Dem
47
GOP
53
We have some legal news we want to get caught up on, mostly focusing on how Donald Trump and his Trumpettes are doing what they can to bend the legal system to their will.
Aileen Cannon, Meet Neomi Rao: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg can't catch a break. He's been trying to hold the Trump administration accountable for violating his March 2025 order to turn the planes around and return detainees headed to El Salvador, and he drew the worst possible panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals: Two Trump appointees who are among the most notorious MAGA acolytes on the judiciary, Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, have never seen a Trump action or order they didn't absolutely love.
Boasberg had initiated a contempt inquiry to hear witnesses and other evidence to learn if his court order was willfully violated. And Rao and Walker granted Trump the extraordinary remedy of shutting down the proceeding before it even started. Importantly, this isn't a ruling that a contempt charge is unfounded; this is an appeals court telling a district judge that he can't even investigate whether his order has been violated in the first place. Judge J. Michelle Childs dissented and said that the ruling, which relies on the figleaf of "national security," threatens the rule of law and the courts' ability to enforce their orders.
Our Take: The plaintiffs are likely to seek a rehearing by the entire court of appeals, known as an en banc hearing. When Rao and Walker shut Boasberg down the first time, the Court denied an en banc hearing, but this ruling is so off the rails and obviously partisan that the other judges will likely get involved at this point.
The Cruelty Is the Point: At the urging of a conservative advocacy group called the Southeastern Legal Foundation, the Department of Education has said that it will no longer enforce the terms of several settlement agreements with colleges and school districts regarding their treatment of trans students. The Department now says that discrimination based on gender identity is not a violation of Title IX. In an agreement with Taft College in 2023, for example, the school agreed to revise its policies "to clarify that repeatedly refusing to use a student's preferred name and pronouns may constitute harassment based on sex, creating a hostile environment under Title IX." But not anymore, apparently. As Sydney Duncan of Advocates for Trans Equity put it, "[T]he department of education is sending a signal that your kid's safety, dignity and access to education are optional if they happen to be trans."
Our Take: The Supreme Court has held that sex discrimination includes gender identity and these colleges entered into these consent decrees and, by all accounts, were complying. In fact, one college said it would continue to abide by the settlement. So, there was no justification for this action other than this administration's continued targeting of the trans community, which is, itself, discriminatory.
Putting the Dic in Vindictive?: Donald Trump's quest for revenge against former CIA director John Brennan continues. The Department of Justice has been trying to build a criminal case against Brennan and the career prosecutor on the case, Marie Medetis Long, had the audacity to say they had no case, so she was immediately replaced. Now, another Trump personal attorney, Joseph DiGenova, is going to head up the investigation and make Brennan an offer he can't refuse. Oh, and it's being run out of the U.S. attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida, and a former clerk for Aileen Cannon, Chris DeLorenz, has also been put on the case.
Our Take: They will no doubt try to bring criminal charges against Brennan for something, but it's likely to go about as far as the James Comey and Letitia James prosecutions. And that's true even if they get Aileen Cannon as the judge. But meanwhile, they're wasting huge amounts of resources harassing people to serve Trump's vindictive desires
In Counting There Is Strength: There has been a legal fight going on in Maricopa County, pitting crazypants Republicans (the Maricopa Board of Supervisors) versus a crazypants Republican (Justin Heap, the recorder for Maricopa County). Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled this week, and backed Heap. So, Heap will control the counting of the votes in Maricopa, unless the state Supreme Court steps in, which it may well do.
Our Take: Why can't the U.S. do what most other western democracies do, and place the running of elections in the hands of non-partisan career officials?
We will have Political Bytes tomorrow. (L & Z)