The Trump administration is targeting court interpretations that have stripped the president of full control over personnel, and policy, within federal agencies.
the Trump administration totally expects they are going to lose in court a lot. Do you know what it costs to do an executive order? A piece of paper and a Sharpie. That’s it. And they can go right back to the drawing board. One of these courts said, hey, the language was too vague. You know what that tells them? Just go draft another one. It's not like legislation where you need a bunch of people to agree on something.
[...]
They’re going to fight at every single turn. And that means appealing absolutely everything with the knowledge that they’re going to lose some of them because it costs them nothing. Executive Orders are the easiest thing to issue.
I do not see this as Trump losing over and over and over again. I think the more important bigger story is that they’re not going to stop and they’re going to keep fighting it every time, and they are going to win some of these. //
Political-Paige
4 hours ago
SCOTUS could end all this tomorrow with a sweeping (and utterly unassailable) order that these District Courts lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions against the Executive.
But the Roberts Court is so timid that it's allowing unprecedented chaos to reign across the country as activist inferior court judges strut their unearned power games.
It's appalling.
Since 2020, hundreds of Republican attorneys have faced challenges to their law licenses for making conservative arguments in court. //
Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita petitioned the state Supreme Court Thursday to stop threats to his law license over his pro-life legal efforts. It’s the latest development in years of abortion litigation and advocacy involving Congress, the White House, and ongoing media coverage that began in 2022, when Indiana abortionist Caitlin Bernard disclosed she’d committed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio. //
In the 2024 elections, Rokita was the largest vote-getter of all statewide candidates, winning re-election by nearly 18 points despite the charges against his law license. Rokita earned more votes than every other candidate on Indiana ballots, except for Donald Trump. Hoosier voters clearly weighed in strongly against procedural efforts to impede Rokita’s work as attorney general. //
At the time it began pursuing charges against Rokita, public records showed every Disciplinary Commission member with a record of political donations had donated to Democrat Party candidates. At the time, the board was also chaired by a Democrat prosecutor who publicly supported Wells in 2024 and has made numerous donations to other pro-abortion candidates.
During the hearing, Reyes ceased to act as an impartial factfinder and engaged in argumentation that made it very clear that she was dismissive of the idea that transgenders who are unable to deploy worldwide because of the absence of specialized medical treatment were a drag, so to speak, on readiness; //
The letter alleges many incidents but focuses on two. In one, she demanded to know the religious views of the DOJ attorney, Jason Lynch. Then, this incredible exchange happened.
"What do you think Jesus would say," Reyes proceeded to ask, about an action that revokes a transgender person's access to homeless shelters?
"Do you think he’d say ‘sounds right to me’ or ‘WTF, let them in?'"
Lynch extracted himself by saying, "The US government is not going to speculate about what Jesus would have to say about anything."
Not only was the questioning wildly inappropriate, but it also forced the government attorney to reveal his own religion and wonder how that would affect Reyes's view of his answer. //
after this display of stupidity, it is hard to believe that Reyes will not face a "motion to disqualify." Even if that motion is rejected, it will be appealed. If Reyes stays on the case and inevitably rules that transgenders are allowed in the military, the government will appeal, and Reyes's misconduct and abusive behavior will be a factor.
In 2023, the Biden administration's Department of Justice sued Elon Musk's SpaceX for discrimination, charging that the company did not hire people it wasn't legally allowed to hire.
Yes, really. That case is now being dropped; the new Trump administration's Department of Justice has filed a motion to have the case dismissed with prejudice. //
DogeDesigner @cb_doge
·
"SpaceX was told for many years that we could not hire anyone who was not a permanent resident of the U.S., or I would go to prison.
Then, a few years ago, the Biden administration decided to sue SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers."
2:55 AM · Jul 23, 2024. //
SupplyGuy
6 hours ago
So riddle me this: why have there been tons of prosecutors and lawyers willing to quit rather than "prosecute" or even drop cases, as required by the Trump administration, but not a darn one of them took a prinicipled stand and quit rather than pursue this obviously corrupt case?
Don't bother answering - we all know the answer - these prosecutors and lawyers are nothing more than corrupt commie-fascists.
Every ad for a government job should state "democrats need not apply" b/c they have shown that they cannot keep their political bias out of their work. //
anon-0g91 SupplyGuy
5 hours ago
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner .. You nailed the fundamental problem with the weasels. They only find their principles when Trump is involved. That is the same with all leftist jerks. They find ethics only when it suits them. The prosecutor who placed these charges needs to lose their law license for the frivolity of this case. //
anon-0g91 redstateuser
5 hours ago
This had nothing to do with America First. It had to do with Export Control laws that SpaceX had to operate under. Hiring non-US citizens would have broken the law as all the technology they deal with is export-controlled, and an Export is making that technology accessible to a foreign national without a security clearance. Non-US citizens can't get security clearances, and if the position requires one, that is just the way the law works. If you can't get a clearance, you don't get hired.
“Nauseatingly frightening”: Law firm condemns careless AI use in court. //
"As all lawyers know (or should know), it has been documented that AI sometimes invents case law, complete with fabricated citations, holdings, and even direct quotes," his letter said. "As we previously instructed you, if you use AI to identify cases for citation, every case must be independently verified."
Judge Contreras relied on a very shaky 1935 precedent called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. This precedent established the, in my view, unconstitutional and un-republican plethora of "independent" boards and commissions that carry out executive functions but aren't answerable to the guy in whom the "executive Power" of the United States is "vested." Recent cases have held that any commission holding anything other than an advisory capacity must be controlled by the President; how the MSPB's role in adjudicating employment disputes will be viewed is unknown.
This case is headed to the DC Circuit and the Supreme Court. Another similar case, that of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, is at the Supreme Court; Trump Sends Scorching Appeal of DC Court Order Reinstating Biden Appointee to the Supreme Court – RedState. In that case, Trump fired Dellinger, who had the same legal protections as MSPB judges. A judge ordered Dellinger reinstated, and the Supreme Court will get Dellinger's response to the government's objections at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Other possible cases testing the limits of Humphrey’s Executor are the firings of 17 IGs, who, by statute, can only be fired after a 30-day notice to Congress and an explanation of the reasons, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board. //
Laocoön of Troy
10 hours ago
Remember corrupt FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page? Remember the friendly judge who they secretly met with at a party to plot their next moves against Trump? The crooked judge? Judge Rudolph Contreras (Obama appointee). Strzok referred to him affectionally as "Rudy" like they were old buds.
Looks like the crooks from Trump's first term are trying to get the band back together.
all executive departments and agencies, including so-called independent agencies, shall submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President before publication in the Federal Register. //
The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General’s opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General. //
If this order sticks, Trump has permanently and fundamentally changed the Executive Branch, as it has existed since 1935, in less than a month. //
bk
9 hours ago edited
Liberals: "Musk is unelected and therefore can't tell us what to do!"
Also libs: "How dare Trump interfere with tens of thousands of unelected bureaucrats who have been telling us what to do for decades!"
The crux of the case brought before Chutkan is that Musk's participation in government is illegal as the US Senate has not confirmed him as a "principal officer" as required by Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 or the Constitution and Congress does not have oversight of DOGE because it exists within the Executive Office of the President. This sounds rather bizarre to me as the President has clear authority, in my view, to set up an ad hoc task force to carry out a time-limited mission and to appoint anyone he wishes to lead it. But I'm not a judge on the DC Circuit.
In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority. Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO, especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard. //
NavyVet
32 minutes ago
I am sick and tired of this "unelected official" BS. It is "unelected officials" that have been malfeasant allowing massive fraud waste and abuse. That's the way it works.
So the entire "unelected official" mantra is a smokescreen for the ignorant and stupid. That means it works on democrats and their media bootlickers, but has no credibility with the rest of us.
In fact, all it shows us is that the democrats are corrupt and stupid.
Though they lost, they got a solid dissent to work with and went to the Supreme Court.
Their arguments are that the president has absolute authority to remove officials at will and that every time the Supreme Court has heard a case similar to Dellinger's, they have agreed. //
Whatever the agency, for the President to discharge his constitutional duty to supervise those who exercise executive power on his behalf, the President can “remove the head of an agency with a single top officer” at will. Collins 594 U.S. at 256. On that basis, President Biden in 2021 fired the single head of the Social Security Administration without cause. //
!This Court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will. “Where a lower court allegedly impinges on the President’s core Article II powers, immediate appellate review should be generally available.”. //
As a general matter, the Constitution “scrupulously avoids concen-trating power in the hands of any single individual” save for the President, who is“the most democratic and politically accountable official in Government.” Id. at 223-224. Single agency heads thus must be accountable to the President through at-will removal. There are only four single agency heads upon whom Congress has sought to confer tenure protection: the Directors of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the Commissioner of Social Security, and the Special Counsel here. The former three are undisputedly subject to at-will removal under Article II. This Court’s precedents foreclose any special exception for the Special Counsel.
When the charges against Adams were revealed, he was accused of big stuff...like taking airline upgrades and helping the Turkish embassy navigate NYC's byzantine building code system; see BREAKING: We Now Know the Charges Against New York Mayor Eric Adams – RedState. The charges were framed to look big time, but they were eerily reminiscent of the hit jobs done on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, where normal activities were mutated into federal felonies by lawyers out to get a scalp.
A sea change happened when Adams defended Trump at a press conference in the last days of the election: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Breaks With Dems Over Despicable Rhetoric: Trump Not a 'Fascist,' 'This Is America' – RedState. //
There was some speculation that Trump might pardon Adams; that didn't happen, but Trump did order DOJ to dismiss the charges against him; New: Trump Justice Dept. Directs Prosecutors to Dismiss Federal Corruption Charges Against Eric Adams – RedState. That's when the fun started. //
This shootout is nowhere near over. Bondi and Bove are still surrounded by disloyal and hostile staff. The judge in NYC is bound to do something other than accept the filing; otherwise, he'll be a social pariah. Ultimately, a judge can't force the government to prosecute a case it wants to dismiss.
It is good that this first battle came this early and over a fairly trivial issue. A lot of unreliable staff have been identified and are no longer employed. The attorneys who came to work for DOJ as a government service and not as a political commissar should now feel more comfortable knowing they have the support of the DOJ leadership team.
Pam Bondi wrote to DOJ on her first day in office, “Any attorney who because of their personal political views or judgments declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination, consistent with applicable law.” There is no doubt she is serious. //
Skibum
a day ago edited
If you want to know if the prosecution of Mayor Adams was political, ask yourself whether the DOJ would have prosecuted Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago under the same circumstances?
The answer is "NO"! Johnson just got caught with a closet full of bribes with more to come and DOJ prosecutors are nowhere in sight.
Adams went off the Democrat reservation when it came to illegal immigration and Johnson did not. Adams was prosecuted.
Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland
·
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland
3/3 As drafted, the Order would prohibit Donald Trump & heads of agencies from assessing data or firing anyone. Would be most restrictive of all TROs entered to day if Court enters.
10:23 PM · Feb 15, 2025
Margot Cleveland
@ProfMJCleveland
·
Follow
🚨🚨🚨Judge in ⬇️case denies stay pending appeal. Court's reasoning based on his huge walk back of what he really enjoined saying basically "oh, I've only ordered you to not do what you can't legally do." 1/. //
The pattern seems to be that judges respond immediately to requests for temporary restraining orders with overbroad language, then quietly walk the language back once the headlines pass.
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
If ANY judge ANYWHERE can stop EVERY Presidential action EVERYWHERE, we do NOT live in a democracy.
10:57 PM · Feb 13, 2025. //
TK421
4 hours ago
To that moron from the union: It doesn't matter whether there's precedent, just whether it's legal. And, your use of the term 'dismantling' is meaningless in a legal sense. What would be unconstitutional would be the Executive branch eliminating a Congressionally created agency. That hasn't happened. It was moved under the auspices of the State Department, so it still exists. One of the things the Executive can do, is determine the staffing level, and you have no right to argue otherwise. If the Executive branch determines that only 10 people are needed to administer the agency's programs (especially because those programs have been scaled back), tough luck. //
anon-tk7z NavyVet
37 minutes ago
do you know how many companies just gave up because of unions? This is exactly their position. Businesses were not negotiating with their people , they were negotiating with a distant entity that showed up for a day or two, threatened the company, left, destroyed the company, and left the workers with no jobs unless they moved. Bread companies, gum companies, toy companies, glass companies, local metalists, on and on and on, small businesses of 50-60 people. So, the companies just closed. Poverty and lack of self worth flourished. The good things unions did are now hard-wired into any business here in this country.
Engelmayer is the first judge ever to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the president of the United States that also forbids a cabinet secretary from accessing his own records without giving these parties an opportunity to respond. He offered zero analysis of his constitutional authority to make such a radical ruling, the federal rule governing injunctions and temporary restraining orders, or why he is enabling fraud and grift by blocking access to records that show who got government money and for what. //
The situation is actually worse than that. Here’s the timeline of the court filings. All these initial documents were filed by New York Special Trial Counsel Colleen Faherty. //
1:04 a.m. — Faherty e-mailed four items — the complaint, the legal memorandum, her prior affirmation, and the order granting the TRO — to two government lawyers, only one of whom had been a recipient of her 7:32 p.m. email.
1:14 a.m. — The complaint was refiled with the deficiency corrected. Note that a properly filed complaint was not filed until more than a half-hour after Judge Engelmayer had already entered his order. //
The accelerated timeline is simply incredible, especially in view of the voluminous materials that any diligent judge would analyze to render a proper opinion. And I mean “incredible” in its literal sense of “not to be believed.”
The last documents filed in support of the request for a TRO were at 10:13 and 10:15 p.m. These included the legal memorandum with its citation to 54 court opinions. Did Engelmayer read these? Not a chance. Did he read any of them? If he did, you can’t tell it from his order, other than one citation from him to a single case that had no resemblance to the case before him. //
Even if Engelmayer had received and began to study these materials immediately after he had them all, he spent less than two-and-one-half hours reviewing and analyzing the materials presented to him before entering his order at 12:39 a.m.
That’s not even counting the time it would have taken Engelmeyer to write his order. If he took only a half-hour to do that, he spent less than two hours to peruse the voluminous record and then begin to write his order. He could not possibly have considered more than a small fraction of the cited cases and other authorities in that time. It raises the question of how much of this order was AI-generated.
"In other words, as the President asserts, ‘[t]he Russia Collusion Hoax was dead, at least until Defendants [as members of the Pulitzer Prize board] attempted to resurrect it’ by conspiring to publish a defamatory statement falsely implying that the President colluded with the Russians."
In their motion to dismiss, the Board had asserted that their statement defending the awards was purely opinion and not actionable. Artau, however, points out that they injected claims of fact.
"The board members vouched for the truth of reporting that had been debunked by all credible sources charged with investigating the false claim that the President colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election," he wrote.
Artau states that President Trump met the burden of establishing jurisdiction for the trial court and can therefore "proceed with his asserted claims that the non-resident defendants acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth." //
Trump's lawsuit countered that assertion, noting explicitly how the Washington Post had “retracted statements from several articles from 2017 relating to the Steele Dossier and other alleged connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
Indeed, the Post quietly edited two major articles that relied on the discredited Steele dossier and added editor’s notes to at least 14 other reports.
Tim Carney
@TPCarney
·
Follow
1) The ACLU believes there are four branches of the government.
2) It's favorite "branch" is the imaginary one that has zero democratic accountability.
Casey Mattox
@CaseyMattox_
ACLU: "Not only would such mass layoffs violate federal law, but this action would undermine the important and historic check that the career civil service has had on curbing abuses by the executive branch.". //
Judge O'Boyle ruled that [shocked face] none of the plaintiffs had standing to file suit to stop the buyout because they'd suffered no harm. Indeed, virtually every one of the court actions filed to stymie the Trump administration could be settled in five minutes if judges simply took the idea of "standing" seriously. The unions had claimed harm because they were being forced to spend time and money trying to stop the buyout, which could be devoted to other, unnamed, and probably criminal, union activities. Judge O'Boyle said the plaintiffs can't "spend their way into standing, neither can the plaintiffs in this case establish standing by choosing to divert resources towards “respond[ing] to tremendous uncertainty created by OPM’s actions” and away from other union priorities."
The bigger picture was the nature of the complaint itself.
Second, this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ pleaded claims. While not binding on this Court, the decision in Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v. Trump (“AFGE”) is instructive. 929 F.3d 748 (D.C. Cir. 2019). In that case, the court held that the plaintiff-unions’ claims fell within the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute’s (“FSL-MRS”) scheme and therefore the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Id. at 754.
This means the unions must exhaust appeals through the agency and then through the Federal Labor Relations Authority before heading to federal court.
JD Vance @JDVance
·
If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.
Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
3:13 PM · Feb 9, 2025 //
Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47
·
President Trump demolishes Fake News "reporter" @svdate on Air Force One:
POTUS: "I don't know even what you're talking about. Neither do you. Who are you with?"
@svdate: "HuffPost, sir."
POTUS: "No wonder. I thought they died."
11:08 PM · Feb 9, 2025. //
The president certainly has a way with reporters, doesn't he? Let's talk about the dishonest framing of Date's question, though.
Read what Vance wrote again. Did he ever "suggest" the administration would "enforce it themselves" regarding going around a Supreme Court ruling? Was the Supreme Court even mentioned at all? The answer to all those questions is no. Instead, what Vance did was state a plain fact, at least in his view of the law. Namely, that the judge is out of line in usurping the statutory authority of the executive branch to control the bureaucratic state.
No doubt, the remedy to those things will be an appeal, and when it reaches the Supreme Court, it will likely end up being a bloodbath for the bureaucracy. On that front, Democrats and the press should be careful what they wish for regarding waging these court battles. The only reason Roe v. Wade was overturned is because leftists picked a fight they weren't ready to win over a state law in Mississippi.
Do you know who did brag about ignoring the Supreme Court, though? That would be one Joseph Robinette Biden. //
MajorKong
7 hours ago
Vance has the benefit of being correct on the legal point as well. The relief is extra judicial. Not available to the court. Bondi needs to ask for sanctions against the judge at the next level. //
emptypockets
4 hours ago
So that's why HuffPo got a seat in the press briefing lineup. For their value as a chew toy.
What he never bothers to explain is how state attorneys general have any standing to challenge the internal workflows of the Treasury Department, how auditing a system within the Treasury Department is beyond the power of the Treasury Department, how the Executive Branch can violate the separation of powers by carrying out an audit, or how DOGE's action is anything other than the epitome of the "Take Care Clause" which would seem to anyone without TDS to require laws to be obeyed.
It should be to no one's shock that the lead clown in this pathetic circus of TDS sufferers is Letitia James.
The complaint presents a veritable "parade of horribles" of things that "might" happen, which, even if true, fall in the "not your circus, not your monkey" category of complaints. //
This will turn out to be more performative than real. When a federal judge ordered a halt to Trump's spending freeze (see Biden Judge Puts Trump's Spending Freeze on Hold and Orders the Feeding Trough Opened), the administration essentially answered, "yeah, no."
Defendants do not read the Order to prevent the President or his advisors from communicating with federal agencies or the public about the President’s priorities regarding federal spending. Nor do Defendants construe the Order as enjoining the President’s Executive Orders, which are plainly lawful and unchallenged in this case. Further, Defendants do not read the Order as imposing compliance obligations on federal agencies that are not Defendants in this case. Defendants respectfully request that the Court notify Defendants if they have misunderstood the intended scope of the Court’s Order. //
We'll soon see how Attorney General Bondi responds to this nonsense and if she's willing to draw a line at this sort of judicial overreach. If she goes along with it, it effectively means that the President literally does not have the authority to give directions to the Executive Branch, and the Treasury Secretary cannot establish policies in his agency without getting the approval of some judge somewhere based on the complaint of random people. //
Lugger66
a day ago
As i said u might as well have a judge say DT cant be POTUS.
Truth is not only does this need to be slapped down they need to be punished. //
anon-adwq
a day ago
Treasury Secretary made the DOGE auditors employees of the Treasury. So the Judge's order now applies to people who do not exist ("outside auditors"). Game, set, match. Trump's team is well ahead of the flailing activist Democrat judges. They can scream into the wind. The common meme picture of the screaming Karen can be updated to wearing judicial robes. Gotta love it! //
PubliusCryptus
a day ago
This conflict is a make or break event. The Judiciary has been out of control for generations now and it must be forced back into its Constitutionally defined role. Judges who exceed their authority must be removed from the bench and prosecuted for abuse of their powers. Their abuse has been going on for so long and their hubris has reached such a level that I fear simply ignoring them will not solve this problem. Arrest and imprison them.
Kennedy's Executive Order 10973 named the USAID. But read the first line carefully.
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (75 Stat. 424) and section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, and as President of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
This corresponds to a Congressional directive, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. That law required Kennedy to create a foreign aid organization to replace the hodgepodge then in existence. The law lists a wide range of international aid activities required by Congress and directs the president to put those functions under a single person.
The President may exercise any functions conferred upon him by this Act through such agency or officer of the United States Government as he shall direct. Tne head of any such agency or such officer may from time to time promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out such functions, and may delegate authority to perform any such functions, including, if he shall so specify, the authority successively to redelegate any of such functions to any of his subordinates. //
Such designation and authorization shall be in writing, shall be published in the Federal Register, shall be subject to such terms, conditions, and limitations as the President may deem advisable, and shall be revocable at any time by the President in whole or in part. //
From the beginning, the USAID administrator has required Senate approval and has had a budget.
Because Congress created the agency, President Trump will either gut it and leave the remnant alive or set off a direct conflict with Congress, which he may or may not want.