Wednesday Reads: Judges Push Back

Posted: March 19, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, SCOTUS | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

The Supreme Court at night

Yesterday, the courts pushed back on Trump and Musk. I’m not convinced that it will stop them, but we’ll find out soon enough. Here’s a brief summary of what happened from David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: The Day The Federal Courts Stood Tall.

The showdown between President Trump and the federal judiciary came to a head Tuesday in a more dramatic and direct way that Morning Memo had anticipated.

With Trump dangerously but also absurdly calling for the impeachment of the federal judge who ruled against him in the Alien Enemies Act case, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stirred from his torpor long enough to issue a rare rebuke of the president, though not by name (as Trump himself pointed out). Roberts’ decision to come to the defense of district judges who have been on the front lines of this constitutional battle keeps them from being marooned on an island while their decisions wind their way up through the lengthy appeals process.

“The Chief Justice’s statement now renders the Trump confrontation one with the entire federal judiciary, and not just the lower federal courts,” Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith observed.

What followed over the course of the day was a series of significant court rulings against the Trump administration. While the compressed timing of the rulings was mostly coincidental, the thrust of the decisions all pointed in the same direction: Two months into his second term, President Trump has wildly exceeded his constitutional authority on numerous fronts.

I wish I could say that the combination of the chief justice’s rebuke and the multiple legal setbacks suggests that the federal judiciary is girding for a fight over the rule of law and its own constitutional powers. I hope that’s the case. I want that to be the case. But we need to see appeals courts and the high court itself weighing in on the substance of these cases in the weeks and months to come before we can assess whether the judicial branch will hold the line. There’s no doubt that Trump is itching to coopt the judiciary.

It bears repeating that the courts alone can’t save us from autocracy. But losing the courts entirely would be a devastating blow that would make additional areas of American public and private life vulnerable to Trump’s rampage and would add immeasurably to the future workload of rebuilding what Trump has broken.

For one day, though, the judicial branch stood tall.

Some specifics:

The New York Times: Musk’s Role in Dismantling Aid Agency Likely Violated Constitution, Judge Finds.

Efforts by Elon Musk and his team to permanently shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution “in multiple ways” and robbed Congress of its authority to oversee the dissolution of an agency it created, a federal judge found on Tuesday.

The ruling, by Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, appeared to be the first time a judge has moved to rein in Mr. Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency directly. It was based on the finding that Mr. Musk has acted as a U.S. officer without having been properly appointed to that role by President Trump.

Judge Theodore Chuang

Judge Chuang wrote that a group of unnamed aid workers who had sued to stop the demolition of U.S.A.I.D. and its programs was likely to succeed in the lawsuit. He agreed with the workers’ contention that Mr. Musk’s rapid assertion of power over executive agencies was likely in violation of the Constitution’s appointments clause.

The judge also ordered that agency operations be partially restored, though that reprieve is likely to be temporary. He ordered Mr. Musk’s team to reinstate email access to all U.S.A.I.D. employees, including those on paid leave. He also ordered the team to submit a plan for employees to reoccupy a federal office from which they were evicted last month, and he barred Mr. Musk’s team from engaging in any further work “related to the shutdown of U.S.A.I.D.”

Given that most of the agency’s work force and contracts were already terminated, it was not immediately clear what effect the judge’s ruling would have. Only a skeleton crew of workers is still employed by the agency.

And while the order barred Mr. Musk from dealing with the agency personally, it suggested that he or others could continue to do so after receiving “the express authorization of a U.S.A.I.D. official with legal authority to take or approve the action.”

CNN: Federal judge indefinitely blocks Trump’s ban on transgender service members, saying it’s ‘soaked in animus.’

A federal judge has indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members, dealing a major defeat to a controversial policy the president resurrected from his first term.

In a scathing ruling, US District Judge Ana Reyes said the administration cannot enforce the ban — which was set to take effect later this month.

Reyes, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote that the ban “is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”

Judge Ana Reyes

“Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed – some risking their lives – to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” she wrote.

The judge said she was pausing her preliminary injunction until Friday morning to give the administration time to appeal it to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ruling came in a case brought by transgender active-duty service members and others hoping to enlist in the military who would be barred from service under the ban. Reyes said they had shown that they would likely succeed on their claim that the ban violated rights afforded to them by the Constitution.

Days after taking office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to implement its own policies that say transgender service members are incompatible with military service. The government had argued that continuing to permit trans individuals to serve in the US would negatively affect, among other things, the military’s lethality, readiness and cohesion.

The Washington Post: Judge halts Trump EPA bid to kill $14 billion Biden climate grant fund.

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily barred President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency from clawing back at least $14 billion in grants issued by the Biden administration for climate and clean-energy projects, saying the EPA had not put forward “credible evidence” of fraud or abuse.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, D.C., ruled that the EPA’s sudden mid-February asset freeze and March 11 termination of legally awarded grants came without a legally required explanation to three coalitions of grant recipients. The groups said the sudden cutoff of funds approved by Congress appeared to be arbitrary, capricious or in violation of federal law and regulations.

Judge Tanya Chutkan

Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, which received $7 billion, $5 billion and $2 billion, respectively, sued over the funding freeze. They are among eight recipients awarded more than$20 billion under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established in President Joe Biden’s signature 2022 climate law more commonly known as the “green bank.”

In a 23-page opinion, Chutkan said the EPA’s actions raised “serious due process concerns” and issued a temporary restraining order barring the grant cutoffs for now. Chutkan did not release funds to the groups but ordered that the money be held as it was in their accounts at Citibank and not clawed back or reused for any other purpose by the EPA while the case moves ahead.

While the agency voiced concerns regarding “program integrity,” “programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse” and “the absence of adequate oversight,” Chutkan wrote, “vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient.”

Chutkan said she was neither forcing the EPA to “undo” its termination nor making the funds unrecoverable, but ensuring that the government abides by grant laws and regulations, “which serves the public interest.”

The New York Times: Judge Orders Education Dept. to Restore Some Grants to Schools.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Education Department to restore some federal grants that were terminated as part of the Trump administration’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Judge Julie R. Rubin of the Federal District Court for the District of Maryland said in an opinion that the department had acted arbitrarily and illegally when it slashed $600 million in grants that helped place teachers in underserved schools. The judge also ordered the administration to cease future cuts to those grants.

Judge Julie R. Rubin

The grants fund programs that train and certify teachers to work in struggling districts that otherwise have trouble attracting talent. The programs cited goals that included training a diverse educational work force, and provided training in special education, among other areas.

The department, led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, argued that the grants trained teachers in “social justice activism” and other “divisive ideologies” and should be eliminated.

A coalition of educator organizations sued to stop the Education Department from terminating the grants. The coalition included groups, such as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the National Center for Teacher Residencies, whose members depend on the grants at issue.

The judge found that the loss of the federal dollars would harm students and schools with the fewest resources.

“The harms plaintiffs identify also implicate grave effect on the public: fewer teachers for students in high-need neighborhoods, early childhood education and special education programs,” she wrote. “Moreover, even to the extent defendants assert such an interest in ending D.E.I.-based programs, they have sought to effect change by means the court finds likely violate the law.”

One more from The Guardian today: Judge denies government’s attempt to dismiss Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to his deportation.

A federal judge has turned down a request from the Trump administration to dismiss Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to his deportation, and ruled his case should be heard in New Jersey rather than Louisiana, where he is now detained.

Judge Jesse Furman

In his decision, judge Jesse M Furman said that since Khalil’s attorney filed the challenge to his arrest while he was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention in New Jersey, the case must be heard there. Government lawyers had asked that his petition be considered in Louisiana, where Khalil had been flown to after being arrested by Ice in New York City and then briefly held in New Jersey.

“Given that the District of New Jersey is the one and only district in which Khalil could have filed his Petition when he did, the statutes that govern transfer of civil cases from one federal district court to another dictate that the case be sent there, not to the Western District of Louisiana,” Furman wrote.

He added that “the Court’s March 10, 2025 Order barring the Government from removing him (to which the Government has never raised an objection and which the Government has not asked the Court to lift in the event of transfer) shall similarly remain in effect unless and until the transferee court orders otherwise.”

On the “Alien Enemies” case before Judge James Boesberg, NBC News reports: Trump administration pushes back on judge’s request for answers about deportation flights.

 The Justice Department is pushing back against a federal judge’s request for more information about the deportation flights that took off over the weekend after President Donald Trump invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had ordered the Trump administration to submit answers to his questions about the timing of the deportation flights and custody handover of deportees, giving the government until noon Wednesday to respond.

Judge James Boasberg

The government submitted a filing Wednesday morning asking for a pause of Boasberg’s order to answer his questions.

“Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case,” the DOJ wrote in the filing.

The judge had initially ordered the government to answer his questions surrounding the flights by noon Tuesday. The Justice Department declined to answer some of his questions, saying, “If, however, the Court nevertheless orders the Government to provide additional details, the Court should do so through an in camera and ex parte declaration, in order to protect sensitive information bearing on foreign relations.”

Boasberg agreed and directed DOJ attorneys to submit under seal the answers to his questions about the deportations that were carried out under the terms of a rarely used wartime act by noon Wednesday.

In its response Wednesday, the government blasted the judge for accepting its proposal and suggested he not take any action until an appeals court rules on its request for a stay.

“The Court has now spent more time trying to ferret out information about the Government’s flight schedules and relations with foreign countries than it did in investigating the facts before certifying the class action in this case. That observation reflects how upside-down this case has become, as digressive micromanagement has outweighed consideration of the case’s legal issues,” the DOJ filing said. “The distraction of the specific facts surrounding the movements of an airplane has derailed this case long enough and should end until the Circuit Court has had a chance to weigh in,” it added.

These Trump people are truly evil.

An interesting sidebar to the “Alien Enemies” law dispute from Forbes: Trump’s Sister Declared The Immigration Law He Used Unconstitutional.

In a historical twist, Donald Trump’s sister was the federal judge who ruled unconstitutional the immigration law the Trump administration is using to deport a pro-Palestinian protester. In 1996, U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry wrote an opinion that declared unconstitutional the part of U.S. immigration law that Donald Trump has promised to continue employing to deport protesters. The current case has captured headlines and will test the Trump administration’s immigration authority….

On March 8, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and pro-Palestinian protester who graduated in December from Columbia University. Controversy over the arrest surrounded the Trump administration using a provision in immigration law that allows for deportation if the Secretary of State believes an alien’s presence or activities “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

In 1995, Secretary of State Warren Christopher used the same authority when attempting to deport Ruiz Massieu to Mexico. As presented by the court documents, the circumstances in that case were quite different from the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.

In September 1994, Ruiz Massieu’s brother, a prominent member of PRI, Mexico’s ruling party, was assassinated. As Deputy Attorney General, Ruiz Massieu investigated and identified a PRI official, Manuel Munoz Rocha, as the lead conspirator in his brother’s killing. Rocha was protected, first by official immunity and later by disappearing before an interview could be conducted. In late November 1994, Massieu resigned in a public speech and later published a book criticizing the PRI.

After Mexican officials sought his arrest, he entered the United States legally as a visitor (he owned property in Texas) and flew to Spain with a stopover at Newark Airport. In Newark, he was arrested for declaring only $18,000 of the $44,322 in cash with him. While the declaration infraction was later dropped, the Mexican government charged him with crimes “against the administration of justice” and sought his extradition.

“It was then, however, that this case took a turn toward the truly Kafkaesque,” writes U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister. She notes that the Immigration and Naturalization Service took Massieu into custody. “He was ordered to show cause as to why he should not be deported because, the Secretary of State has made a determination that . . . there is reasonable ground to believe your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” (Emphasis added.) In 1996, the provision was Section 241(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act but it was later redesignated Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) due to other changes in the INA. The language in both designations is identical.

More at the Forbes link.

More News links

CNN: Trump says he had ‘very good’ call with Zelensky after speaking to Putin yesterday.

AP: Zelenskyy says Putin’s vow not to hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is ‘at odds with reality.’

Steven Rosenberg at BBC News: Rosenberg: Trump-Putin call seen as victory in Russia.

Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic: Trump Gets a Taste of Putin’s Tactics. (Gift link)

Jamelle Bouie at The New York Times: Trump Has Gone From Unconstitutional to Anti-Constitutional.

Politico: Hill Republicans already hated the ‘idiotic’ call to impeach judges. Then Trump jumped in.

Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian: The Constitutional Crisis May be Upon Us.

The New York Times: DOGE Cuts Reach Key Nuclear Scientists, Bomb Engineers and Safety Experts.

The Washington Post: Trump aides prep new tariffs on imports worth trillions for ‘Liberation Day.

The New York Times: Kennedy’s Alarming Prescription for Bird Flu on Poultry Farms.

The Atlantic: The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia.

Philip Bump at The Washington Post: They’re coming for immigrants first. And the Trump administration is signaling that no one else might be safe, either.

Timothy Snyder at “Thinking about…”: The evil at your door. The deportation action as regime change.

Sorry this post isn’t longer. I’m still dealing with a bad cold. I just can’t seem to shake it.