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On Monday a DC Appeals Court blocked President Donald Trump from removing radical Democratic members from two federal labor boards. In a 7-4 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated a March 28 ruling by a three-judge panel of the same court, according to Reuters. The latest rulings again reinstates Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.

A federal appeals court determined that the White House does not have the authority to issue binding environmental regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), upending several decades of the practice. NEPA is a federal law that requires federal agencies to conduct a review of environmental impacts before making any decisions and then issue a “detailed statement” of the environmental review. In a divided decision Tuesday, the D.C. District Court of Appeals ruled that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), established to instruct agencies on NEPA compliance, does not have the power to issue regulations on other...

TikTok and a group of creators on the popular short video app have tapped a pair of leading U.S. Supreme Court lawyers to battle the U.S. government over a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets or face a ban. Andrew Pincus of law firm Mayer Brown will argue against the controversial U.S. law for TikTok and ByteDance when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears arguments in their case on Sept 16. Jeffrey Fisher of Stanford Law School will advocate for content creators. They will face longtime appellate lawyer Daniel Tenny of the Justice...

Lawsuits against Donald Trump brought by Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the U.S. Capitol riot, can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to dismiss the civil lawsuits that accuse him of inciting the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021. But the court said it’s ruling was not the final word on whether presidential immunity shields the Republican from liability in the case and said the judges express “no view on the ultimate merits of the claims” against the former president. Trump had...

The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case that could significantly scale back federal agencies’ authority, with major implications for the future of environmental and other regulations. The justices next term will consider whether to overturn a decades-old precedent that grants agencies deference when Congress left ambiguity in a statute. Named for the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron deference has become one of the most frequently cited precedents in administrative law since the decision was first handed down in 1984. It involves a two-step test: First, judges decide if Congress...

D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman penned a scathing dissent Friday on a defamation case The Reagan-appointed judge slammed the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan landmark decision requiring plaintiffs to prove 'actual malice' by defendantsSilberman claimed the ruling has only increased the power of the press, which is almost completely controlled by the Democratic Party 'Two of the three most influential papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets,' he wroteHe named Fox News, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal as the 'few notable exceptions to Democratic Party ideological control'

A three-judge federal appeals court said Tuesday the DOJ’s settlement with Fokker Services B.V. for alleged sanctions violations could go ahead after a district court judge rejected the arrangement as “anemic.” The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC said prosecutors and not judges make decisions to enter into deferred prosecution agreement with corporate defendants. In February 2015, federal district court judge Richard Leon refused to approve the settlement. He said the proposed $21 million penalty was “grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Fokker Sercvices’ conduct in a post-911 world.” Holland-based Fokker Services admitted in a 2014 plea deal that...

The White House has narrowed its search for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to three federal appeals court judges, Sri Srinivasan, Merrick Garland and Paul Watford, a source familiar with the selection process said on Friday.

The White House has reportedly narrowed its list of potential Supreme Court nominees down to five people, and four of them have donated to Barack Obama's political campaigns. The five federal judges who will be interviewed by the White House for the nomination are federal judges Sri Srinivasan (who has donated $4,250 to Obama), Jane Kelly ($1,500 to Obama), Paul Watford ($1,000 to Obama), Ketanji Brown Jackson ($450 to Obama), and Merrick Garland, who has not donated to Obama. http://freebeacon.com/politics/four-out-of-five-of-obamas-supreme-court-finalists-are-obama-donors/

From the Thursday Morning Jolt:… Why Sri Srinivasan Might Not Be So Centrist or Moderate After All A conservative legal mind who watches the DC circuit closely writes in to the Morning Jolt, offering a cautionary note about the conventional wisdom that DC Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sri Srinivasan represents one of President Obama's more centrist or moderate options for a Supreme Court nomination: You mentioned Judge Sri Srinivasan as a moderate falling somewhere between Souter and Kennedy. He is not likely to be a moderate. In fact, so far, his record as a judge on the D.C. Circuit...

Senate Republicans refusing to countenance filling the US supreme court vacancy have, so far, been able to make it a debate about abstract concepts. But when Barack Obama names his nominee, that is set to change. “They just keep digging themselves in a deeper and deeper hole,” Democratic senator Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday. “If anything, when the president nominates someone and there’s a real live person there, and I’m sure that person will be a very reasonable person to be on the court in the American people’s eyes, it’s going to get worse for them. It’s not going...

Shortly after news broke that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had passed many started speculating who his successor would be if President Barack Obama were to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice. One name floated frequently was Sri Srinivasan, who The New Yorker described as "the nominee in waiting."