Courts, lawyers and Trump

NY Times -  The barrage of at least 150 lawsuits against the second Trump administration, challenging many of its policies and personnel decisions, is perhaps unmatched in U.S. history. And in dozens of cases, judges have ordered the administration to pause or reverse actions at the heart of President Trump’s agenda.

Mr. Trump and his administration’s lawyers are fighting in court, but they are also pursuing a much more ambitious and consequential goal: deterring lawyers from suing his administration in the first place.

In a series of recent executive orders, Mr. Trump has restricted the ability of some major law firms, including those that employed his perceived political enemies, to interact with the federal government. Among the president’s stated rationales was that some of the work done by the firms gets in the way of his administration’s immigration and other policies .

Washington Post - A judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s shutdown of Voice of America, a government-funded news service with global reach and a mission to provide reporting to millions in countries that lack a free press.

Friday’s order halts efforts to eliminate staff and contractors at the news service while litigation continues, restoring the jobs of more than 1,200 journalists and other employees.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken ruled that the federal government must reverse its controversial closure of the agency and affiliates that have news programs with audiences in places like China and Cuba. The broadcaster delivers news in nearly 50 languages and has an audience of more than 350 million a week, according to its website. Oetken’s ruling prohibits the Trump administration from taking steps to dismantle VOA or eliminate its workforce.

 Washington Times -   A federal appeals court delivered a win to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency on Friday, ruling that shutting down the headquarters and website of the U.S. Agency for International Development could go forward.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court was wrong to think that it was Mr. Musk who was making final decisions on cuts.

While Mr. Musk operated as a top adviser to President Trump, it was likely Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his team who made the final decisions on USAID — and had the power to do so. 

NPR - In a win for the White House, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for President Trump to fire two Democratic members of independent agencies. In a 2-1 decision, the court found that restrictions on the president's power to remove officers of the executive branch are unconstitutional.

The ruling is significant, as a number of legal challenges to Trump's firings appear headed for the Supreme Court. While the same panel of judges earlier ruled that Trump's firing of U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger could go forward, this latest ruling was the first Appeals Court decision involving firings at agencies led by multiple-member boards since Trump took office.