of entering. As such, Ebinger ruled, Kulumbekov was not subject to mandatory detention.

Citing previous case law on the subject, Ebinger characterized the Department of Justice’s position in the matter as a “legal fiction.” She also noted that upon entry to the United States, Kulumbekov had been paroled for one year, had successfully completed the term of his release, and had met the requirements of Homeland Security while his case for asylum proceeded.

“Kulumbekov is being unlawfully detained,” Ebinger ruled, ordering his immediate release from the Polk County Jail.

The judge then took the additional step of barring the U.S. Department of Justice from using the same “mandatory detention” theory to deny Kulumbekov bond in any subsequent proceedings they may bring against him.

Andrew Kahl of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District Iowa is the lead attorney for the government in the Kulumbekov case. He declined to comment on the judge’s ruling or the DOJ’s handling of the case.

The state board that oversees Iowa physicians has reinstated the license of a doctor it previously sanctioned for alleged “gross malpractice” related to patient deaths caused by drug overdoses.

In 2017, the Iowa Board of Medicine accused Dr. Robert Cunard of Missouri Valley of inappropriate prescribing, improper pain management and unethical conduct that contributed to the deaths of an unspecified number of patients through drug overdoses.

According to the board, Cunard had “prescribed large quantities of potentially lethal medications to numerous patients” between 2011 and 2017, and continued to prescribe those drugs to patients who had exhibited signs of abusing the drugs or diverting the drugs to others.

Cunard was also alleged to have simultaneously prescribed sedatives and painkillers to certain patients, “placing them at increased risk of harm, including unintentional death,” the board alleged.

In addition, the board alleged Cunard prescribed methadone and Suboxone to patients who were trying to recover from drug addiction, even though he lacked a federal permit to prescribe the drugs in that manner.

Before the board filed those charges, Cunard was sued by the parents of 31-year-old Stephen Cathcart, who allegedly died of a painkiller overdose in 2014. Cathcart’s family alleged Cunard had prescribed Cathcart oxycodone, gabapentin and clonazepam, despite Cathcart’s documented history of suicidal thoughts and drug abuse.

In 2018, the civil lawsuit was settled out of court and the Board of Medicine suspended Cunard’s license for an indefinite period and imposed a civil penalty of $5,000. At the time, the board stated that should it ever choose to reinstate Cunard’s Iowa license. it would be placed on probation that would result in board monitoring of his practice, including audits of his prescriptions.

In September 2019, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services issued Cunard a license, subject to probation, to practice medicine and surgery in Nebraska. In a letter to Cunard, the department stated, “The reason for offering you a probationary license is the suspension of your license by the Iowa Board of Medicine.”

Also in 2019, Nebraska’s Department of Correctional Services hired Cunard to work for the department as a physician, according to state payroll records.

In July 2022, Nebraska’s Board of Medicine voted 7-0 to deny Cunard’s application for early termination of his probationary requirements. Cunard’s probationary period ended in October 2023, and two months later, in December 2023, the board voted 8-0 to reject Cunard’s request for removal of unspecified “limitations” on his license that remained in place.

In recently agreeing to reinstate Cunard’s Iowa medical license, the Iowa Board of Medicine kept in place its prior order that bars Cunard from prescribing or administering controlled substances for the treatment of chronic pain except when dealing with patients in nursing homes and hospice.

However, the board stated that because Cunard has “already completed probation and monitoring in the state of Nebraska,” it will be imposing no additional requirements along those lines.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch was unable to reach Cunard for comment.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.