Tag Archives: Kyle Cheney

Techdirt: Trump Administration Tells Supreme Court DOGE Can’t Be FOIAed

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The destructive force that is DOGE still somehow manages to exist, despite it not being (depending on which claim is made and when) an official federal agency and/or overseen by anyone specifically identifiable as the head of DOGE.

Until recently, everyone — including Donald Trump — knew (and said as much in public) that DOGE was both a government agency and headed by Elon Musk. When the lawsuits started flying, the backtracking began by the administration, which apparently thought it could cover its tracks by walking backwards in its golf-cleated clown shows.

Trump’s love for DOGE has managed to undercut the protections DOGE hoped it would be able to avail itself of when the FOIA requests began pouring in and the discovery demands started hitting federal dockets.

Trump Administration Tells Supreme Court DOGE Can’t Be FOIAed
The destructive force that is DOGE still somehow manages to exist, despite it not being (depending on which claim is made and when) an official federal agency and/or overseen by anyone specifically…
Trump Administration Tells Supreme Court DOGE Can’t Be FOIAed

Politico: Trump admin deportation flight to South Sudan violated court order, judge rules

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It’s the latest rebuke in an escalating clash over Trump’s deportation agenda. Several judges have now accused the administration of defying the courts.

The Trump administration “unquestionably” violated a court order when it put seven men on a deportation flight bound for South Sudan, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, suggesting that administration officials may have committed criminal contempt.

The rebuke from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy is the latest episode in an intensifying clash between the administration and the judiciary over President Donald Trump’s campaign to carry out rapid deportations while evading court oversight.

Three federal judges have now castigated the administration for circumventing, or outright defying, court orders that have sought to block or reverse aspects of Trump’s deportation agenda. And several others — including a majority of the Supreme Court — have scolded the administration for attempting to violate immigrants’ due process rights.

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The hasty deportations fell far short of the due process requirements in Murphy’s April ruling, the judge said Wednesday.

Trump admin deportation flight to South Sudan violated court order, judge rules
It’s the latest rebuke in an escalating clash over Trump’s deportation agenda. Several judges have now accused the administration of defying the courts.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/21/trump-deportations-south-sudan-00362919

Raw Story: Judge hits Trump admin with sharply worded threat over ‘intentional refusal to comply’

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The Trump Department of Justice faces a new legal deadline after a federal judge warned that its failure to comply with a court order could be treated as an “intentional refusal” to follow the law.

In a sharply worded one-page order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said the Justice Department missed a key deadline to produce a privilege log tied to its claims of the state secrets privilege in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national wrongfully deported to the country in March.

“Evidently missing from the defendants’ filing is the privilege log that this court ordered to be produced,” Xinis wrote in the document posted by Politico’s Kyle Cheney. The judge gave the government a Tuesday afternoon deadline to file the log and delivered a warning.

“Failure to file the privilege log or otherwise respond will be construed as an intentional refusal to comply with this court’s orders,” according to the order. The dispute bubbled up last week after the Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege to shield details surrounding Abrego Garcia’s case, according to a report in Politico.

The judge set the next in-person hearing for Friday.

https://www.rawstory.com/kilmar-abrego-garcia-2671999899

Politico: Judges have a warning about Trump’s rapid deportations: Americans could be next

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A fundamental promise by America’s founders — that no one should be punished by the state without a fair hearing — is under threat, a growing chorus of federal judges say.

That concept of “due process under law,” borrowed from the Magna Carta and enshrined in the Bill of Rights, is most clearly imperiled for the immigrants President Donald Trump intends to summarily deport, they say, but U.S. citizens should be wary, too.

Across the country, judges appointed by presidents of both parties — including Trump himself — are escalating warnings about what they see as an erosion of due process caused by the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. What started with a focus on people Trump has deemed “terrorists” and “gang members” — despite their fierce denials — could easily expand to other groups, including Americans, these judges warn.

“When the courts say due process is important, we’re not unhinged, we’re not radicals,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Washington, D.C.-based appointee of President Joe Biden, said at a recent hearing. “We are literally trying to enforce a process embodied in probably the most significant document with respect to peoples’ rights against tyrannical government oppression. That’s what we’re doing here. Okay?”

It’s a fight that judges are increasingly casting as existential, rooted in the 5th Amendment’s guarantee that “no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” The word “person,” courts have noted, makes no distinction between citizens or noncitizens. The Supreme Court has long held that this fundamental promise extends to immigrants in deportation proceedings. In a 1993 opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia called that principle “well-established.”

Judges have a warning about Trump’s rapid deportations: Americans could be next
Judges across the country continue to note that if courts don’t protect the rights of the least popular and most vulnerable, everyone is at risk.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/judges-have-a-warning-about-trump-s-rapid-deportations-americans-could-be-next/ar-AA1EvZfM

Politico: Pentagon to resume medical care for transgender troops

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The move is another setback for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has made culture war issues a major part of his role.

The Pentagon will resume gender-affirming care for transgender service members, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO, an embarrassing setback to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s efforts to restrict their participation.

The memo says the Defense Department is returning to the Biden-era medical policy for transgender service members due to a court order that struck down Hegseth’s restrictions as unconstitutional. The administration is appealing the move, but a federal appeals court in California denied the department’s effort to halt the policy while its challenge is pending.

Current score is Wokes 1, Bigots 0!

Pentagon to resume medical care for transgender troops
The move is another setback for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has made culture war issues a major part of his role.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/24/transgender-troops-military-care-00306827

Raw Story: ‘Path of lawlessness’: Reagan-appointed judge buries Trump DOJ in scathing ruling

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Over the weekend, a Justice Department attorney was put on administrative leave after acknowledging in court that he’d never been given a “satisfactory” answer for why the U.S. government couldn’t return a wrongfully deported immigrant from Venezuela who had been residing in Maryland. Now, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is scolding the DOJ’s behavior in a new ruling.

In a unanimous decision on Monday, the court denied President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to resist returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States by midnight on Monday, wrote Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney on X.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, was particularly scathing in his reaction to government claims that it could not possibly bring Garcia back to the United States despite acknowledging his wrongful deportation.

“The government rightfully concedes that it was an ‘error’ and a ‘mistake’ to ignore this process,” Wilkinson wrote. “And, if it is truly a mistake, one would also expect the government to do what it can to rectify it. Most of us attempt to undo, to the extent that we can, the mistakes that we have made. But, to the best of my knowledge, the government has not made the attempt here. The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone.”

‘Path of lawlessness’: Reagan-appointed judge buries Trump DOJ in scathing ruling
Over the weekend, a Justice Department attorney was put on administrative leave after acknowledging in court that he’d never been given a “satisfactory” answer for why the U.S. government couldn’t return a wrongfully deported immigrant from Venezuela who had been residing in Maryland. Now, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is scolding the DOJ’s beha…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/path-of-lawlessness-reagan-appointed-judge-buries-trump-doj-in-scathing-ruling/ar-AA1CsPMj