Free Republic

The Supreme Court has set a new, higher bar for judges seeking to block Trump administration policies nationwide. But some legal routes remain open.A Supreme Court ruling limiting the ability of judges to block White House policies will bring a wave of urgency and uncertainty to the federal courts, experts said, as plaintiffs pursue new ways of blocking President Trump’s agenda and judges sort out how to apply the court’s complex ruling. On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that district court judges likely exceeded their authority with so-called nationwide injunctions. Also known as universal injunctions, they have been used by...

A federal appeals court panel late Thursday temporarily lifted a judge’s order ruling President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard illegal, enabling the troops to remain assisting with immigration raids in Los Angeles, for now. The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals landed mere hours after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ordered the president to return control of the troops to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) by Friday afternoon. The Trump administration in urging the 9th Circuit to immediately intervene called the judge’s order “unprecedented” and an “extraordinary intrusion” into Trump’s authority.

The judges on the U.S. Court of International Trade who ruled that President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are illegal have a history of Democrat Party activism.Each of the members of the three-judge panel issuing the Wednesday ruling – which was stayed Thursday by an appeals court, allowing the tariffs to continue – fit the profile of other activists judges who continued their political activism after joining the court.Judges Gary Katzmann, Timothy Reif, and Jane Restani have histories of supporting Democrat candidates that span as far back as 45 years ago and have thwarted Trump’s authority in both of his...

During Supreme Court oral arguments in the Trump v. CASA, Washington, and New Jersey cases, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a surgical takedown of the legal rationale for nationwide injunctions, using just one line.The case centers around whether lower courts can issue sweeping injunctions that block federal policies nationwide, even when only a handful of plaintiffs are before the court. Representing the United States, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that such broad orders violate established legal norms and Supreme Court precedent.“We believe that the best reading of that is what you said in Trump against Hawaii, which is that Wirtz in...

A state district court judge in Missoula on Tuesday ruled that a 2023 state law banning many gender transition-related medical services for transgender minors is unconstitutional, prohibiting its enforcement. The 59-page ruling from district court Judge Jason Marks found that Senate Bill 99, backed by Republicans largely along party lines during the legislative session two years ago, violates the Montana Constitution’s rights to privacy, equal protection and free speech. The law had been temporarily enjoined before it was scheduled to take effect. The Montana Supreme Court upheld that block in 2024. The court found that plaintiffs, including transgender teen Phoebe...

The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to weigh in on one of the most significant legal power plays in recent memory: whether individual federal trial judges can continue issuing nationwide injunctions that derail national policy. The high court’s move could mark a turning point in the Trump administration’s effort to rein in what it sees as activist judges stifling the will of the elected government. John Yoo, a law professor at UC Berkeley and former Justice Department official, broke down the issue during an appearance on Fox News, where he explained the gravity of the situation and why the Supreme...

Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating some federal courts. It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration. In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain federal judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service on Tuesday, the latest in a string of legal setbacks for his sweeping agenda. US District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, DC, ruled that Trump’s order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights. Ana Reyes, district court judge nominee, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, blocking the enforcement of a President Trump's transgender military service ban

A federal judge on Saturday night temporarily blocked President Trump from removing immigrants under a wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 after the president announced earlier in the day that he would enforce the law. Despite the ruling, 261 people were deported to El Salvador on Saturday, 137 of whom were removed under the Alien Enemies Act over alleged gang ties, a senior administration official said. The White House and Justice Department have said they had already been removed from the country when the judge made his ruling. The judge's ruling was in response to a...

Trump admin ordered to pay part of $2 billion in foreign aid by today Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett argues district court Judge Amir Ali is acting as a 'super president' by setting foreign policy and discusses a judge's decision not to charge a 14-year-old alleged cop killer as an adult.

On March 5 in a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court order compelling the Trump administration to disburse nearly $2 billion in foreign subsidies through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department. This ruling forces the executive branch to pay out taxpayer funds against its policy priorities. It is not just a setback for President Trump’s “America First” agenda, it’s a glaring example of judicial overreach that threatens the constitutional balance of power.The Supreme Court’s majority has effectively handed a single district judge the unchecked authority to dictate executive action, a move that...

In his ruling, Alsup ordered OPM to rescind a January 20 memo and a February 14 email directing agencies to identify probationary employees who are not "mission-critical" and terminate them... "Probationary employees are the lifeblood of our government. They come in at a low level and work their way up. That's how we renew ourselves," said Alsup, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton.

The Justice Department filed charges of judicial misconduct against Biden-appointed District Judge Ana C. Reyes for overt hostility toward the government in Thursday's hearing on President Trump's Executive Order barring transgender applicants from joining the military. Attorney General Pam Bondi's chief of staff accused Reyes of engaging in "hostile and egregious misconduct" during the hearing

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 20 mandating the housing of transgender women in men’s prisons and halting federal funding for gender-affirming care. A federal judge has since blocked the transfer of transgender inmate “Maria Moe” to a men’s prison and the denial of Moe’s care. The lawsuit challenges Trump’s order and prevents the transfer. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) reclassified Moe from “female” to “male” and planned to transfer her to a men’s facility, threatening Moe’s access to hormone therapy. U.S. District Judge George O’Toole issued a temporary restraining order on January 26, preventing Moe’s transfer...

President Donald Trump loves to take a phrase and drain it of all meaning. In his first term, he transformed the term "fake news" from describing a specific problem with a type of misinformation into an attack on any journalist he didn't like or a piece of journalism that made him look bad. Now he's doing the same to the word "lawfare," and the stakes are even higher — including, potentially, the guardrails of our democracy. Coined in 2001, "lawfare" refers to the use of courts and other legal systems to damage or delegitimize a political opponent. After Trump left...

Everybody needs to calm down and take a deep breath – the DOGE revolution is not in danger because a bunch of obscure district court judges in blue jurisdictions have signed ridiculous temporary orders purporting to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to actually be president. Don’t listen to the black pill battalion. We’re not losing this fight. We’re going to win it. Listen to the vice president – JD Vance has gotten a lot of heat because he pointed out that this is a legal farce. As usual, he’s right. And, to the extent there is a constitutional crisis –...

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking at a Florida college on Tuesday, made pointed remarks about the limits of presidential power and her fear that government officials might flout court decisions. “Our founders were hellbent on ensuring that we didn’t have a monarchy,” she said, “and the first way they thought of that was to give Congress the power of the purse.”

While Trump reiterated he would always abide by the courts, he expressed concern that decisions undermining DOGE’s authority would allow bureaucracies to get away with kickbacks and other forms of corruption. “But appeals take a long time, and I would hope that a judge, if you go to a judge and you show them, ‘Here’s a corrupt situation. We have a check to be sent, but we found it to be corrupt. Do you want us to send this corrupt check to a person, or do you want us not to give it and give it back to the taxpayer?’...

Newly resurfaced footage from 2021 reveals controversial statements by U.S. District Judge John McConnell, who recently blocked President Donald Trump’s spending freeze. U.S. District Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee who recently blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to freeze federal spending, is facing renewed scrutiny following the resurfacing of a 2021 video interview where he described racism as a “white people problem” and called for diversity-focused reforms in the judiciary. In the interview, published on Helen Cooke’s YouTube channel and uncovered by Natalie Winters, co-host of Steve Bannon’s War Room, McConnell advocated for identity-based sentencing considerations and criticized the lack...

It’s an old story: When people are allowed to get their way for too long, when they’re never told “No!” they may get too big for their britches. They may develop a sense of entitlement and even become narcissistic. And proving that judges are no exception to this reality are a number of recent court “opinions” designed to scuttle President Trump’s agenda. One disallows DOGE from scrutinizing Treasury Department data. Another states that the Trump administration must unfreeze funding on grants and loans. A different opinion puts a freeze on Trump’s buyout offer for federal employees. And yet another ordered...