President Donald Trump’s ploy to bully Senate Republicans into dropping a longstanding rule about presidential nominations appears to have crashed and burned, Politico reported on Tuesday — with lawmakers holding their ground against him in a way they generally dare not do.
The drama began in July, when Trump lashed out at 91-year-old Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA), calling him “weak and ineffective” and demanding he axe “blue slips,” the tradition that committees must have the approval of a nominee’s home state senators to advance a nominee.
Republicans already weakened blue slip rules for circuit court nominees in 2017, which is how Trump’s former personal lawyer Emil Bove got a circuit court appointment earlier this year despite objections from both of New Jersey’s senators. But they have been adamantly against eliminating them for district court judges or executive nominations.
Grassley pushed back, taking umbrage at Trump’s “personal insults” against him, and the broader Senate GOP caucus followed suit. According to Politico, there’s no sign of the GOP backing down — they may tinker with nomination rules to speed up confirmations on the Senate floor, but they won’t eliminate blue slips or weaken the committee vetting process.
Unlike in many other cases of resistance against Trump, where GOP lawmakers have given quotes anonymously, some senators are being quite open in rebuffing the president, with Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) telling Politico, “As a practical matter, the Senate’s not going to give up the blue slip. So my appeal to the president is: please reconsider. Why do we want to have this fight for nothing?”
There’s a key reason GOP senators don’t want to undermine their rules for Trump’s benefit here, strategists told Politico: they know it would backfire on them.
Mike Fragoso, a former adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), “argued that even Republicans wary of crossing the president now have taken advantage of the blue slip policy when Democrats held power. He added that there are relatively few bench seats in solidly Democratic states that Trump could even fill now without consent from Democrats,” noted the report. This means Trump would get very few judges nominated by totally eliminating blue slips, but a future Democratic president could flood red states with district court judges of their own.
Beyond judges, however, Trump is being stymied by blue slips when it comes to appointing federal prosecutors.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has blocked Jay Clayton’s confirmation to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, while New Jersey’s senators have blocked another personal Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, for the prosecutor office there, prompting a standoff where Trump’s Justice Department has skirted rules and reversed decisions of local judges to install her on an acting basis.
Earlier this week, the Justice Department escalated its fight with the judiciary by filing an ethics complaint against Judge James Boasberg, the chief U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C. Boasberg is overseeing the case challenging the Trump administration’s deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison without due process. The new complaint, signed by Attorney General Pam [Bimbo #3] Bondi’s chief of staff, accuses Boasberg of making improper comments about President Donald Trump.
Only those wearing MAGA-tinted glasses could fail to see this complaint for what it is: another brazen attack on the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers, and another crack in the foundation of American democracy.
The controversy began March 15, when five Venezuelans sued Trump and other administration officials to block their imminent deportation under a 2025 presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act. That 1798 law allows the removal of foreign citizens when there is a “declared war … or any invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign nation against the United States. The plaintiffs were among hundreds being deported to a country other than their homeland. They were not given an opportunity to challenge the legality of their deportation, or even to contest the government’s allegations that they were gang members. Comparing the situation to a Kafka-esque nightmare, Boasberg ordered the administration to stop the deportations.
In April, the case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled for the administration on a legal technicality regarding the proper mechanism and jurisdiction for the suit. At the same time, the court unanimously affirmed that those facing deportation must be allowed to bring a legal challenge before removal. The case was sent back to Boasberg and remains ongoing.
Shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Boasberg also found that the government had likely committed criminal contempt of court by willfully disobeying his order to stop deportations. He offered the government a chance to correct its contempt before referring the case for prosecution, but in April a three-judge panel from the D.C. appellate court paused the contempt proceedings without addressing the merits. Curiously, the pause has lasted for months, leaving the contempt action in limbo.
Then came Monday. The Justice Department formally accused Boasberg of committing misconduct during a national judicial conference held March 11 — before the deportation case began. The complaint alleges Boasberg “attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice [John] Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges” by expressing “his belief that the Trump Administration would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.’” In the AEA case, then, Boasberg “began acting on his preconceived belief that the Trump Administration would not follow court orders.” The DOJ argues that Boasberg’s “words and deeds” harmed “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
To begin with, the DOJ’s complaint is misleading: The memo it cites, summarizing the conference, says Boasberg “raised his colleagues’ concerns,” not his own. But no matter who raised the concerns, they would be right on the mark. Trump’s record of contempt for the judiciary is well established. Throughout his first term, he repeatedly criticized judges who ruled against the administration. While out of office, Trump repeatedly leveled personal attacks against not only the judges presiding over his criminal and civil cases, but even court staff and their family members. And Trump specifically called for Boasberg’s impeachment in March after the judge ordered a temporary pause in deportations.
Although Trump has publicly said that he would follow court orders, his administration’s track record on respecting judicial authority suggests otherwise. For example, in early July, the Justice Department filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the entire bench of federal judges in Maryland, challenging an administrative order issued by their chief judge regarding deportation cases. Disturbingly, there is also evidence that Emil Bove, whom the Senate confirmed Tuesday to an appellate judgeship, told DOJ prosecutors that, if necessary, they should ignore court orders that stop deportations.
Given this track record, for the Trump administration to accuse Boasberg of undermining public confidence in the judiciary is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. In truth, the complaint against Boasberg is an obvious stunt. The administration is following the old legal adage: When the facts and the law are against you, “pound the table and yell like hell.”
No matter where this complaint goes from here, it is likely to have a chilling effect on judicial independence. Judges routinely discuss their constitutional approach or emerging legal trends in public, including during Senate confirmation hearings. This complaint puts a target on the backs of judges who speak out against executive overreach or comment on other broad legal issues that could be perceived as contrary to administration policy.
It will threaten judicial independence, undermine judicial legitimacy, and ultimately show that, for this administration, legal authority depends on political loyalty rather than adherence to the rule of law.
The justices of the Supreme Court appear to at least understand this in principle. Speaking at a judicial ceremony in May, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized judicial independence is “crucial” to “check the excesses of the Congress or the executive.” Against the backdrop of Trump’s attacks on the federal judiciary, Roberts reiterated the familiar simile that judges are like umpires, responsible for calling balls and strikes fairly and impartially.
It’s less clear whether Roberts and his colleagues are prepared to fight for that ideal. After all, when a manager’s antics — like kicking dirt at the umpire’s feet or screaming in his face — begin to undermine the integrity of the game itself, eventually even the most restrained umpire must be prepared to eject him. Without that implicit threat, the game will collapse under the bullying of any manager who is unwilling to follow the rules everyone else plays by.
No one should tolerate that: not in a sporting event and certainly not in an arena when our nation and democracy are at stake.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/justice-department-pam-bondi-judge-boasberg-rcna222067
When Julien Giraud Jr. was federally indicted on drug and gun charges last year in New Jersey, he had little reason to think his case would double as a challenge to the lawfulness of Alina [Bimbo #4] Habba’s position as U.S. attorney. But that challenge is now playing out, as the defendant argues that the Trump ally isn’t lawfully serving in her position and therefore the office she purports to lead lacks the authority to prosecute him.
Whether or not she is lawfully in the role of U.S. attorney could have vast implications beyond this one case.
The challenge involves rather technical issues about federal law over vacancies and how they can be filled, so take a deep breath before taking in the following background.
[Bimbo #4] Habba had been temporarily serving as U.S. attorney since March, but her temporary period expired this month without her being confirmed by the Senate to serve full time. New Jersey’s federal judges used their legal authority to appoint a different prosecutor from the office, Desiree Leigh Grace, as the new interim U.S. attorney. But the Trump administration moved to fire Grace. President Donald Trump also withdrew his nomination of [Bimbo #4] Habba, she technically resigned, and the administration then reinstalled her through another mechanism to keep her in the job as acting U.S. attorney.
Got all that? I told you it was technical.
So what’s Giraud’s argument? In a motion filed Sunday ahead of his trial set for next week, his lawyer Thomas Mirigliano wrote that Habba’s reappointment violated federal law because the fact that Trump submitted [Bimbo #4] Habba’s nomination to the Senate prevents her from serving in an acting capacity, regardless of whether Trump subsequently withdrew her nomination or not. He argued that being prosecuted by an unauthorized U.S. attorney undermines his due process rights, so he asked U.S. District Judge Edward Kiel, the New Jersey judge handling his case, to dismiss the indictment or at least to block [Bimbo #4] Habba or any prosecutor acting under her authority from prosecuting him.
The New York Times reported that federal court proceedings throughout New Jersey “were abruptly canceled on Monday because of uncertainty over” Habba’s authority, citing Giraud’s case and others. [Bimbo #4] Habba is one of several lawyers who represented Trump in his personal capacity and have gone on to high-ranking Justice Department posts during his second term.
After Giraud filed his motion, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which covers New Jersey and nearby states, tapped Pennsylvania’s chief federal trial judge for the state’s middle district, Matthew Brann, to preside over the matter. The chief circuit judge made the move under a law that says chief circuit judges “may, in the public interest, designate and assign temporarily any district judge of the circuit to hold a district court in any district within the circuit.”
The 3rd Circuit, incidentally, is the appeals court to which another Trump personal lawyer-turned-Trump DOJ lawyer, Emil Bove, is awaiting Senate confirmation. Several whistleblowers have come forward against him to raise concerns about his conduct at DOJ and his truthfulness to lawmakers at his confirmation hearing last month.
Opposing Giraud’s motion on Tuesday, the DOJ maintained that [Bimbo #4] Habba is lawfully in her role and that even if she weren’t, “there would be no basis for dismissing this indictment or prohibiting everyone in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey (USAO-NJ) from participating in this prosecution.” The DOJ asked that the motion be denied and the case be transferred back to Kiel in New Jersey.
Brann ordered a status conference with the parties to take place Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., so the direction in which the matter is headed could become clearer later Tuesday. Whatever happens at the trial court level might not be the last word on this consequential and thorny issue, so this could be just the start of drawn-out litigation.
Emil Bove, nominated by President Donald Trump for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, fell under heavy scrutiny during his confirmation hearing. A DOJ official and Trump attorney, Bove rejected claims of being a “henchman” and defended his adherence to the rule of law. Bove drew criticism for dropping corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams and questioning FBI probes into the January 6 attack.
Bove’s nomination advanced past the Senate Judiciary Committee, which voted 12-0. The Senate voted 50-48 to overcome a procedural hurdle, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski voting against and Senator Susan Collins expressing intent to oppose final confirmation. Bove awaits a final Senate confirmation vote for the lifetime judicial post.
Emil Bove is a Trump suck-up and a real creep. He’s the last person we want in the federal judiciary.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-nominee-wins-crucial-50-48-senate-vote/ss-AA1JlbI6
A comprehensive analysis of hundreds of lawsuits against Trump policies shows dozens of examples of defiance, delay and dishonesty, which experts say pose an unprecedented threat to the U.S. legal system.
President Donald Trump and his appointees have been accused of flouting courts in a third of the more than 160 lawsuits against the administration in which a judge has issued a substantive ruling, a Washington Post analysis has found, suggesting widespread noncompliance with America’s legal system.
Plaintiffs say Justice Department lawyers and the agencies they represent are snubbing rulings, providing false information, failing to turn over evidence, quietly working around court orders and inventing pretexts to carry out actions that have been blocked.
Judges appointed by presidents of both parties have often agreed. None have taken punitive action to try to force compliance, however, allowing the administration’s defiance of orders to go on for weeks or even months in some instances.
Outside legal analysts say courts typically are slow to begin contempt proceedings for noncompliance, especially while their rulings are under appeal. Judges also are likely to be concerned, analysts say, that the U.S. Marshals Service — whose director is appointed by the president — might not serve subpoenas or take recalcitrant government officials into custody if ordered to by the courts.
The allegations against the administration are crystallized in a whistleblower complaint filed to Congress late last month that accused Justice officials of ignoring court orders in immigration cases, presenting legal arguments with no basis in the law and misrepresenting facts. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor also chided the administration, writing that Trump officials had “openly flouted” a judge’s order not to deport migrants to a country where they did not have citizenship.
The Post examined 337 lawsuits filed against the administration since Trump returned to the White House and began a rapid-fire effort to reshape government programs and policy. As of mid-July, courts had ruled against the administration in 165 of the lawsuits. The Post found that the administration is accused of defying or frustrating court oversight in 57 of those cases — almost 35 percent.
Legal experts said the pattern of conduct is unprecedented for any presidential administration and threatens to undermine the judiciary’s role as a check on an executive branch asserting vast powers that test the boundaries of the law and Constitution. Immigration cases have emerged as the biggest flash point, but the administration has also repeatedly been accused of failing to comply in lawsuits involving cuts to federal funding and the workforce.
Trump officials deny defying court orders, even as they accuse those who have issued them of “judicial tyranny.” When the Supreme Court in June restricted the circumstances under which presidential policies could be halted nationwide while they are challenged in court, Trump hailed the ruling as halting a “colossal abuse of power.”
“We’ve seen a handful of radical left judges try to overrule the rightful powers of the president,” Trump said, falsely portraying the judges who have ruled against him as being solely Democrats.
His point was echoed Monday by White House spokesman Harrison Fields, who attacked judges who have ruled against the president as “leftist” and said the president’s attorneys “are working tirelessly to comply” with rulings. “If not for the leadership of the Supreme Court, the Judicial Branch would collapse into a kangaroo court,” Fields said in a statement.
Retired federal judge and former Watergate special prosecutor Paul Michel compared the situation to the summer of 1974, when the Supreme Court ordered President Richard M. Nixon to turn over Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation. Nixon initially refused, prompting fears of a constitutional crisis, but ultimately complied.
“The current challenge is even bigger and more complicated because it involves hundreds of actions, not one subpoena for a set of tapes,” Michel said. “We’re in new territory.”
Deportations and Defiance
Questions about whether the administration is defying judges have bubbled since early in Trump’s second term, when the Supreme Court said Trump must allow millions in already allocated foreign aid to flow. The questions intensified in several immigration cases, including high-profile showdowns over the wrongful deportation of an undocumented immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager and was raising a family in Maryland.
The Supreme Court ordered the government to “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego García’s return after officials admitted deporting him to a notorious prison in his native El Salvador despite a court order forbidding his removal to that country. Abrego remained there for almost two months, with the administration saying there was little it could do because he was under control of a foreign power.
In June, he was brought back to the United States in federal custody after prosecutors secured a grand jury indictment against him for human smuggling, based in large part on the testimony of a three-time felon who got leniency in exchange for cooperation. And recent filings in the case reveal that El Salvador told the United Nations that the U.S. retained control over prisoners sent there.
“Defendants have failed to respond in good faith, and their refusal to do so can only be viewed as willful and intentional noncompliance.” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, on the government declining to identify officials involved in Kilmar Abrego García’s deportation.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego’s lawyers, said the events prove the administration was “playing games with the court all along.”
Aziz Huq, a University of Chicago law professor, said the case is “the sharpest example of a pattern that’s observed across many of the cases that we’ve seen being filed against the Trump administration, in which orders that come from lower courts are either being slow-walked or not being complied with in good faith.”
In another legal clash, Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg found Trump officials engaged in “willful disregard” of his order to turn around deportation flights to El Salvador in mid-March after he issued a temporary restraining order against removing migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, which in the past had been used only in wartime.
A whistleblower complaint filed by fired Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni alleges that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told staffers before the flights that a judge might try to block them — and that it might be necessary to tell a court “f— you” and ignore the order.
Bove, who has since been nominated by Trump for an appellate judgeship and is awaiting Senate confirmation, denies the allegations.
In May, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, opined that the government had “utterly disregarded” her order to facilitate the return of a Venezuelan man who was also wrongfully deported to El Salvador. Like Boasberg, who was appointed by Obama, she is exploring contempt proceedings.
Another federal judge found Trump officials violated his court order by attempting to send deportees to South Sudan without due process. In a fourth case, authorities deported a man shortly after an appeals court ruled he should remain in the U.S. while his immigration case played out. Trump officials said the removal was an error but have yet to return him.
One of the most glaring examples of noncompliance involves a program to provide legal representation to minors who arrived at the border alone, often fearing for their safety after fleeing countries racked by gang violence.
In April, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, a Biden appointee, ordered the Trump administration to fund the program. The government delayed almost four weeks and moved to cancel a contract the judge had ordered restarted. While the money was held up, a 17-year-old was sent back to Honduras before he could meet with a lawyer.
Attorneys told the court that the teen probably could have won a reprieve with a simple legal filing. Alvaro Huerta, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in a suit over the funding cuts, said other minors might have suffered the same fate.
“Had they been complying with the temporary restraining order, this child would have been represented,” Huerta said.
Gaslighting the Court:
Another problematic case involves the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to police unfair, abusive or deceptive practices by financial institutions.
A judge halted the administration’s plans to fire almost all CFPB employees, ruling the effort was unlawful. An appeals court said workers could be let go only if the bureau performed an “individualized” or “particularized” assessment. Four business days later, the Trump administration reported that it had carried out a “particularized assessment” of more than 1,400 employees — and began an even bigger round of layoffs.
CFPB employees said in court filings that the process was a sham directed by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service. Employees said counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget told them to brush off the court’s required particularized assessment and simply meet the layoff quota.
“All that mattered was the numbers,” said one declaration submitted to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee.
Jackson halted the new firings, accusing the Trump administration of “dressing” its cuts in “new clothes.”
“There is reason to believe that the defendants … are thumbing their nose at both this Court and the Court of Appeals.” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on the government’s attempt to carry out firings at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau despite a court order blocking the move.
David Super, a Georgetown law professor, said the government has used the same legal maneuver in a number of cases. “They put out a directive that gets challenged,” Super said. “Then they do the same thing that the directive set out to do but say it’s on some other legal basis.”
He pointed to January, when OMB issued a memo freezing all federal grants and loans. Affected groups won an injunction. The White House quickly announced it was rescinding the memo but keeping the freeze in place.
Justice Department attorneys argued in legal filings that the government’s action rendered the injunction moot, but the judge said it appeared it had been done “simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts.”
“It appears that OMB sought to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct. The court can think of few things more disingenuous.” U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan on the Trump administration arguing a court order blocking a freeze on federal grants was moot because it had rescinded a memo.
In another case, a judge blocked the administration from ending federal funds for programs that promote “gender ideology,” or the idea that someone might identify with a gender other than their birth sex, while the effort was challenged in court. The National Institutes of Health nevertheless slashed a grant for a doctor at Seattle Children’s Hospital who was developing a health education tool for transgender youth.
The plaintiffs complained it was a violation of the court order, but the NIH said the grant was being cut under a different authority. Whistleblowers came forward with documents showing that the administration had apparently carried out the cuts under the executive order that was at the center of the court case.
U.S. District Judge Lauren King, a Biden appointee, said the documents “have raised substantial questions” about whether the government violated her preliminary injunction and ordered officials to produce documents. The government eventually reinstated the grant.
In a different case, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, was unsparing in her decision to place a hold on the Trump’s administration’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, saying the order was “soaked in animus.”
Then the government issued a new policy targeting troops who have symptoms of “gender dysphoria,” the term for people who feel a mismatch between their gender identity and birth sex, and asked Reyes to dissolve her order.
Reyes was stunned. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had made repeated public statements describing the policy as a ban on transgender troops. Hegseth had recently posted on X: “Pentagon says transgender troops are disqualified from service without an exemption.”
“I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public — what they really mean to the public — and coming in here to the court and telling me something different, like I’m an idiot,” the judge told the government’s lawyer. “The court is not going to be gaslit.”
Courts have traditionally assumed public officials, and the Justice Department in particular, are acting honestly, lawfully and in good faith. Since Trump returned to the White House, however, judges have increasingly questioned whether government lawyers are meeting that standard.
“The pattern of stuff we have … I haven’t seen before,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, a columnist for the conservative National Review and a former federal prosecutor. “The rules of the road are supposed to be you can tell a judge, ‘I can’t answer that for constitutional reasons,’ or you can tell the judge the truth.”
A Struggle for Accountability
While many judges have concluded that the Trump administration has defied court orders, only Boasberg has actively moved toward sanctioning the administration for its conduct. And he did so only after saying he had given the government “ample opportunity” to address its failure to return the deportation flights to El Salvador.
“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.” U.S. District Chief Judge James E. Boasberg, when moving to sanction the Trump administration.
The contempt proceedings he began were paused by an appeals court panel without explanation three months ago. The two judges who voted for the administrative stay were Trump appointees.
On Friday, the Trump administration brokered a deal with El Salvador and Venezuela to send the Venezuelan deportees at the heart of Boasberg’s case back to their homeland, further removing them from the reach of U.S. courts.
A contempt finding would allow the judge to impose fines, jail time or additional sanctions on officials to compel compliance.
In three other cases, judges have denied motions to hold Trump officials in contempt, but reiterated that the government must comply with a decision, or ordered the administration to turn over documents to determine whether it had violated a ruling. Judges are considering contempt proceedings in other cases as well.
Most lawsuits against the administration have been filed in federal court districts with a heavy concentration of judges appointed by Democratic presidents. The vast majority of judges who have found the administration defied court orders were appointed by Democrats, but judges selected by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have also found that officials failed to comply with orders. Most notably, at least two Trump picks have raised questions about whether officials have met their obligations to courts.
Legal experts said the slow pace of efforts to enforce court orders is not surprising. The judicial system moves methodically, and judges typically ratchet up efforts to gain compliance in small increments. They said there is also probably another factor at work that makes it especially difficult to hold the administration to account.
“The courts can’t enforce their own rulings — that has to be done by the executive branch,” said Michel, the former judge and Watergate special prosecutor.
He was referring to U.S. Marshals, the executive branch law enforcement personnel who carry out court orders related to contempt proceedings, whether that is serving subpoenas or arresting officials whom a judge has ordered jailed for not complying.
Former judges and other legal experts said judges might be calculating that a confrontation over contempt proceedings could result in the administration ordering marshals to defy the courts. That type of standoff could significantly undermine the authority of judges.
The Supreme Court’s June decision to scale back the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, and the administration’s success at persuading the justices to overturn about a dozen temporary blocks on its agenda in recent months, might only embolden Trump officials to defy lower courts, several legal experts said.
Sotomayor echoed that concern in a recent dissent when she accused the high court of “rewarding lawlessness” by allowing Trump officials to deport migrants to countries that are not their homelands. The conservative majority gave the green light, she noted, after Trump officials twice carried out deportations despite lower court orders blocking the moves.
“This is not the first time the court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,” Sotomayor wrote. “Yet each time this court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”
Two months after a federal court temporarily blocked Trump’s freeze on billions in congressionally approved foreign aid, an attorney for relief organizations said the government had taken “literally zero steps to allocate this money.”
Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, has ordered the administration to explain what it is doing to comply with the order. Trump officials have said they will eventually release the funds, but aid groups worry the administration is simply trying to delay until the allocations expire in the fall.
Meanwhile, about 66,000 tons of food aid is in danger of rotting in warehouses, AIDS cases are forecast to spike in Africa and the government projected the cuts would result in 200,000 more cases of paralysis caused by polio each year. Already, children are dying unnecessarily in Sudan.
Such situations have prompted some former judges to do something most generally do not — speak out. More than two dozen retired judges appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents have formed the Article III Coalition to push back on attacks and misinformation about the courts.
Robert J. Cindrich, who helped found the group, said the country is not yet in a constitutional crisis but that the strain on the courts is immense. Citing the administration’s response to orders, as well as its attacks on judges and law firms, Cindrich said, “The judiciary is being put under siege.”
“They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution – candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told The New Yorker. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.”
Shortly after three planes filled with alleged Tren de Aragua gang members took off for an El Salvador supermax prison in March, a judge issued a verbal order with a simple instruction to government lawyers: turn the planes around. The planes, however, continued to El Salvador.
Now, a whistleblower says a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official authorized disregarding the judge’s order, telling his staff they might have to tell the courts “f- you” in immigration cases.
The official was Principal Associate Attorney General Emil Bove, whom President Donald Trump nominated to be a federal judge. Leaked emails and texts from whistleblower and former DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni, released during the week of July 7, came days before a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Bove’s nomination to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the committee approves, Bove’s nomination will advance to the full Senate.
At Bove’s direction, “the Department of Justice is thumbing its nose at the courts, and putting Justice Department attorneys in an impossible position where they have to choose between loyalty to the agenda of the president and their duty to the court,” Reuveni told The New York Times.
Bove is perceived by some as a controversial choice for the lifetime position. He served on Trump’s defense team in the state and federal indictments filed after Trump’s first term in the White House.
In 2024, after Trump appointed him acting deputy attorney general, Bove ignited controversy over his firing of federal prosecutors involved in cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and over his role in dismissing corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Early this year, the federal government was using an arcane 18th-century wartime law – the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – to remove the alleged gang members from the United States without court hearings. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia ruled the removals violated the men’s right to due process, setting up the conflict with the DOJ.
The leaker’s emails and texts suggest Bove advised DOJ attorneys that it was okay to deplane the prisoners in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
The messages also cite Bove’s instruction for lawyers to consider saying “f- you” to the courts.
When Reuveni asked DOJ and Department of Homeland Security officials if they would honor the judge’s order to stop the planes to El Salvador, he received vague responses or none at all.
While the email and text correspondence allude to Bove’s instruction, none of the messages appear to have come directly from Bove himself. The official whistleblower complaint was filed on June 24.
Bove denies giving that instruction. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Bove said he “never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order.”
The leak prompted outrage from both sides of the political spectrum. Some say deporting people without trial to a supermax prison in El Salvador violates due process rights and a DOJ lawyer telling other lawyers to ignore a court order should put him in contempt of court.
However, Attorney General Pam Bondi – who served as one of Trump’s defense attorneys during his first Senate impeachment trial in 2020 – responded on X, saying there was no court order to defy.
“As Mr. Bove testified and as the Department has made clear, there was no court order to defy, as we successfully argued to the DC Circuit when seeking a stay, when they stayed Judge Boasberg’s lawless order. And no one was ever asked to defy a court order,” the attorney general wrote Thursday, July 10, when the emails and texts were released.
Bondi was referring to the DOJ’s immediate emergency appeal to the D.C. Circuit of Appeals requesting a stay of Boasberg’s temporary restraining order. The DOJ did not turn the planes around, arguing that a verbal order by the lower court is not binding and that the planes had already left U.S. airspace.
On March 26, the DOJ lost its appeal, with the D.C. Circuit voting 2-1 to uphold Boasberg’s ruling. The DOJ appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower courts had interfered with national security and overreached on executive immigration power. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the DOJ, 6-3, and lifted the lower court’s injunction on April 9.
Bondi accused the whistleblower Reuveni of spreading lies. She said on X that this is “another instance of misinformation being spread to serve a narrative that does not align with the facts.”
“This ‘whistleblower’ signed 3 briefs defending DOJ’s position in this matter and his subsequent revisionist account arose only after he was fired because he violated his ethical duties to the department,” Bondi wrote.
Reuveni worked at the DOJ for 15 years, mostly in the Office of Immigration and Litigation. Bondi fired Reuveni in April for failing to “zealously advocate” for the United States in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was accidentally deported to the El Salvador prison and whose return the Supreme Court eventually ordered.
Bondi and other Trump administration officials have fired many DOJ and FBI employees, saying the administration has broad constitutional power to do so.
“They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution – candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told The New Yorker. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.”
https://san.com/cc/doj-whistleblower-says-trump-appointee-ordered-defiance-of-courts
The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.
Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.
The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but four names on the list.
Reuters spoke to four former lawyers in the unit and three other people familiar with the departures who said some staffers had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump’s administration.
“Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” said one lawyer who left the unit during Trump’s second term. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”
Critics have accused the Trump administration of flouting the law in its aggressive use of executive power, including by retaliating against perceived enemies and dismantling agencies created by Congress.
The Trump administration has broadly defended its actions as within the legal bounds of presidential power and has won several early victories at the Supreme Court. A White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump’s actions were legal, and declined to comment on the departures.
“Any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the President’s policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement.
The seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures.
Three of them said some career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court, a violation of ethics rules that could lead to professional sanctions.
All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics and avoid retaliation.
A Justice Department spokesperson said lawyers in the unit are fighting an “unprecedented number of lawsuits” against Trump’s agenda.
“The Department has defeated many of these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and will continue to defend the President’s agenda to keep Americans safe,” the spokesperson said. The Justice Department did not comment on the departures of career lawyers or morale in the section.
Some turnover in the Federal Programs Branch is common between presidential administrations, but the seven sources described the number of people quitting as highly unusual.
Reuters was unable to find comparative figures for previous administrations. However, two former attorneys in the unit and two others familiar with its work said the scale of departures is far greater than during Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s administration.
The exits include at least 10 of the section’s 23 supervisors, experienced litigators who in many cases served across presidential administrations, according to two of the lawyers.
A spokesperson said the Justice Department is hiring to keep pace with staffing levels during the Biden Administration. They did not provide further details.
In its broad overhaul of the Justice Department, the Trump administration has fired or sidelined dozens of lawyers who specialize in prosecuting national security and corruption cases and publicly encouraged departures from the Civil Rights Division.
But the Federal Programs Branch, which defends challenges to White House and federal agency policies in federal trial courts, remains critical to its agenda.
The unit is fighting to sustain actions of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency formerly overseen by Elon Musk; Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship and his attempt to freeze $2.5 billion in funding to Harvard University.
“We’ve never had an administration pushing the legal envelope so quickly, so aggressively and across such a broad range of government policies and programs,” said Peter Keisler, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Division under Republican President George W. Bush.
“The demands are intensifying at the same time that the ranks of lawyers there to defend these cases are dramatically thinning.”
The departures have left the Justice Department scrambling to fill vacancies. More than a dozen lawyers have been temporarily reassigned to the section from other parts of the DOJ and it has been exempted from the federal government hiring freeze, according to two former lawyers in the unit.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not comment on the personnel moves.
Justice Department leadership has also brought in about 15 political appointees to help defend civil cases, an unusually high number.
The new attorneys, many of whom have a record defending conservative causes, have been more comfortable pressing legal boundaries, according to two former lawyers in the unit.
“They have to be willing to advocate on behalf of their clients and not fear the political fallout,” said Mike Davis, the head of the Article III Project, a pro-Trump legal advocacy group, referring to the role of DOJ lawyers in defending the administration’s policies.
People who have worked in the section expect the Federal Programs Branch to play an important role in the Trump administration’s attempts to capitalize on a Supreme Court ruling limiting the ability of judges to block its policies nationwide.
Its lawyers are expected to seek to narrow prior court rulings and also defend against an anticipated rise in class action lawsuits challenging government policies.
Lawyers in the unit are opposing two attempts by advocacy organizations to establish a nationwide class of people to challenge Trump’s order on birthright citizenship. A judge granted one request on Thursday.
Four former Justice Department lawyers told Reuters some attorneys in the Federal Programs Branch left over policy differences with Trump, but many had served in the first Trump administration and viewed their role as defending the government regardless of the party in power.
The four lawyers who left said they feared Trump administration policies to dismantle certain federal agencies and claw back funding appeared to violate the U.S. Constitution or were enacted without following processes that were more defensible in court.
Government lawyers often walked into court with little information from the White House and federal agencies about the actions they were defending, the four lawyers said.
The White House and DOJ did not comment when asked about communications on cases.
Attorney General Pam Bondi in February threatened disciplinary action against government lawyers who did not vigorously advocate for Trump’s agenda. The memo to Justice Department employees warned career lawyers they could not “substitute personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election.”
Four of the lawyers Reuters spoke with said there was a widespread concern that attorneys would be forced to make arguments that could violate attorney ethics rules, or refuse assignments and risk being fired.
Those fears grew when Justice Department leadership fired a former supervisor in the Office of Immigration Litigation, a separate Civil Division unit, accusing him of failing to forcefully defend the administration’s position in the case of Kilmar Abrego, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador.
The supervisor, Erez Reuveni, filed a whistleblower complaint, made public last month, alleging he faced pressure from administration officials to make unsupported legal arguments and adopt strained interpretations of rulings in three immigration cases.
Justice Department officials have publicly disputed the claims, casting him as disgruntled. A senior official, Emil Bove, told a Senate panel that he never advised defying courts.
Career lawyers were also uncomfortable defending Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms, according to two former Justice Department lawyers and a third person familiar with the matter.
A longtime ally of Bondi who defended all four law firm cases argued they were a lawful exercise of presidential power. Judges ultimately struck down all four orders as violating the Constitution. The Trump administration has indicated it will appeal at least one case.
