SCOTUS, US judiciary, DOJ, and justice 11 April 2025-

The Care and Feeding of Supreme Court Justices
From lavish vacations to fancy dinners, conservative activists have constructed an elaborate infrastructure to reward ideological loyalty on the high court.
– The Atlantic, October 2023

29-30 June
SCOTUS goes out with a bang
The Supreme Court closed the books on opinions for the term by handing conservatives three major wins in two days, expanding the scope of President Donald Trump’s executive power and scrapping limits on campaign spending while contracting the rights of transgender Americans.
But in the case that mattered most to Trump — his bid to fundamentally reshape the country’s foundation for who gets to be a citizen — the justices cast down a stinging rebuke, upholding the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship and invalidating a Day One executive order Trump signed in a brazen attempt to rewrite more than a century of precedent, POLITICO’s reports.
It’s the second time this year that the conservative high court has reined in some of Trump’s most controversial — and consequential — moves. In February, the justices struck down the tariff authority the president had cited in his attempts to upend the contours of global trade, catalyzing an explosive response from the president who nominated three of them to the bench.

6 July
Who belongs?: The global battle over citizenship
(The World) The US Supreme Court birthright citizenship decision is not an isolated legal event. Increasingly, around the globe, countries are struggling to redefine who belongs within their borders, from anti-immigrant protests in South Africa to Spain’s decision to regularize large numbers of undocumented migrants. François Crépeau, a professor emeritus of public international law at McGill University in Montreal, speaks with The World’s Host Marco Werman about the political dynamics behind the different approaches.
The US Supreme Court upheld the tradition of birthright citizenship in the country in a vote of 6-3. This decision reaffirmed the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to virtually all persons born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
The United States is not the only country to wrestle with the issue of who gets citizenship and on what basis. That’s currently a flashpoint across the globe.
The World reached out to François Crépeau, a professor emeritus of public international law at McGill University in Montreal, for a worldwide perspective on the ruling.
According to him, “It’s 194 pages. They did the whole history of the birthright citizenship mechanism, starting with the English common law that was inherited by the US, as well as by Canada. And they come to the 14th Amendment and explain how the 14th Amendment has been interpreted. How in the ’80s, there was a movement to restrict its interpretation, and that’s what the Court rejected, saying that everyone who is on the territory is under the jurisdiction of the US, and therefore people who are born in the US therefore have birthright citizenship.”

29-30 June

Supreme Court rejects Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship
Josh Gerstein
The justices ruled that the Constitution guarantees U.S. citizenship to virtually everyone born on American soil.
(Politico) The court’s ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, invalidates an executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term seeking to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and of people studying, working or visiting the U.S. on time-limited visas.
Five justices — Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberals — agreed that the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship. Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed with that conclusion but said Trump’s executive order is invalid because it violates a federal statute.
Roberts rejected arguments that the Constitution’s grant of citizenship applies only to those whose parents are “domiciled” in the U.S., owing their allegiance to the U.S.

The Most Surprising Part of the Birthright-Citizenship Decision
A conversation with Quinta Jurecic about how the recent rulings will affect the president’s power
By Will Gottsegen
This week, the Supreme Court handed down the final seven opinions of its term. The rulings paint a complicated picture; some broadly affirm the president’s executive power, and others seem to rebuff his agenda. Today, the justices struck down the executive order that sought to end birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens—but the vote was in some ways far closer than expected. In today’s newsletter, The Atlantic’s staff writer Quinta Jurecic breaks down the decisions.
Supreme Court Voids Political-Party Spending Caps in GOP Win
The US Supreme Court threw out longstanding federal limits on spending by political parties in coordination with candidates, in a ruling likely to help Republicans in the November midterms.
(Bloomberg) The 6-3 decision extends a line of Supreme Court rulings rolling back campaign finance regulations as violating the Constitution’s free speech clause. The case divided the court along ideological lines, with the three liberal justices in dissent.
The majority overruled a 2001 Supreme Court decision that upheld the caps as a means of tackling corruption and preventing the circumvention of separate limits on direct contributions to candidates.
29 June
Robert Reich: The Supreme Court’s supreme error
The framers did not seek a “unified executive.” To the contrary, they sought to avoid an all-powerful executive.
Today’s Supreme Court decision ending the independence of independent regulatory agencies, and directly overruling a court precedent, was justified by a pernicious idea advocated by the conservative Supreme Court majority — that the framers of the Constitution envisioned a so-called “unified executive.” In fact, the framers central focus was to prevent a United States president from becoming too powerful — like the king they were displacing — so they could not have sought a strong, centralized executive branch.
Supreme Court rejects Trump’s challenge to counting late mail-in ballots
The justices ruled that federal law doesn’t bar a grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day.
States are free to count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, so long as they are postmarked by then or election officials deem the ballots to have been cast on time, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The 5-4 decision is a significant loss for President Donald Trump, who has sought to crack down on mail-in voting ahead of November’s midterms. Trump has repeatedly argued without evidence that delays in tabulating votes fuel election fraud by Democrats.
Supreme Court widens Trump’s power to fire agency leaders — except the Fed
The exception for the Federal Reserve is a blow to Trump’s efforts to prod the central bank to lower interest rates.
(Politico) The Supreme Court on Monday granted President Donald Trump sweeping power to control executive branch agencies, while effectively exempting the Federal Reserve.
The justices voted 6-3, along ideological lines, to scuttle a 91-year-old precedent that said Congress can limit the president’s ability to fire Senate-confirmed leaders to instances of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
But in a separate ruling, the high court voted 5-4 to rebuff Trump’s bid to carry out his firing Lisa Cook, a Fed member appointed by President Joe Biden. The decision, which allows Cook to remain in her post while litigation continues over the effort to dismiss her, is a blow to Trump’s efforts to prod the Fed to lower interest rates.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinions in both cases.

22 June
The Orange Bandit
Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg
(Project Syndicate)…recent changes to the legal environment make it even less likely that Trump or his allies will be punished for their corruption. Newly minted Supreme Court rulings have narrowed federal public corruption statutes almost beyond recognition, not to mention formally immunizing presidents from criminal prosecution for most “official” acts. The Court has even prohibited the use of documents showing a president’s motives in criminal trials, thus undermining any future prosecution of White House-linked corruption, however blatant … Because the Supreme Court’s so-called unitary executive decisions have blessed Trump’s personal control over regulation, he can now use his office to elicit transfers from private companies to favored allies. Recall that in its deals with law firms that were eager to avoid sanctions, the White House explored the idea of retaining free legal representation for the president and his cronies. The Justice Department’s “weaponization” slush fund simply tried to scale up the same logic.
14 June
How a legal theory from the 1980s shapes presidential power today
(Christian Science Monitor Magazine) … Reagan’s lawyers, alongside ideologically aligned law professors and think tanks, developed an intellectual framework for establishing the executive branch as above and apart from the other branches of government. The result: an expansive new vision of the separation of powers, underscored by a concept that emerged known as the “unitary executive theory.”
Broadly, the theory holds that the Constitution gives the president of the United States complete power over the executive branch, including personal authority over domestic and foreign policy, such as the ability to unilaterally remove government officials and enter military conflicts. The term soon popped into presidential vocabulary. Reagan used it six times in official statements and President George H.W. Bush 41 times.
… This month, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on several cases that touch on the extent of the president’s hold over the executive branch, and the power the executive holds relative to Congress and the courts. Those include whether Mr. Trump can fire a governor of the Federal Reserve or a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), agencies that Congress established to have semi-autonomy from the presidency.

1 May
(Deadline: Legal Newsletter) The Supreme Court issued one of its most anticipated rulings and held its last hearings of the term this week. We now enter the final stretch, as the justices resolve the remaining cases before their summer recess.
The justices are in their private conference on Friday [1 May] to discuss pending cases and vote on which new appeals to take up for next term. We’ll get an order list on Monday morning with the results from the conference. Besides that, the court will hand down the term’s outstanding rulings as they’re ready, typically concluding in late June, on top of whatever urgent matters arrive on the shadow docket.

29-30 April
(NPR) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Louisiana’s 2024 election map was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” The map established a second majority-Black congressional district. The justices’ 6-3 decision fell along partisan lines. While the court technically kept Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act intact, the ruling contributes to a series of decisions undermining the landmark 1965 law that protected racial minorities’ collective voting power. Experts expect the ruling to reduce minority representation across all levels of government.
Supreme Court weakens a landmark Civil Rights-era law and aids GOP efforts to control the House
(AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday weakened a landmark Civil Rights-era law that has increased minority representation in Congress and elsewhere, striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana and opening the door for more redistricting across the country that could aid Republican efforts to control the House.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority found that Louisiana district represented by Democrat Cleo Fields relied too heavily on race. Chief Justice John Roberts had described the 6th Congressional District as a “snake” that stretches more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) to link parts of Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.
“That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the six conservatives.

1 April
Supreme Court skeptical of Trump’s birthright citizenship order
Several justices — including those Trump appointed — aggressively questioned the president’s effort to reimagine birthright citizenship.
(CNN) The case puts the administration’s aggressive approach to immigration front and center before the court.
• Trump in court: The president attended the arguments for about 90 minutes, the first sitting president to do so.
Alan Dershowitz predicts ‘victory for other side’ after Trump attends Supreme Court
Trump to attend Supreme Court oral arguments, an apparent first for a sitting president
• 14th Amendment: Arguments have focused on the history and meaning of the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
• High stakes: The court’s decision, expected by the end of June, could have enormous practical implications for millions of people, including US citizens. The arguments come as the White House is still smarting from the court’s decision in February to strike down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs.

31 March
SCOTUS rules against conversion therapy ban
(Poliitico) Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion in Chiles v. Salazar, one of multiple significant tests of LGBTQ+ rights and free speech at the court this term, though he said the question before the court here was “narrow.” Notably, liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined with the court’s conservative supermajority for a lopsided opinion that determined lower courts didn’t subject the ban to tough-enough First Amendment scrutiny.
It’s the latest in a string of rulings in recent years in which the court has sided with conservative Christians’ freedom of speech or religion and/or limited protections for gay, bisexual and transgender people.

25 February
How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account
Our national project of elite impunity
By Adam Serwer
(The Atlantic) One way to look at the rise of Donald Trump is as part of a decades-long backlash among the American leadership class to the idea of accountability. Since Richard Nixon was forced to resign, powerful people in both political parties have worked assiduously to ensure that their leaders would escape the consequences of their actions. … This is not just about Trump; his impunity is the product of a society that has worked hard to help the rich and powerful elude punishment for criminal behavior. …
While Congress and the presidency have been working hard to raise the executive branch above the law, the Supreme Court has done its part to ensure that laws against bribery and corruption are near-unenforceable. With a series of rulings on campaign finance, the Roberts Court has ensured that the rich can try to buy elections without formally breaking the law. As a result, politicians are indebted to a few hundred billionaires who drop unholy amounts of cash every election cycle.

24 February
John Roberts Is Losing Patience With Trump
By Linda Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008.
(NYT Opinion) Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t waste words.
His majority opinion in last week’s tariff ruling was, characteristically, a model of succinctness. In a mere 21 pages…,he explained why, as a matter of statutory interpretation and the constitutional separation of powers, President Trump lacked the authority he had claimed, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose a hodgepodge of tariffs on countries all over the world.
There was, however, one exception to the opinion’s conciseness: a meaty paragraph describing the roller-coaster course of Mr. Trump’s tariff regime. …
I think…the chief justice is sending a message not necessarily or not only to Mr. Trump but also to the waiting world. Something along the lines of, “People, this is what we’re dealing with.” The point being not that “some fertilizers” are now exempt from reciprocal tariffs but that a reckless president is sowing chaos in America and around the globe. …
Something different happened in late December when the justices denied the administration’s request for a stay of a district-court decision barring its use of the National Guard in Illinois. The order was unsigned, with Justices Samuel Alito, Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissenting. The three-page order essentially made new law by narrowly defining the circumstances under which a president could federalize a state’s National Guard.
This was a very big deal. The president promptly acceded to the order, removing the federalized Guard from Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., as well as Chicago. Yet the court’s action, coming on the day before Christmas Eve, received far less attention than the tariff case. In discussions about the court today, few people even seem to remember it. It is as if the view of the court as the administration’s lackey was so entrenched that evidence to the contrary was too discordant to be fully absorbed. …

20 February
Justices Strike Down Trump’s Tariffs
(NYT) The court’s 6-3 decision has significant implications for the U.S. economy, consumers and the president’s trade policy. The Trump administration had said that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that statute does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.
“The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it,” the chief justice wrote.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh dissented.
The court’s ruling, backed by justices from across the ideological spectrum, was a rare and significant example of the Supreme Court pushing back on Mr. Trump’s agenda. Since he returned to the White House, the court’s conservative majority had overwhelmingly issued emergency orders allowing the president to carry out his policies on a temporary basis. But the decision on Friday will have a more lasting impact.
Read the Supreme Court’s Decision on Trump’s Sweeping Tariffs
In a major setback for President Trump’s economic agenda, the court ruled that he could not invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to set tariffs on imports.

2025

29 December
The Supreme Court has taken the National Guard away from Donald Trump
His remaining options for sending in the troops are legally fraught
(The Economist) On December 23rd the Supreme Court performed the Christmas equivalent [of the Friday news dump] , dealing President Donald Trump a rare and consequential defeat at a time when Americans had other things on their minds. In Trump v Illinois, an emergency plea that had been pending since October, six justices ruled that the president could not, for now, deploy National Guard troops in Chicago to help federal officials manage protests against his immigration policy.
Trump v Illinois turned on a small but consequential point of statutory interpretation. The government had cited Section 12406 of Title 10 of the federal legal code, which allows the president to federalise National Guard units when he is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”. The administration claimed that civilian law-enforcement agents such as those employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) count as “the regular forces”. But Illinois—drawing on the work of Marty Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown Law School—argued that the term refers only to active-duty military forces.
The challengers’ reading persuaded the Supreme Court’s three Democratic appointees and two of Mr Trump’s picks, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with the chief justice, John Roberts. All those jurists but Justice Kavanaugh went further, holding that Section 12406 cannot by itself justify a troop mobilisation, without another constitutional or statutory justification allowing the government to use the army to enforce the law.
This, the majority noted, introduces a paradox: Mr Trump had insisted that the Guard’s mission was merely to protect federal personnel and property, not to engage in law enforcement. But if the deployment was not intended to enforce the law, the statute did not apply. And if it was so intended, the administration had identified no other law permitting the regular armed forces to carry out such tasks. In areas like this where Congress has legislated, the court suggested, presidential power does not operate in a vacuum.

8 December
Highlights of the Supreme Court Argument on Firing Independent Agency Heads
The court’s conservative majority seemed ready to overturn or strictly limit a landmark decision from 1935 in a case dealing with President Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
(NYT) Though the argument was lengthy and the justices were engaged, the mood inside the courtroom was less contentious than other recent arguments in cases where the court has the potential to expand the president’s powers.
It was also not as well-attended. There were many empty seats and there were no demonstrators outside the Supreme Court.
Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the fired F.T.C. commissioner and plaintiff in the lawsuit, was in the courtroom during the argument. She appeared to be listening closely, tilting her head to see whichever justice was speaking around the heads of those seated in front of her. She also seemed to be taking copious notes because she often looked down at her lap. (Electronic devices like cellphones aren’t allowed in the room.)
… Adam Liptak, Legal affairs reporter
As the argument concluded, one thought: The justices’ questions were relentlessly split along partisan lines, with the Republican appointees seeming to side with the administration and the Democratic ones on the other side. Usually, there are at least some surprises.
SCOTUS poised to expand Trump’s power again
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority sounded inclined today to grant President Donald Trump another major expansion of his power, allowing presidents to fire leaders of independent agencies who have previously had protections from political vicissitudes.
(Politico) In the courtroom: In lengthy oral arguments, many of the justices had tough questions for Amit Agarwal, the lawyer representing fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. The 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States set a precedent for independent agencies, but Chief Justice John Roberts said the power and remit of agencies like the FTC has grown massively in the intervening nine decades. The precedent is a “dried husk of whatever people used to think it was,” he said. Conservative justices have limited it in recent years, but some want to do away with it entirely, and the Trump administration argues that agency heads unaccountable to an elected president are thus unaccountable to the people. More from WaPo
The stakes: Though the Supreme Court’s conservatives have repeatedly allowed Trump to fire government officials on a temporary basis, this is their first time weighing in on the merits of such a case in a full hearing. It’s not clear how expansive a ruling against Slaughter would be: Agarwal warned that “everything is on the chopping block” if the president can fire leaders of multi-member independent commissions. Justice Samuel Alito said he was skeptical that such a wide-ranging outcome would prove true. And some of the conservatives sounded likely to continue shielding the Fed from political interference.
7 December
Conservative Project at Supreme Court Meets Trump’s Push to Oust Officials
President Trump has repeatedly ousted leaders of independent agencies despite federal laws meant to shield those regulators from politics.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and other conservatives on the Supreme Court have embraced the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the Constitution vests all executive power in the president and that he must be able to control everything the executive branch does.
… Once he ascended to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts joined other conservatives on the bench in a series of rulings that have chipped away at Congress’s power to constrain the president’s authority to fire independent regulators.
That decades-long project of the conservative legal movement collides on Monday, when the case is argued in the court. At stake is President Trump’s desire to oust officials across the government, in defiance of federal laws meant to protect their jobs and shield them from politics.

5-6 November
A Trump Supreme Court tariff defeat would add to trade uncertainty
Trump tariffs met tough scrutiny in US Supreme Court oral arguments
Analysts say chances rising of IEEPA tariffs being struck down
Trump officials to tap other trade laws to keep tariffs if court voids them
Any potential US tariff refund process seen lengthy and “a mess”
(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s tough questioning of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs fueled increased speculation that they will be struck down, but raised the specter of additional chaos as he is widely expected to shift to other trade tactics in the wake of an adverse ruling.
Key Justices Cast a Skeptical Eye on Trump’s Tariffs
The Supreme Court is considering whether the president acted legally when he used a 1977 emergency statute to impose tariffs on scores of countries.
(NYT) A majority of Supreme Court justices on Wednesday asked skeptical questions about President Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, casting doubt on a centerpiece of the administration’s second-term agenda.
The outcome of the case, which could be decided within weeks or months, has immense economic and political implications for U.S. businesses, consumers and the president’s trade policy.
Several members of the court’s conservative majority, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined the liberal justices in sharply questioning the Trump administration’s assertion that it has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs without congressional approval.
Justice Barrett, who is seen as a key vote, questioned the scope of Mr. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which she described as “across the board.”
Neil Gorsuch delivered the most withering questions in the tariffs case
The conservative Supreme Court justice was tough on Trump’s lawyers and spoke up for a fading Congress.
(WaPo) Gorsuch was Trump’s first high-court nominee, and by some measures the most conservative. He has joined the decisions Democrats most abhor, including overturning Roe v. Wade and granting presidents immunity from some criminal prosecutions. But on Wednesday, he was the justice who subjected Solicitor General D. John Sauer to the most withering questioning on Trump’s usurpation of Congress’s authority over trade.

16 October
John Bolton Indicted Over Handling of Classified Information
Mr. Bolton, a Trump aide turned critic, is part of a string of presidential foes to become prosecutorial targets. But his case gained momentum in the Biden administration.
7 October
How Trump Is Using the Justice Department to Target His Enemies
By Alan Feuer and Lily Boyce
(NYT) From the moment Donald J. Trump began his campaign to return to the White House, he has expressed a clear desire to seek vengeance against his perceived enemies. In the last few weeks, the pressure campaign has intensified with two of his foes — James Comey and Letitia James — now indicted.
Back in power, Mr. Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to his own ends, critics say, in a more direct manner than any president since the Nixon era. The department, now led by Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers, has fired dozens of career prosecutors, many of whom had worked on cases involving Mr. Trump. And the president and his allies have targeted or pushed out several U.S. attorneys as he seeks quick movement on cases involving a number of his political adversaries.
The indictment of John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser whose relationship with the president soured, raises fresh questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump is using the department to punish those he dislikes. But his investigation is different from Mr. Comey’s and Ms. James’s in that the Biden administration was also investigating Mr. Bolton and had gathered what former U.S. intelligence officials have described as troubling evidence.

10 October
The Beginning of a New DOJ
Trump’s quest for retribution is remaking the department.
By Will Gottsegen
(The Atlantic) … Trump installed a new prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia late last month, after the previous prosecutor refused to go after [former FBI Director James] Comey and [New York State Attorney General Letitia] James. This prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, is now bringing these seemingly retributive cases. In the Comey and James cases, she presented the indictment to the grand jury solo; that’s extremely unusual. And she is also the only person whose signature is on the indictment (typically you’d see the signature of at least one assistant U.S. attorney who is working on the case), which makes it pretty clear that she is channeling the White House’s wishes here.
… The standard for getting an indictment before a grand jury is not high, making it an authority that is really easy to abuse. What the Justice Department has done to prevent that is to build up these kinds of guardrails of internal guidelines that tell prosecutors how to behave. The Justice Department’s internal manual says you should only bring a case before a grand jury if you think you can win a conviction at trial. Prosecutors who were abiding by that seem to have reached the conclusion that there was simply nothing to the James case or the Comey case, and therefore those cases shouldn’t be brought.
… In the post-Watergate era, a thicket of norms and practices has grown up around the importance of maintaining law enforcement’s independence from the president. The department really built up this ethos, which presidents have more or less respected until Trump, that the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, it is constitutionally under the control of the president, but there are strong, normative restrictions around the president using the department as a weapon.
Trump has been very effective in reshaping public perceptions of the Justice Department as something that can be used in this way.
… Right now, there are fewer mechanisms than there used to be for policing Trump’s actions, thanks in significant part to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the immunity case, which basically said, We think that the president has the constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department what to do. And so Trump actually has a pretty strong case that what he is doing is constitutional, whether or not it is a good idea.

9 October
Stephen Miller mocked for ‘rebellion against logic’ by law expert after bizarre meltdown
(Raw Story) A prominent former federal prosecutor tore into a top White House advisor on Thursday, blasting the aide’s comment that a judge committed “legal insurrection” as an “absurd” “self-cancelling oxymoron.”
… Miller’s remarks caught the attention of Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017.
“Trump adviser Stephen Miller … recently took to X to label that federal judge’s ruling itself a ‘legal insurrection.’ What the hell even is that? It’s a self-cancelling oxymoron, as absurd as saying nonviolent war or lawful terrorism. By definition, an insurrection is a violent uprising against authority. Legal process, on the other hand, is the authority of law and action,” he wrote in a Substack email.
“You can’t have a legal insurrection any more than you can have a peaceful war. The phrase collapses under its own weight. It’s nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. It’s a rebellion against logic and an insult to the rule of law, all in two words, but it fits a pattern,” he continued.

8 October
Chief Justice Roberts Warns of ‘Potential Disaster’ in Supreme Court Case
(Newsweek) Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned of “potential disaster” in determining that the number of votes received should impact a candidate’s ability to pursue legal action related to mail-in ballots.

6 October
Judge Diane Goodstein’s Home Burns To Ground After Ruling Against Trump
Why It Matters
(Newsweek) The fire comes weeks after Goodstein issued a ruling against the Trump administration.
Authorities have not yet determined the cause of the blaze, and there is currently no evidence to suggest it was an act of arson. The incident quickly sparked online conversation hostility toward members of the judiciary who rule against Trump and his allies

4-6 October
Supreme Court Returns to Face Trump Tests of Presidential Power
As the justices return to the bench Monday, the court will confront a series of cases central to the president’s agenda.
(NYT) …this summer’s traditional recess was anything but a cooling-off period.
Instead, the justices churned through emergency requests from the Trump administration that sharply divided the court along ideological lines, in a reflection of how much President Trump’s agenda has consumed their calendar.
The president’s policies will have an even more central role in the term that begins on Monday, after the justices agreed to take three cases with broad consequences for his agenda. In November, they will hear arguments about the legality of Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, a centerpiece of his trade strategy. In December, they will consider Mr. Trump’s efforts to wrest control of independent agencies, and in January, his attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board.
By the time the term ends in June, there could be others. Already, the administration has asked the court to take up a pair of cases testing the legality of the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, an issue that raises fundamental questions about what it means to be an American.
New Supreme Court term confronts justices with Trump’s aggressive assertion of presidential power
(AP) A monumental Supreme Court term begins Monday with major tests of presidential power on the agenda along with pivotal cases on voting and the rights of LGBTQ people. The court’s conservative majority has far been receptive, at least in preliminary rulings, to many of President Donald Trump’s aggressive assertions of authority. They could be more skeptical when they conduct an in-depth examination of some Trump policies, including his imposition of tariffs and his desired restrictions on birthright citizenship. Read more.

1 October
Supreme Court Refuses to Let Trump Oust Fed’s Cook for Now
The US Supreme Court refused to allow President Donald Trump to immediately oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while she sues to keep her job, dealing a setback to his efforts to exert more control over the central bank.
The order issued Wednesday means Cook can remain in her position at least until the justices rule after hearing arguments in the case in January. The economist has remained on the job since late August, when Trump said he would remove her over mortgage fraud allegations that she’s denied.

30 September
‘Drunk with power’: Author tells how Chief Justice John Roberts ‘corrupted’ Supreme Court
(Raw Story) As chief counsel for nominations with the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2002 to 2005, [Lisa Graves] anticipated Roberts’ commitment to “advancing a right-wing political agenda through the judiciary,” she writes in her new book: Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights.
With President George W. Bush having two Supreme Court vacancies to fill, Roberts was considered a “bankable vote for the Right’s political agenda” and was supported by the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, the activist and fundraising impresario now widely considered the architect of the Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, Graves said.
From rulings in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ushered in an era of unfettered dark money influence on elections, to Trump v. United States, which granted President Donald Trump “unprecedented immunity … to act as though he is above the law,” Graves argues Roberts facilitated the politicized state of a court that’s supposed to be impartial, but is now packed with Republican “partisan loyalists.”
“Roberts had conveyed this image that he was going to be a fair umpire as part of his nomination, but he has not been a fair umpire,” said Graves, now executive director of public policy watchdog group True North Research.

25-30 September
The latest target of Trump’s abuse of power has much to answer for — just not this
(Raw Story) For principled critics of James Comey, the fraudulent and politicized indictment of him issued by a federal grand jury in Virginia is wrapped in layers of bitter irony. It would be entirely fair to suggest that the former FBI director brought this illegitimate prosecution upon himself.
His new jeopardy is only one facet of the unfolding national disaster instigated by his own actions in October 2016. In those days before a presidential election, he made a fateful decision to disclose a renewed FBI probe of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and “her emails” (which ultimately proved to contain no classified information, as the Trump administration officially acknowledged many months later).
It was a choice that violated legal ethics and Justice Department rules, and has permanently damaged the institutions of law he claimed to be protecting.
The sparse indictment of Comey by Trump’s Justice Department belies a complicated backstory
(AP) — The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is only two pages and alleges he falsely testified to Congress in 2020 about authorizing someone to be an anonymous source in news stories.
That brevity belies a convoluted and contentious backstory. The events at the heart of the disputed testimony are among the most heavily scrutinized in the bureau’s history, generating internal and congressional investigations that have produced thousands of pages of records and transcripts.
Those investigations were focused on how Comey and his agents conducted high-stakes inquiries into whether Russia was helping Republican Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 presidential race against Democrat Hillary Clinton and her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Here are some things to know about that period and how they fit into Comey’s indictment:
Why the case against James Comey may end in humiliation for Trump’s DOJ
“This case should never go to trial,” one former prosecutor said.
(Politico) The indictment of James Comey, ordered up by President Donald Trump in a breathtaking breach of Justice Department independence, is being welcomed with glee in MAGA circles.
But the case against the former FBI director and longtime Trump nemesis may quickly end in disappointment — and even humiliation — for the prosecutor who was conscripted by the president to bring the charges.
The issues that could doom the case include the overt political pressure by Trump to bring the indictment, Halligan’s own inexperience, peculiarities in the indictment itself and even a five-year-old technology issue.
Comey Turns to Blagojevich Prosecutor for Trump Criminal Defense
(Bloomberg Law) Patrick Fitzgerald is advising Comey, who was indicted Thursday on charges related to obstruction of justice. Their ties reach back decades to when both lawyers worked as federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
Fitzgerald led prosecutions against Illinois governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan. He also steered an investigation that resulted in criminal charges against Scooter Libby, chief of staff to ex-Vice President.
Meet the Lawyers Set to Defend Comey
Comey is represented by Patrick J. Fitzgerald and Jessica Carmichael [who] previously served in the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, before becoming a founding partner of Carmichael Ellis & Brock.
Genius Trump Attorney Submitted Wrong Comey Indictment Docs to Judge
Trump-installed DOJ attorney Lindsey Halligan is having a tough time with the indictment from the very start.
(New Republic) Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan got a grand jury to indict former FBI Director James Comey on two counts. But Halligan showed her inexperience Thursday as the jurors rejected a third charge, and she submitted the wrong documents to the judge.
It was Halligan’s fourth day on the job. She was formerly Trump’s personal lawyer, and recently led the president’s efforts to de-emphasize slavery at the Smithsonian museums.
“At Professional Risk”: Charging Comey Could Land Lindsey Halligan in Hot Water
(Vanity Fair) An ethics professor from Halligan’s law school warns that if she pursues charges against the former FBI director without probable cause, she could be disciplined by the Florida bar.
‘Let’s have a trial’: Comey proclaims innocence as Trump revels in grand jury indictment he demanded
A grand jury indicted the former FBI director on two felony charges stemming from congressional testimony he gave in September 2020.
The case was assigned Thursday to U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee who is set to arraign Comey on Oct. 9.
Comey has selected as his defense attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, a longtime friend, former U.S. Attorney in Chicago and former DOJ special counsel.
“Jim Comey denies the charges filed today in their entirety. We look forward to vindicating him in the courtroom,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.
Comey’s indictment immediately triggered alarm — inside and outside the Justice Department — that Trump had effectively ordered the prosecution of a political adversary, exacting retribution against a longtime foe he blames for his own years of criminal prosecution and impeachment.

26 September
US Supreme Court lets Trump withhold $4 billion in foreign aid
Administration challenged judge’s spending order
Supreme Court has often backed Trump emergency requests
The three liberal justice dissent from the decision
(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court sided again on Friday with Donald Trump, allowing his administration to withhold about $4 billion in foreign aid authorized by Congress for the current fiscal year as the Republican president pursues his “America First” agenda.
The case raises questions involving the degree to which a president has the authority to rescind funds Congress has appropriated for programs that do not align with his policies. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse.
“If those laws require obligation of the money, and if Congress has not by rescission or other action relieved the Executive of that duty, then the Executive must comply,” Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The administration said in court papers that the money it targeted is “contrary to U.S. foreign policy,” reflecting Trump’s effort to scale back U.S. assistance abroad as part of an “America First” agenda. Trump also has moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, the main U.S. foreign aid agency.

22 September
The Justice Department Had 36 Lawyers Fighting Corruption Full-Time. Under Trump, It’s Down to Two.
The Public Integrity Section is the latest casualty in the administration’s attacks on Nixon-era good-government reforms.
All the other lawyers in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section have either quit under pressure, resigned in protest or been detailed to other matters across the nation, according to several sources who spoke with NOTUS. The section has also lost all but one of more than a dozen paralegals.
“To me, it just screams that public corruption cases are no longer a priority of DOJ,” said Andrew Tessman, a prosecutor who left the Justice Department this month. “I cannot understand why we would want to restrict that section.”
Sources with knowledge of the section’s operations say the reduction in staff means it can no longer advise the 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country on how to build cases against crooked government officials — let alone prosecute new cases on its own.

21 July
This Is the Presidency John Roberts Has Built
The country is witnessing the creation of an all-powerful institution, and one man is responsible.
(The Atlantic) No one on the Supreme Court has gone further to enable Donald Trump’s extreme exercise of presidential power than the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts. Associate justices have also written some important opinions shaping executive power, and the Court has issued ever more important unsigned orders, but the most transformative opinions—the opinions that directly legitimize Trump’s unprecedented uses of power—are Roberts’s handiwork. This is not happenstance. Under Supreme Court practice, the most senior justice in the majority—which is always the chief justice when he so votes—determines who will write the main opinion. Roberts reserved these milestones for himself.
… In May, the Court held that Trump orders removing two federal officials at key independent agencies could remain in place while the issue of their legality makes its way through the judiciary. In June, it allowed the administration to proceed with so-called third-country deportations—that is, deporting undocumented noncitizens summarily to countries to which they had no prior connection, but where they might well face torture. On July 8, the Court effectively allowed Trump to proceed with a massive restructuring of the federal executive branch, notwithstanding that the power over executive-branch organization belongs to Congress, not the president. On July 14, the conservative majority allowed the sabotaging of the Department of Education to proceed. Trump’s use of executive power is not a distortion of the Roberts Court’s theory of the presidency; it is the Court’s theory of the presidency, come to life.

17 July
The Supreme Court, the Deep State, and Jeffrey Epstein
Robert Reich
In McMahon v. New York, the Supremes gave Trump a simple way to revoke federal spending authorized by Congress: just fire everyone responsible for implementing that spending.
The high court is allowing Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon to fire over half the people who work for the Department of Education until there’s a full hearing on the constitutionality of their action. But by then it will be too late to save much of the department.
Note that the Supreme Court made this astounding decision on its so-called “shadow docket,” where it doesn’t even have to explain itself (the only record we have is Justice Sotomayor’s dissent).
No matter that Congress created the Department of Education; apparently, Trump can effectively end it. No matter that Congress in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act prohibits a president from unilaterally refusing to spend money that has been authorized by Congress; apparently, Trump can disregard the act.
Trump now has unbridled power to repeal federal laws by the simple expedient of firing federal employees who implement them.

14-15 July
The Supreme Court Won’t Explain Itself
In their decision allowing the Trump administration to dismantle the Department of Education, the justices didn’t offer one word of reasoning.
By Quinta Jurecic
(The Atlantic) The Supreme Court is allowing Donald Trump to dismantle the Department of Education. But it won’t say why.
Yesterday—almost exactly a week after the Court lifted a lower court’s block on Trump’s plans to fire thousands of federal employees—a majority of the justices decided to give the president the go-ahead for a different set of mass layoffs. Last week, the Court provided a handful of sentences that vaguely gestured at why it might have allowed the administration to move forward. This week, it offered nothing at all. There’s something taunting, almost bullying, about this lack of reasoning, as if the conservative supermajority is saying to the country: You don’t even deserve an explanation.
… Despite a frustrated dissent from the Court’s three liberal justices, the majority’s unsigned emergency ruling allowed Trump to carry out his plans while the litigation in the lower courts continues. “The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.” She went on: “The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them.”
The odd protocol of the Court’s emergency docket—sometimes called the “shadow docket”—means that the underlying question of whether Trump has the legal authority to tear apart the Education Department remains unresolved, even as a majority of the justices have allowed him to carry out his plans. Courts—even the Supreme Court—could still find the department’s dismantling illegal down the road. But in the meantime, the agency will have been devastated, perhaps irreparably.
Supreme Court will allow mass layoffs at Education Department
The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to put his plan to dismantle the Education Department back on track and go through with laying off nearly 1,400 employees.
(AP) With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court on Monday paused an order from U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston, who issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs and calling into question the broader plan.
The high court action enables the administration to resume work on winding down the department, one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises.

28 June
With Supreme Court Ruling, Another Check on Trump’s Power Fades
The court tied the hands of judges at a time when Congress has been cowed and internal executive branch constraints have been steamrolled.
(NYT) The Supreme Court ruling barring judges from swiftly blocking government actions, even when they may be illegal, is yet another way that checks on executive authority have eroded as President Trump pushes to amass more power.
The decision on Friday, by a vote of 6 to 3, could allow Mr. Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship to take effect in some parts of the country — even though every court that has looked at the directive has ruled it unconstitutional. That means some infants born to undocumented immigrants or foreign visitors without green cards could be denied citizenship-affirming documentation like Social Security numbers.
But the diminishing of judicial authority as a potential counterweight to exercises of presidential power carries implications far beyond the issue of citizenship. The Supreme Court is effectively tying the hands of lower-court judges at a time when they are trying to respond to a steady geyser of aggressive executive branch orders and policies.
The full scope of the ruling remains to be seen given that it will not take effect for 30 days. It is possible that plaintiffs and lower-court judges will expand the use of class-action lawsuits as a different path to orders with a nationwide effect. Such an option, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion, would be proper so long as they obey procedural limits for class-action cases.
… The supermajority also has blessed Mr. Trump’s gambit in firing Democratic members of independent agency commissions before their terms were up. The conservative justices have made clear that they are prepared to overturn a longstanding precedent allowing Congress to establish specialized agencies to be run by panels whose members cannot be arbitrarily fired by presidents.

18 June
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda (Update)
By Alex Lemonides, Seamus Hughes, Mattathias Schwartz, Lazaro Gamio and Camille Baker
(NYT) The legal clashes over President Trump’s blizzard of executive actions are intensifying, with new lawsuits and fresh rulings emerging day and night.
As of June 18, at least 189 of those rulings have at least temporarily paused some of the administration’s initiatives.
The dozens of lawsuits fall into these categories:
Immigration; Birthright citizenship; DOGE; Firings; Climate and environment; Budget freezes; Trans rights; Federal access restrictions; Tariffs; Other suits.

14 June
President Trump takes on the Judiciary (YouTube)
(GZERO media) From Supreme Court rulings on deportations and birthright citizenship to federal troop deployments in Los Angeles, the courts are becoming ground zero for challenges to executive authority. Emily Bazelon tells Ian Bremmer that the judiciary can’t save American democracy alone—and with Congress sidelined and the DOJ increasingly politicized, checks and balances are wearing thin. “The judges cannot save the country from an authoritarian president… by themselves.”

5 June
Trump vs. the courts: A constitutional crisis approaches
by James D. Zirin, opinion contributor
(The Hill) The Trump presidency is mired in litigation, facing some 250 lawsuits over its hailstorm of executive orders, substantially more orders than had been filed at this point during his first term. The unprecedented flood of legal action has for the moment scotched some of Trump’s signature priorities, but courts have cleared others to move forward while litigation continues.
Judges have temporarily frozen Trump’s efforts to punish elite law firms and Harvard University, as well as to deport immigrants without due process. Courts have allowed Trump to fire independent regulators while litigation continues. The Court of International Trade blocked the 10 percent tariffs Trump imposed on all foreign products, as well as higher levies applied to imports from several dozen nations, but an appellate court stayed the ruling for the time being.

4 June
Trump keeps being overruled by judges. And his temper tantrums won’t stop that
Steven Greenhouse
A word of advice to Trump: dozens of judges keep ruling against you because you’ve flouted the law more than any previous president
(The Guardian) In seeking to put their fingers in the dike to stop the US president’s lawlessness, federal judges have issued a startling high number of rulings, more than 185, to block or temporarily pause moves by the Trump administration.
Livid about all this, White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has railed against “judicial activism”, while Trump adviser Stephen Miller carps about a “judicial coup”. As for Trump, the grievance-is-me president has gone into full conniption-mode, moaning about anti-Trump rulings and denouncing “USA-hating judges”.

17 May
Robert Reich: Trump vs. the Supremes
Yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court needs to be understood in this larger context. The coming showdown between Trump and the Supreme Court will be the largest stress test yet of our constitutional system.
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump regime cannot deport a group of Venezuelans while the matter is being litigated in the courts. The regime can’t merely allege that they’re members of a violent gang; it must give them sufficient time to challenge their deportations. And it can’t merely assume that the eighteenth-century Alien Enemies Act gives it authority. Both the facts of these cases and the law have to be hashed out in lower courts.
The justices called the detainees’ interests “particularly weighty” because of the risk of removal to a notorious prison in El Salvador where the migrants could face indefinite detention.
Score a big one for the rule of law.
Of course, Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Clarence Thomas. The two have moved so far into the dense fog of irrational right-wing legal blather that they have lost all credibility. …
Trump’s outrage has three unfortunate consequences.
It establishes that Trump and the nation’s highest court are on a collision course on what Trump considers a central goal of his regime — what he “was elected to do.”
It also increases the possibility that Trump will do what JD Vance and others in the White House have urged him to do all along — announce that he will not be bound by the Court’s rulings.
This would be momentous. If enough Americans (and their constituents) are horrified by this — as we should be — it could spell the end of Trump. Openly defying a Supreme Court decision is surely enough to warrant an impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate.
… Attorney General Pam Bondi says the regime will target judges who oppose the president’s growing immigration crackdown:
“What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me. The [judges] are deranged is all I can think of. I think some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not…”.
Judges and justices cannot be “beyond and above the law” because they are the final arbiters of the law. They have also become the last firewall against a Trump dictatorship — which presumably is why the regime is now taking them on.

11 April
The Supreme Court just set up a potentially huge clash with Trump
The court issued a major ruling against Trump’s deportation efforts, but that’s far from the end of it.
(WaPo) The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday delivered the administration its most substantial court loss of President Donald Trump’s second term. …
The Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling that ordered the administration to “facilitate” the return of a Maryland man whom the administration has admitted it wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Very notably, the high court order featured no dissents, even from the most Trump-aligned justices. That made the court at least appear unanimous in ruling against the administration.
The administration had argued that it has no power to return Kilmar Abrego García because the Salvadoran immigrant is no longer in U.S. custody. But the case raised concerns that a favorable ruling for the administration by the justices would effectively allow it to deport people — even illegally — before courts could weigh in on individual cases. Some critics have even posited that such a ruling could green-light unreviewable deportations of U.S. citizens who run afoul of Trump, as the court’s three liberal justices noted Thursday. …
It’s not impossible to see the administration making or at least telegraphing only a token effort to get Abrego García back. It could then throw up its hands, thus challenging the courts — and even the Supreme Court — to take a more significant stand that could test their desire to avoid dictating foreign policy actions.
In many ways, that’s a clash the administration has seemed to crave.