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Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has repeatedly been assigned cases to do with President Donald Trump's second term, as Townhall has been covering. Congress has taken notice, and the House last month passed a bill to rein in rogue judges like Boasberg and others. Questions still remain, though, and on Monday, Townhall obtained a letter from Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Chip Roy (R-TX) regarding such concerns. The letter was sent to Angela D. Caesar, the Clerk of the Court for the U.S. District Court for...

The D.C. Circuit just issued a major ruling in favor of the Trump Administration that lifted a stay on the Administration's decision to terminate contracts and positions at Voice of America. The decision severely undercuts the arguments used by other district courts, particularly jurisdictional arguments. This is only the latest appellate decision pushing back on district court injunctions. However, the analysis will reach beyond the confines of this case.

Sparks flew during a closely-watched federal appeals court hearing Monday afternoon — with a Barack Obama-appointed judge tearing into the Trump administration’s plans to mass-deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Judge Patricia Millett, a member of the bench since 2013, dominated much of the questioning — grilling a Justice Department lawyer over due process concerns for the 260 purported illegal migrants shipped to a notorious El Salvador prison earlier this month under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. “There were planeloads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” Millett exclaimed at one point....

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments Monday on whether a lower court can properly address the Trump administration's efforts to deport Venezuelan nationals via a 1798 wartime law. The administration asked for a stay pending appeal shortly after an initial March 15 order was issued, calling it a "massive, unauthorized imposition on the Executive’s authority to remove dangerous aliens who pose threats to the American people." The Trump administration had attempted to invoke a 1798 wartime authority to deport Venezuelan nationals, including alleged members of the gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), for a period...

Probably the least bad panel you could get in D.C. Circuit.

The federal judge overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump put a damper on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s victory in his separate case in Washington D.C. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday shot down Trump’s bid to dismiss his federal election interference case based on presidential immunity. On the same day, District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the other case against Trump in Florida, ruled that some discovery material that Smith wanted to keep under seal would be disclosed, reminding him “of the strong presumption of public access in criminal proceedings.” “Following an...

As we reported earlier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against former President Donald Trump in his appeal on presidential immunity from prosecution. The three-judge panel affirmed the ruling of the District Court in the matter. The appeal delayed the start of the election interference case that had been set for March 4. Now, it should be noted that even though the ruling went against Trump, just the filing of it bought him some time, as George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley explained.“The most practical impact of this appeal was indeed the delay that...

Appeals court denies Donald Trump immunity in DC election case

DC Circuit largely vacates Chutkan's restraining order

The District allowed "Black Lives Matter" protestors to violate the city's defacement ordiance, but enforced the law against groups with a different political message. Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit revived a lawsuit agaisnt the District of Columbia for selective enforcement of the district's defacement ordinance in violation of the First Amendment. Judge Rao wrote for the court in Frederick Douglass Foundation v. District of Columbia, joined by Judge Childs, reversing the district court's dismissal of the Foundation's First Amendment claim, but affirming dismissal of an Equal Protection claim. Judge Wilkins concurred in the judgment. Judge...

BREAKING: A federal judge has just blocked the use of Title 42 at the border as a result of ACLU litigation. Title 42 allows the U.S. to immediately expel migrants on the basis of public health. It has been used millions of times under both Trump & Biden. T42 is gone, for now.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will be nominated for the Supreme Court, worked for seven years as a judge on the federal trial court in Washington, D.C., before Biden appointed her to the appeals court that meets in the same courthouse. Here are excerpts from some notable opinions: PRESIDENTIAL POWER In 2019, Jackson ruled on a dispute between Democrats who control the House of Representatives and the Trump administration over lawmakers’ efforts to subpoena former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify to Congress. The administration appealed, and the case bounced around the D.C. Circuit through the...

A federal judge has encouraged all of his colleagues to "carefully consider" whether the Yale Law School students who attempted to shout down a bipartisan panel on free speech "should be disqualified from potential clerkships." D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman sent an email on Thursday to all federal judges in the United States, urging them to take the fracas at the nation's top law school seriously. "The latest events at Yale Law School," Silberman wrote, "prompt me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all...

Pro-life Sen. Josh Hawley expressed alarm Wednesday about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “soft” record on child sex offenders amid growing concerns about protecting children from abuse. Jackson, President Joe Biden’s nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, also has a pro-abortion record that includes working with abortion activists on a case about suppressing pro-life advocates’ free speech. Her record on unborn babies’ rights has pro-life advocates opposing her nomination. Now, Hawley’s findings are raising additional concerns about other vulnerable children. “Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes,...

Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's membership in a Harvard University student group that once invited a controversial anti-Semitic speaker to campus has surfaced ahead of her confirmation hearings later this month. In 1992, Jackson was a member of the Harvard Black Students Association when they invited Leonard Jeffries, a professor known for making anti-Semitic remarks, to speak at the university, Fox News reports. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Jeffries first gained public attention in 1991, “when the New York Post published an account of a vitriolic anti-Semitic and racist speech he made on July 20 at the Empire...

Article was published anonymously in 1996 by Harvard Law Review, but Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson did not disclose her authorship until the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her to list published writings as part of her confirmation process. ******************************************************************************* President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, admitted on a questionnaire for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that she had authored a paper criticizing the "excessiveness" of sex offenders' punishments, which she said could be "unfair and unnecessarily burdensome." Jackson authored "Prevention Versus Punishment: Toward a Principled Distinction in the Restraint of Released Sex Offenders," which was published anonymously...

BREAKING: Biden has chosen his Supreme Court nominee, with announcement expected as soon as Friday - CNN

(CNN)With only a few days left in February, court watchers are trying to read tea leaves as to the identity of President Joe Biden's pick for the Supreme Court before his end-of-the-month deadline -- and a federal court on Thursday increased the buzz around DC Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit deviated from its typical procedure by issuing an opinion on a Thursday -- breaking with its usual schedule of Tuesday and Friday release days. Notably, Jackson -- who has interviewed with Biden for the Supreme Court nomination -- was...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” host Laura Ingraham contrasted President Joe Biden’s vow to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court to replace outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer with then-Sen. Biden’s opposition to and multiple filibusters of the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the federal bench by then-President George W. Bush in 2003 and 2005 and remarked that “race and gender, they only count if you’re thought to be a committed judicial activist, judicial leftist.” Ingraham said, [relevant remarks begin around 2:50] “I’m thinking back on the nomination of what would’ve been another first,...

Sen. Joe Biden said Sunday that if President Bush nominates recently confirmed Circuit Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats will launch a filibuster. "If [Bush] sent up Edith Jones, I could assure you that would be a very, very, very difficult fight - and she would probably be filibustered," Biden told CBS's "Face the Nation." In the next breath Biden corrected himself, saying, "I misspoke, I misspoke. Janice Rogers Brown is what I meant to say." Asked whether that would break the Senate's much heralded compromise last month not to...