Trump administration punishing lawyers seen as obstacles to agenda

The Trump administration is escalating its efforts to punish lawyers whom it sees as obstacles to the president’s agenda, reported Politico.

The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to impose “substantial monetary sanctions” on a California lawyer who briefly halted but ultimately failed to block the deportation of an immigrant from Laos who pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the 1990s.

Joshua Schroeder, an immigration and intellectual property attorney based in Los Angeles, appears to be the first target of President Donald Trump’s vow to discipline lawyers who hit the federal government with lawsuits that the administration deems frivolous.

Legal experts described the sanctions motion against Schroeder, which hasn’t been previously reported, as highly unusual. DOJ brought the disciplinary action after Schroeder asked federal judges to stop the deportation of his client, Vang Lor. In emergency court papers seeking to block the deportation, Schroeder cited the administration’s aggressive effort to expel other foreigners under the Alien Enemies Act, and he argued that his own client might be unlawfully ensnared in that effort.

Schroeder succeeded for a couple of weeks, but the Trump administration is now arguing that he falsely claimed his client was facing deportation under that rarely invoked law — and that he persisted even after government lawyers explained the deportation was based on ordinary immigration law.

DOJ’s forceful counterpunch comes after Trump signed a presidential memorandum in March instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi “to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States,” including immigration lawyers.

“This is part of the playbook that was announced,” UCLA law professor Scott Cummings said. “Would DOJ, under normal circumstances, move for sanctions against a lawyer who sought to protect their client from removal in this kind of a context? I don’t think so.”

“This is sending a message across the bow that, ‘Look, we are really serious about going after the lawyers, and here’s the case that we’re going to make real the comments that Trump made in his executive memorandum, and any other lawyers that are going to engage in this kind of representation need to be aware,’” Cummings added.

Schroeder said he views DOJ’s bid to fine him for his deportation-related lawsuits as part of Trump’s pressure campaign against law firms he regards as opposing his policies or supporting his political enemies.

“It reminds me of the executive orders that are really targeting these big law firms,” Schroeder said in an interview. “They’re able to go all the way down to the very bottom, that’s where I am — no offense to myself. … It’s top to bottom. It’s not just this elite struggle.”

While Schroeder appears to be the first attorney DOJ has asked a federal judge to sanction under Trump’s March order, Trump has gone after other individual lawyers — such as former special counsel Jack Smith’s lawyer Peter Koski and whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid — by stripping them of their security clearances.

Schroeder, a solo practitioner, said he took on Lor’s case without pay and that the Trump administration’s move is likely to discourage other lawyers from doing the same for other immigrants and indigent or unpopular clients.

“The profession encourages us normal, common attorneys to take pro bono cases,” Schroeder said. “If they are able to just attack someone like me for trying, it can chill our ability to help, not just in this type of case but in all cases.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson applauded DOJ’s effort, saying it would discourage meritless litigation. “It is essential to deter future attorneys from bringing baseless actions to the court that are only meant to delay or prevent the enforcement of the law,” she said.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Rapid-fire litigation to block an imminent deportation

Schroeder took his first formal action for Lor on May 25, filing a motion for a temporary restraining order with a federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas, near the detention facility where Lor was being held. Lor had been living with his wife in neighboring Oklahoma when he was arrested in April at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in. He told her in a call that he was about to be flown to Laos, court filings say.

Schroeder urged the judge to protect Lor from being swept up in the administration’s mass deportation efforts. The lawyer referenced Trump’s attention-grabbing deportation of 130 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador in March under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law that gives the president the power to expel foreigners who are part of an “invasion” or “predatory incursion.” Schroeder also pointed to the administration’s attempt, days before Lor’s challenge was filed, to deport seven men to war-torn South Sudan even though they’re not from that country.

Fueling concerns his client could face a similar fate, Schroeder wrote, was the fact that, earlier that day, an ICE prisoner database showed Lor en route to the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, a Texas prison that was used to house a second group of Venezuelan detainees the Trump administration sought to deport under the Alien Enemies Act.

Schroeder argued that Lor faced the possibility of “summary deportation” to El Salvador under that law and that the Trump administration’s legal stance in other cases meant Lor could be put beyond the reach of U.S. courts before the courts addressed any protections he might be entitled to.

Lor came to the U.S. from Laos in 1987 on a green card and lived with his parents in California, according to court records. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to an attempted murder charge in state court in Merced, California. Immigration authorities say he was sentenced to 9 years in prison, but records show Lor got a total sentence of 22 years due to enhancements for using a firearm and inflicting great bodily injury.

It’s unclear how long Lor served in prison, but an immigration judge ordered him deported to Laos in 2018. That order — issued during the first Trump administration — wasn’t immediately carried out, perhaps because Laos was refusing to issue passports to its citizens facing deportation from the U.S.

Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in March targeted only Venezuelan men and was aimed at members of the Tren de Aragua gang, although many of those deported have denied any gang ties. But the proclamation was initially signed in secret, and the administration has refused to say precisely when Trump signed it, fueling fears among immigration advocates that he may have issued additional orders under the wartime authority.

 Schroeder said in his TRO request that Lor’s immigration status was “unclear to counsel” and that he was not seeking “to prohibit the government from removing any individual who may lawfully be removed under the immigration laws.” The filing discussed at length Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, describing it as “an unleashing of unbounded war powers that could apply to any immigrant or disfavored U.S. citizen.”

Amid the uncertainty about Lor’s status, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, quickly ordered the government not to deport Lor pending further litigation. But sometime that night, May 25, he was loaded on a chartered Boeing 767 at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth. Flight-tracking data showed the plane was bound for Laos and Vietnam, via Honolulu and Guam.

Due to O’Connor’s order, when the plane arrived in Guam, Lor was unloaded and taken to a detention facility there. The 767 landed in Vientiane, Laos, on May 27 without Lor on board.

Schroeder refiled the lawsuit in Guam and got U.S. District Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, also a Bush appointee, to order that Lor not be deported without 48-hours notice to the court. But after a hearing, Tydingco-Gatewood dismissed the case, saying she lacked jurisdiction to interfere with a deportation under the Immigration & Nationality Act.

“The evidence proffered by Respondents makes clear that Petitioner’s removal is not based on the AEA but is, in fact, based on a violation of the INA,” the judge wrote, effectively giving the green light for the administration to deport Lor.

Schroeder appealed, but Lor was deported to Laos around June 10, court records show.

Justice Department lawyers maintain in court filings that ICE officials notified Lor on April 19 and May 6 of his impending deportation, although those notices don’t mention him being sent to Laos and one says he was being considered for release.

Schroeder declined to discuss Lor’s current status in Laos, saying he did not have permission to do so. He didn’t use his client’s name when speaking to POLITICO. Lor is identified simply as “V.L.” in most of the court filings. However, his full name appears in the records government lawyers submitted of his California conviction and in the sanctions motion filed last week.

DOJ comes after the lawyer

The sanctions motion, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court of Guam and signed by DOJ attorneys in Washington and the U.S. territory in the Pacific, twice references Trump’s March directive to crack down on what he termed “unscrupulous behavior” by lawyers.

The motion accuses Schroeder of acting “in bad faith, unreasonably and vexatiously” and says he “multiplied proceedings by maintaining positions without bases in fact and law, without making a reasonable, competent inquiry, and for an improper purpose.” DOJ lawyers contend he persisted in claims that the government was deporting Lor under the Alien Enemies Act even though he “knew that assertion to be false.” Tydingco-Gatewood will make the initial decision on whether to grant DOJ’s request for sanctions.

Schroeder said his references to the Trump administration’s aggressive use of the Alien Enemies Act showed the urgency of determining where Lor was being sent and under what legal framework.

“The point is that notice and opportunity to be heard is a fundamental basis of all rights, and if you don’t have that no one can assert any sort of right and the government can do whatever they want,” the attorney said.

Some of Schroeder’s filings appear to have been hastily drafted. The 30-page TRO request filed in Texas makes fairly clear that Lor is from Laos and discusses the possibility of dozens of “mainland southeast Asian” immigrants being gathered for deportation, but at one point it erroneously says Lor is from Venezuela. An appeal Schroeder filed, which is still pending, refers to a court order issued in June as dating from 2010.

Schroeder said he was working “under very heightened pressure” because he had “only hours” to try to forestall his client being moved beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

“I had to do it very quickly, because he was in Guam and they might have taken him immediately,” Schroeder said this week. “So, I was just putting the basics together in my mind the way I was seeing it.”

Laos appears to be seeking to curry favor with the Trump administration in recent months by being more receptive to deportation of its citizens from the U.S. Lor is of Hmong descent, according to court filings, and like many in that ethnic group his parents are believed to have cooperated with U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War. Those who did so have often faced particular difficulty in getting passports or citizenship documents from Laos’ Communist government.

However, Laos announced in March that it was encouraging its citizens present in the U.S. illegally to return to Laos. But in June, days after the deportation flight Lor was taken off of due to the litigation, Trump put visa sanctions on the Southeast Asian country for a second time. “Laos has historically failed to accept back its removable nationals,” Trump wrote.

David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the sanctions motion seems like an overreaction given the aggressive and unusual tactics the Trump administration has used to carry out deportations in recent months.

“We’re in uncharted waters in terms of the way the federal government is enforcing the immigration laws,” Leopold said. “I think that at a minimum they should expect lawyers are going to be as zealous as possible in preventing their clients from being removed to a place like CECOT prison in El Salvador, or to South Sudan, or some other country where their life could be threatened. … We’ve got to expect lawyers to be aggressive.”

Schroeder attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, in 2013. He’s authored numerous law review articles on immigration and other topics.

Tydingco-Gatewood, the judge in Guam, has yet to schedule a hearing on the sanctions motion against Schroeder.

Schroeder said he expects the judge will turn down the motion, but the mere fact it was filed may prompt other lawyers to decline difficult cases that could upset the Trump administration.

“I think this motion for sanctions is not going to work, but it might do what they want it to do anyway,” Schroeder said. “I’m wondering if the filing of the motion itself is supposed to punish me. … That might be the whole point.”

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Things can always be worse: Iranian authorities severed the fingers of three men convicted of theft

Iranian authorities severed the fingers of three men convicted of theft, said Human Rights Watch (HRW) as reported by Jurist-News. HRW Iran researcher Bahar Saba denounced the punishment, stating, “Amputation is torture, plain and simple. Yet Iran persists in carrying out cruel and inhuman punishments that fly in the face of its human rights obligations.”

Mehdi Shahivand, Mehdi Sharafian and Hadi Rostami were detained in August 2017 following accusations that they had burglarized several houses and robbed safes. The court sentenced all of the individuals to amputations of four fingers of their right hands, leaving only the palm and the thumb. In April of 2022, HRW stated that there was evidence that the trials were unjust:

Evidence strongly suggests that the trial was grossly unfair. According to case information review by Human Rights Watch and accounts of informed sources, the men did not have access to lawyers during the investigation phase and only saw a lawyer twice–once when they signed the retention documents and once during the court hearings. The men have also said that the authorities tortured and ill-treated them while in the custody of the police’s Investigation Unit (Agahi) in Urmia… beating and flogging them and suspending them from their hands and wrists.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner in June 2022 called on authorities to cancel the planned amputations of these three men, along with five others. The UN reported that, per Iranian civil society organizations, at least 237 people who were “mostly from poorer segments of society” were sentenced to amputations between January 2000 and September 2020, with sentences being carried out in at least 129 cases.

Hand amputation is grounded in Article 278 of the Islamic Penal Code, which permits this type of punishment for “Hudud crimes” such as theft, adultery, slander and drinking alcohol. Iran’s Human Rights Monitor detailed some of the history of amputation in Iran, emphasizing that despite “widespread international condemnation, Iranian authorities have continued to enforce this brutal punishment beyond 2020.” Critics maintain that this penalty is a stark violation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). While Iran has ratified the ICCPR, it has not signed or ratified the CAT. The ICCPR explicitly mandates that “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Iran has recently been subjected to strict international scrutiny due to record executions and other purported violations of international law.

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Here is a name everyone should know--Erez Reuveni

You should know Erez Reuveni--the DOJ whistleblower--who has documented judicial nominee Emil Bove's disdain for the rule of law and U.S. Constitution.

The insistence that the Trump administration can do whatever it wants irrespective or rules, laws, or court orders; the demand that career officials are all in or must get the heck out; the willingness to obfuscate or just lie about what the administration has done, is doing, or means to do—both internally and in litigation—and the indignant rejection of any checks or mechanisms of accountability because they have a mandate from voters and Trump is deweaponizing the Justice Department and because there’s a unitary executive, reported Lawfare.  

What’s different about Reuveni is that he has brought a remarkable collection of receipts to the conversation. It’s not just the 27-page whistleblower complaint, which details in carefully crafted prose three separate incidents of the administration behaving—and demanding that he behave—unethically or illegally over a remarkably short period of time. It’s not just the 150 pages of supporting documentation, which includes multiple text exchanges, emails, and phone records supporting Reuveni’s claims. It’s the way all of this material intersects with an already-vibrant public record in the three cases at issue: The JGG case on Alien Enemy Act deportations to El Salvador, the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, and the DVD case on deportations to third countries.

One can say, I suppose, that the public here has only one side of the story—a document dump from Reuveni and nothing from Bove or the other officials he accuses. But that’s not quite true. In all three of these cases, the government has had ample opportunity to explain its position before the courts, and in all three, the government has made its position very clear: It’s a big middle finger.

What’s more, Bove has been asked about Reuveni’s allegations specifically and under oath that he said the Justice Department might have to tell the courts, “fuck you” if they tried to stop Alien Enemies Act removals that had to proceed “no matter what.” He responded that he did not recall saying that but pointedly did not deny doing so.

Drew Ensign, an official Reuveni accuses of actively misleading the court, actually had an opportunity before Judge James Boasberg to clear up the matter Reuveni described, which took place on March 15 when the ACLU and Judge Boasberg were trying to make sure that Alien Enemy Act deportations were not happening illegally and were trying to determine whether planes were, in fact, currently deporting people or imminently going to do so.

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2nd Circuit upholds NY law allowing lawsuits against gun manufacturers

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a New York law that permits state and private actors to sue gun manufacturers and sellers for contributing to gun violence, reported Jurist.

In its opinion, a three-judge panel rejected arguments that the state’s law is preempted by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which shields gun makers from liability when their products are used unlawfully.

Writing for the majority, Judge Eunice Lee held that New York’s statute fits within PLCAA’s “predicate exception,” which allows liability where gun sellers knowingly violate state or federal laws related to the marketing or sale of firearms. Lee stated that “PLCAA’s text and history therefore do not clearly establish that the statute’s aim was to prevent state legislatures from creating avenues to hold gun manufacturers liable for downstream harms caused by their products.”

The panel also dismissed claims that the law discriminates against interstate commerce or violates the dormant Commerce Clause.

Judge Dennis Jacobs, concurring, called the statute “a broad public nuisance statute,” but agreed it survives a facial challenge under federal law, leaving open the door to narrower as-applied preemption challenges in future cases.

The ruling affirms a 2022 district court decision dismissing the case brought by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and major gun manufacturers, including Glock and Smith & Wesson. NSSF general counsel Lawrence Keane argued that New York’s law “is intended to evade the will of Congress” in its passing of the PLCAA “to prevent baseless litigation from bankrupting an entire industry.”

In a statement, New York Attorney General Letitia James called the decision “a massive victory for public safety and the rule of law” that “will help [New York] continue to fight the scourge of gun violence to keep our communities safe.”

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The President's power to activate troops can be limited by the courts

 A Federal Appeals Court denied California Gov. Gavin Newsome's action to take control of National Guard from the Trump administration, according to The New York Times.

The Court did say the President's power to activate troops can be limited by the courts. The Trump administration had urged the appeals court to find that the judiciary could not review Mr. Trump’s decision to take control of a state’s National Guard under the statute he invoked, which sets conditions like if there is a rebellion against governmental authority that impedes the enforcement of federal law.

The appeals court declined to go that far.

Supreme Court precedent “does not compel us to accept the federal government’s position that the president could federalize the National Guard based on no evidence whatsoever, and that courts would be unable to review a decision that was obviously absurd or made in bad faith,” the appeals court wrote.

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Federal Court allows colleges and universities to directly pay student-athletes

A US federal judge granted approval Friday of a landmark $2.6 billion class action settlement that transforms college athletics by allowing schools to directly pay student-athletes for the first time in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) history, reported Jurist.

In a released statement, NCAA President Charlie Baker said, “This is new terrain for everyone… Opportunities to drive transformative change don’t come often to organizations like ours. It’s important we make the most of this one.”

The settlement resolves antitrust claims brought by  Division I student-athletes in a class action lawsuit challenging NCAA restrictions on Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) compensation and athletic services payments. The case affects over 389,000 class members comprised of current and former student-athletes dating back to 2016.

The settlement creates multiple funds to pay out damages, the majority of which will be paid to class members made up of football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball players. Within each sport, damages will be paid out based on the sport, conference, years played, recruitment ratings, and various performance metrics.

Friday’s settlement also requires the NCAA to enact new rules for student-athlete compensation over the next 10 years. Schools in the NCAA’s five largest (“Power 5”) conferences will supply benefits and direct compensation to student-athletes in amounts worth up to 22% of the average annual athletic revenue for participating schools. Revenue is estimated to be more than $20 million per school in the 2025-26 school year and over $19 billion in total for the 10-year period.

Shortly after Friday’s court ruling, it was announced that former Major League Baseball executive Bryan Seeley had been appointed to run the College Sports Commission, a newly-formed organization that will oversee student-athlete revenue distribution for the Power 5 schools.

The case involves a contentious legal history starting with O’Bannon v. NCAA. The 2015 case established that NCAA amateurism — a doctrine purported to maintain the fundamental character of collegiate sports — did not exempt the NCAA from federal antitrust laws. However, the court still allowed the NCAA to limit student-athlete payments to the full cost of attending college.

In 2019, California approved Senate Bill 206, allowing for student-athletes playing in-state to accept NIL compensation, and several other states passed similar laws the following year. A 2021 Supreme Court ruling further established that the NCAA was violating antitrust regulations by restricting athlete pay. In July 2021, the NCAA adopted an interim policy that allowed student-athletes to receive NIL payments while maintaining amateur eligibility. NIL payments are made by “Collectives” — independent organizations that fundraise money for the universities. 

Friday’s judicial approval came from Senior Judge Claudia Wilken of the US District for the Northern District of California. Wilken is the same judge who originally heard O’Bannon v. NCAA.

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Deadline looms on Order to bring back man illegally deported

A federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to take immediate steps to return a Maryland man who was deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison by mistake, setting up another high-stakes clash between the White House and the courts, reported The New York Times.

"This was an illegal act," U.S. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis told Justice Department lawyers at a federal court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who lived in the U.S. legally and had a work permit. Abrego Garcia was arrested and deported last month — despite having been granted protection by an immigration judge in 2019 that should have prevented him from being deported to El Salvador.

Judge Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7. She said keeping him in El Salvador constitutes irreparable harm.

"From the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional," Judge Xinis said during the hearing. "If there isn't a document, a warrant, a statement of probable cause, then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That's how I'm looking at it," the judge said.

The Trump administration filed an appeal to the ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Federal courts create judicial task force for security and independence

A task force of federal judges will consider how to respond to “current risks” for the judiciary, following a spate of threats against judges who have ruled against the Trump administration, reported The New York Times.

According to an internal two-page memo distributed to federal judges and obtained by The New York Times, the new Judicial Security and Independence Task Force will hold its first meeting within the next 10 days.

The announcement comes days after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare statement rebuking calls for impeaching judges. President Trump and his allies have repeatedly called for the removal of judges who have issued rulings halting or slowing the adoption of his agenda.

The formation of the task force is another sign that the judicial branch is taking seriously an increasingly hostile and politicized climate. In recent weeks, there have been hoax reports of bombs placed in mailboxes. Pizzas have also been anonymously sent to judges’ homes and the homes of their family members, which security experts have said is intended to send a menacing message that the public knows where they live.

On social media, allies of President Trump have shared posts that purport to contain the personal information of judges’ families. Elon Musk and prominent Republican lawmakers have singled out specific judges and called on Congress to impeach them.

In a statement, a White House spokesman condemned “attacks on public officials, including judges.” Such attacks “have no place in our society and President Trump knows all too well the impact of callous attacks, having faced two assassination attempts,” said Harrison Fields, the spokesman.

Threats against public officials have been rising for years.

Democrats have also used heated rhetoric on judges and their rulings. “You have unleashed the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York outside the Supreme Court in 2020, as the court was considering a major abortion case. “I shouldn’t have used the words I did,” Mr. Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said later, after Chief Justice Roberts condemned his remarks.

According to the memo, the intent of the task force will be “to identify and help” the judicial branch “respond to current risks, and to anticipate new ones.”

“Through its efforts, it is hoped that the security of individual judges will be enhanced and that judicial independence will be assured,” the memo said.

The memo names 10 judges and one circuit executive who will be serving on the task force, with two more court clerks to be announced. Judge James K. Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland will serve as the new group’s chair.

It was signed by Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., who oversees the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which helps oversee the system under the direction of the Judicial Conference, a policymaking body led by Chief Justice Roberts. The office declined to comment.

The establishment of the task force is an encouraging step, said Judge Michael Ponsor of the U.S. District Court for the District Massachusetts, who has written on recent threats against the judiciary. “This is a welcome initiative and a powerful expression of the judiciary’s concern and its determination to do the job that our Constitution sets out for it,” he said.

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Judges not in line with Administration subjected to threats and intimidation

Federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration this year are confronting a wave of threats, potentially compromising their personal safety and the independence of the judiciary.

The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a bomb threat earlier this month, and lower court judges who hit pause on some of President Trump's efforts to dismantle federal agencies and programs have been singled out on social media, reported NPR.

Republican lawmakers close to the president even have proposed impeachment proceedings against a few of those judges, who serve for life.

Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency making cuts to federal agencies, himself has repeatedly posted on social media about impeaching judges who delay or block parts of Trump's agenda.

Efforts to undermine the judiciary come at the same time the Trump administration has moved to fire lawyers inside the Justice Department and the Pentagon, penalize private law firms who represented clients Trump does not like, and to back away from participation in the activities of the American Bar Association.

Judge Richard Sullivan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said in his lifetime four federal judges have been killed in retaliation for their work on the bench.

"This is not hypothetical," Sullivan, who leads a Judicial Conference panel on security issues, told reporters in a news conference this week. The Judicial Conference is a representative body of federal judges that frames policies for courts. "It's real. It's happened before. We have to be certain that it doesn't happen again," he said.

The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary group of more than 1,000 judges across the nation, said the judiciary plays a "critical role in preserving democracy and a law-abiding society."

"Judges must be able to do their jobs without fear of violence or undue influence," the group said in a written statement to NPR.

Early threats

One thing stands out to legal experts: these attacks on judges are coming at a very early stage in the legal process — often, before the Supreme Court weighs in as the final decider.

"We have a system of justice that allows for appeals," Judge Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, told reporters this week. "That's typically the way it works. Impeachment is not and shouldn't be a short-circuiting of that process. And so it is concerning if impeachment is used in a way that is designed to do just that."

Only 15 federal judges have faced impeachment, mostly for allegations of wrongdoing such as bribery, corruption or perjury, in the past couple of centuries.

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the odds of a successful judicial impeachment are pretty low, and to remove a judge from the bench would require a two-thirds vote from the Senate.

"The more that people like Elon Musk are putting on the wall the idea that it's appropriate to attack these judges for nothing more than ruling against the federal government, the more that we're normalizing what really are in the main very serious threats to judicial independence," Vladeck said.

"Jeopardize the rule of law"

But Paul Grimm, who spent 26 years as a federal judge, said even the threat of impeachment can amount to intimidation.

"And if you try to intimidate judges, if that's your goal, so that they do not do their constitutional duty, then you jeopardize the rule of law," said Grimm, who leads the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. "And without the rule of law, every liberty and every right that we cherish as Americans is vulnerable."

Grimm said he worries a lot about online posts that display the home and work addresses of judges and their adult children, a step that he said "crosses the line."

Nearly five years ago, an angry litigant shot and killed the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey.

In 2022, a California man carrying a gun and zip ties traveled to the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He turned away after spotting a security detail there. The man has pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted assassination of the justice, and awaits trial this year.

And in 2023, a state court judge in Maryland was gunned down in his driveway.

Attacks over rulings

The U.S. Marshals say threats against federal judges have doubled in recent years, according to the most recent data. And those threats have been directed at both Democratic and Republican judges.

Justice Barrett came under withering criticism this month from some right-wing political commentators, after she voted alongside Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberals on the high court against Trump's effort to freeze foreign aid.

Lower court judges have faced online attacks for their early rulings on Musk's DOGE team, efforts to restore government web pages and the freeze on foreign aid.

The Marshals protect judges, but they also report to the U.S. attorney general, not to the courts themselves. That's got some members of Congress on alert.

"A judge's security is dependent in many ways on the Marshals Service who the president appoints to protect the judges, and if a president doesn't like a decision that's coming from a judge, theoretically they could pull their security," Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, said at a congressional hearing this month.

The administration has already yanked protection this year from former military and national security officials who disagreed with Trump in his first term.

Swalwell said Congress should consider giving judges their own security force — one that's independent from the White House.

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Judge scolds government for 'lie' about firing employees en masse

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco delivered one of the most far-reaching court defeats to the Trump administration's efforts to gut the federal bureaucracy, according to the USA TODAY.

Alsup, appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, ordered six federal agencies to reinstate tens of thousands of federal government probationary workers fired in recent weeks.

Alsup said the Justice Department tried to obfuscate that the White House had improperly ordered agencies to fire workers en masse.

“I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years and I know how we get at the truth, and you’re not helping me get at the truth,” Alsup said. “You’re giving me press releases, sham documents.”

 Supporters of all sizes, attend a rally to support federal workers terminated recently on Friday, March 7, 2025 at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center at 5000 W. National Ave. in Milwaukee.

He also scolded the government for the bogus boilerplate reason employees were given for their termination.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said.

A federal judge in Maryland likewise said Thursday he didn't believe the government's claim that the fired employees had been individually reviewed.

"On the record before the Court, this isn't true," wrote U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama. "It is simply not conceivable that the Government could have conducted individualized assessments of the relevant employees in the relevant timeframe."

After Alsup's ruling, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the Bay Area judge of "attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the executive branch."

"If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for president themselves,” she said in a statement.

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Will President Trump and his administration defy court orders?

 Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Berkley Law School at the University of California, writes in The New York Times:

It is not hyperbole to say that the future of American constitutional democracy now rests on a single question: Will President Trump and his administration defy court orders?

Federal judges have issued more than a dozen temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against Trump administration actions. But it is unclear whether the government will comply, and in at least two cases, judges have said their orders were ignored.

The Trump administration is already facing at least 100 legal challenges. Two recent court orders no doubt will test Mr. Trump’s patience.

The Supreme Court this week upheld the authority of a Federal District Court judge in Washington to lift a Trump freeze on nearly $2 billion in foreign aid appropriated by Congress. The government had missed a deadline set by the judge to send out the money, which Mr. Trump had blocked on his first day in office. And on Thursday, another federal judge, in Rhode Island, extended an order forcing the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in congressionally approved funds for nearly two dozen states and the District of Columbia. The judge said the White House had “put itself above Congress” in blocking the money.

But the hard truth for those looking to the courts to rein in the Trump administration is that the Constitution gives judges no power to compel compliance with their rulings — it is the executive branch that ultimately enforces judicial orders. If a president decides to ignore a judicial ruling, the courts are likely rendered impotent.

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Perhaps the threat of flouting court orders, suggested by Mr. Trump, and his vice president, JD Vance, and some of his nominees, is a way to put pressure on courts to treat the Trump administration favorably. Trump allies have also been pressing for the impeachment of judges who rule against his administration’s policies. Elon Musk wrote recently on his platform X that “the only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges” and “we must impeach to save democracy.” Mike Lee of Utah, a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on social media that “corrupt judges should be impeached and removed” and that rulings against the administration gave the impression of a “judicial coup.”

Removing federal judges because of disagreement with their rulings would be unprecedented. The Constitution allows for impeachment only for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” There is no plausible basis for claiming that standard has been met. And it is risible to see conservatives, who repeatedly went to court to enjoin Biden and Obama administration policies, now saying that the judiciary should not review executive branch actions. All of this is about an administration that does not want to be constrained by the Constitution, laws or courts.

It is unsettling even to be asking whether the president would defy a court order. Throughout American history, presidents have complied with mandates from the courts, even when they disagree. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court struck down many of the New Deal programs of Franklin Roosevelt. He was angry and proposed expanding the size of the Supreme Court to uphold his initiatives, but never went as far as defying the rulings. When the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Harry Truman’s order to seize steel mills during the Korean War, a major blow to his presidency, Truman, too, was angry, but he complied with the decision.

Similarly, when the court ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the White House tapes, he did so even though it meant the end of his presidency. More recently, when courts blocked Biden administration policies — from student loan relief to vaccine mandates — the White House complied.

At times, there have been disputes between courts and agencies over compliance with judicial orders. In a 2018 Harvard Law Review article, the Yale law professor Nicholas Parrillo wrote that “the federal government’s compliance with court orders is imperfect and fraught, especially with orders compelling the government to act affirmatively.” In part, this has been because agencies may lack the money, personnel or information they need to comply.

But there are no definitive instances of presidents disobeying court orders. The line attributed to Andrew Jackson about the chief justice, that “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it,” is likely apocryphal. Purportedly about a Supreme Court ruling that Georgia could not enforce its laws against whites on Cherokee land, the quotation did not appear in print until long after Jackson’s death. And, in fact, the court order was directed at Georgia, not Jackson or the federal government. In addition, modern scholarship has undermined the story that Abraham Lincoln defied an order from the chief justice invalidating a suspension of habeas corpus during the early days of the Civil War.

Thus far, the Trump administration has given conflicting signals as to whether it will defy court orders. On Feb. 11, Mr. Trump said, “I always abide by the courts, and then I’ll have to appeal it.” And that same month, the acting solicitor general, Sarah Harris, wrote in a footnote in a brief to the Supreme Court: “The executive branch takes seriously its constitutional duty to comply with the orders of Article III courts.”

But just one day prior, Mr. Trump posted on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” A week earlier, Vice President JD Vance posted, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” implying that the president decides what is “legitimate.” This follows a history of assertions by Mr. Vance suggesting that the president need not comply with adverse court rulings. And while this did not involve a court order, in January, in one of his first acts in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to delay enforcing a federal ban on TikTok, even though that ban had just been upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court.

The reality — and Mr. Trump and those around him know it — is that he could get away with defying court orders should he, ultimately, choose to do so. Because of Supreme Court decisions, Mr. Trump cannot be held civilly or criminally liable for any official acts he takes to carry out his constitutional powers.

Those in the Trump administration who carry out his policies and violate court orders could be held in contempt. But if it is criminal contempt, Mr. Trump can issue them pardons. Although civil contempt can involve being jailed until the person complies with the court order, that is enforced by the United States marshals, who are part of the Department of Justice and thus under the president’s control.

Defiance of court orders could be the basis for impeachment and removal. But with his party in control of Congress, Mr. Trump knows that is highly unlikely to happen.

If the Trump administration chooses to defy court orders, we will have a constitutional crisis not seen before. Perhaps public opinion will turn against the president and he will back down and comply. Or perhaps, after 238 years, we will see the end of government under the rule of law.

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Trump seeks to rewrite the U.S. Constitution through executive order

 President Donald Trump signed an executive order on stating that only the “President and the Attorney General shall provide authoritative interpretations of the law for the executive branch,” reported Jurist. The order covers all federal employees and agencies, including independent agencies operating under the executive branch of the US government. Historically, independent agencies exist outside the executive branch and are largely free of presidential control.

The Trump administration stated the purpose of the order was to “ensur[e] that all federal agencies are accountable to the American people, as required by the Constitution.” According to the administration, Article II of the US Constitution vests this power in the president. They pointed to Article II, Clause 1, which states, “executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America,” to support this interpretation.

However, Article II does not expressly state that the president or any other person in the executive branch has the power to interpret laws. The article states that the president is required to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Jurisdiction to interpret laws and determine constitutionality belongs to the judicial branch under Article III. The framers of the Constitution designed the separation of duties to prevent any single branch of government from becoming too powerful.

Under the order, all agencies will be required  to submit to “performance standards and management objectives” established by the Office of Management and Budget and “report periodically to the President.” Only the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee are exempted.

Challenges to the order are expected.

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The case for checks and balances, separation of powers, and constrained presidential authority

If ever one needed evidence of the necessity for limits on executive power, President Donald Trump has now provided it, writes David Cole in The New York Review of Books. The first three weeks of his second term are Exhibit A in the case for checks and balances, separation of powers, and constrained presidential authority. He has sought to effectively shutter an agency established by Congress, USAID. He tried to freeze all federal funding, in contravention both of statutes requiring that the funds be spent and of countless contractual obligations. In a brazen effort to remake the federal government in his image, he offered without any authorization to buy out federal employees if they voluntarily resigned. He has attempted to end birthright citizenship, a right expressly guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. He ordered the interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia to fire dozens of lawyers who prosecuted the January 6 insurrectionists, and threatened to fire the FBI agents involved, even though they were only doing their jobs. His Attorney General has directed the Justice Department to criminally investigate businesses for DEI programs—even though Congress has not made offering such programs a crime under any circumstances. And he dismissed seventeen inspectors general, the watchdogs for abuse and fraud within the executive branch, without providing the notice and reasons required by statute. The list goes on.  

The targets of these and other measures have not been shy about pushing back, filing legal challenges in the courts. (The online publication Just Security keeps an excellent tracker of this litigation.) Thus far, to put it mildly, the president is not faring well. Courts have blocked him from halting federal funding, closing USAID, removing birthright citizenship, giving Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to sensitive information on millions of people held by the Treasury Department, and imposing a February 6 deadline for federal employees to take his illegal buyout. Two courts have blocked his cruel and unfounded directive to transfer transgender women to men’s prisons, even where prison authorities have determined that they should be housed in women’s prisons for their safety. (To be clear, much damage remains, as many of the executive orders are in place and probably not illegal—just heartless, counterproductive, and stupid.) The judges who have blocked his actions were appointed by Republicans and Democrats, even in one case by Trump himself. The courts, in other words, are for the most part doing their job—checking unprecedented abuses of presidential power. 

The ultimate fate of many if not most of these initiatives will likely be determined by the Supreme Court. That is worrying, because for many years this Supreme Court—deeply distrustful of the “administrative state” and of congressional efforts to rein in presidential authority—has undertaken a campaign to grant the president centralized, consolidated power. In the name of the “unitary executive,” a theory that the president must have unilateral control over the executive branch, the Court has repeatedly struck down limits on the president’s power to remove federal officials. Last term it went still further, granting President Trump himself unprecedented immunity even for criminal conduct, reasoning that subjecting a president to the criminal accountability everyone else faces—even after he has left office—could impermissibly interfere with his unilateral powers, such as the pardon authority, and more generally unduly hinder his freedom and willingness to carry out his duties.

It is hard to say how much that decision informs the president’s current overreach. But in any case this time around Trump is more than unhindered; he is unhinged. Many have wondered whether Trump will go so far as to simply defy the Supreme Court if it rules against him. Over the weekend, Vice President J.D. Vance poured gasoline on that speculation by tweeting that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” A lot of work is being done in that sentence by the word “legitimate,” but in our system it is the Court, not the executive, that determines whether the executive’s actions are legitimate, as in legal. If Trump did choose to disobey the Court’s justices on the grounds that they “aren’t allowed” to regulate his executive actions, it would cross a line that no president has ever crossed and likely ignite an entirely justified political firestorm.  

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It’s a constitutional crisis when the president doesn’t care what the Constitution says

 Adam Liptak writes in The New York Times:

There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse.

It can also be obvious, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” he said on Friday. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”

He ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.

That is a partial list, Professor Chemerinsky said, and it grows by the day. “Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis,” he said.

The distinctive feature of the current situation, several legal scholars said, is its chaotic flood of activity that collectively amounts to a radically new conception of presidential power. But the volume and speed of those actions may overwhelm and thus thwart sober and measured judicial consideration.

It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of Mr. Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court. On Monday, a federal judge said the White House had defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump administration is disobeying a judicial mandate.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump would defy a ruling against him by the justices.

“It’s an open question whether the administration will be as contemptuous of courts as it has been of Congress and the Constitution,” said Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “At least so far, it hasn’t been.”

 

That could change. On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance struck a confrontational tone on social media. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he wrote.

Professor Shaw said a clash with the courts would only add to a crisis that is already underway. “A number of the new administration’s executive orders and other executive actions are in clear violation of laws enacted by Congress,” she said.

“The administration’s early moves,” she added, “also seem designed to demonstrate maximum contempt for core constitutional values — the separation of powers, the freedom of speech, equal justice under law.”

Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, added that a crisis need not arise from clashes between the branches of the federal government.

“It’s a constitutional crisis when the president of the United States doesn’t care what the Constitution says regardless whether Congress or the courts resist a particular unconstitutional action,” she said. “Up until now, while presidents might engage in particular acts that were unconstitutional, I never had the sense that there was a president for whom the Constitution was essentially meaningless.”

The courts, in any event, may not be inclined or equipped to push back. So much is happening, and so fast, that even eventual final rulings from the Supreme Court rejecting Mr. Trump’s arguments could come too late. After the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are disassembled, say, no court decision can recreate them.

In many cases, of course, the Supreme Court’s six-member conservative majority may be receptive to Mr. Trump’s arguments. Its decision in July granting him substantial immunity from prosecution embraced an expansive vision of the presidency that can only have emboldened him.

Members of that majority are, for instance, likely to embrace the president’s position that he is free to fire leaders of independent agencies.

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Is it time to worry? 'A shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover'

A pitiless crackdown on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions, writes David Smith of The Guardian.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down.

“They are copying the path taken by other would-be dictators like Viktor Orbán,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut. “You have a move towards state-controlled media. You have a judiciary and law enforcement that seems poised to prioritise the prosecution of political opponents. You have the executive seizure of spending power so the leader and only the leader gets to dictate who gets money.”

Orbán, who came to power in 2010, was once described as “Trump before Trump” by the US president’s former adviser Steve Bannon. His long-term dismantling of institutions and control of media in Hungary serves as a cautionary tale about how seemingly incremental changes can pave the way for authoritarianism.

Orbán has described his country as “a petri dish for illiberalism”. His party used its two-thirds majority to rewrite the constitution, capture institutions and change electoral law. He reconfigured the judiciary and public universities to ensure long-term party loyalty.

The prime minister created a system of rewards and punishments, giving control of money and media to allies. An estimated 85% of media outlets are controlled by the Hungarian government, allowing Orbán to shape public opinion and marginalise dissent. Orbán has been also masterful at weaponising “family values” and anti-immigration rhetoric to mobilise his base.

Orbán’s fans in the US include Vice-President JD Vance, the media personality Tucker Carlson and Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank, who once said: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.” The Heritage Foundation produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term.

Orbán has addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and two months ago travelled to the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for talks with both Trump and Musk. He has claimed that “we have entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump’s team” and “have deep involvement there”.

But even Orbán might be taken aback – and somewhat envious – of the alacrity that Trump has shown since returning to power, attacking the foundations of democracy not with a chisel but a sledgehammer.

On day one he pardoned about 1,500 people who took part in the 6 January 2021 insurrection, including those who violently attacked US Capitol police in an effort to overturn his election defeat. Driven by vengeance, he dismissed federal prosecutors involved in Trump-related investigations and hinted at a further targeting of thousands of FBI agents who worked on January 6-related cases.

Bill Kristol, director of the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together and a former official in the Ronald Reagan White House, said: “Flipping the narrative on January 6, becoming a pro-January 6 administration, then weaponising the justice department and talking at least of mass firings at the FBI – that’s further than the norm and very dangerous for obvious reasons.

“If he could do that, he could do anything. Why can’t he order the justice department to investigate you and me and 50 other people? One assumes the lawyers at justice or the FBI agents wouldn’t do it, but if a couple of thousand have been cleared out and the rest are intimidated. I’m not hysterical but I do think the threat is much more real now than people anticipated it being a month ago.”

Borrowing from Orbán’s playbook, Trump has mobilised the culture wars, issuing a series of executive orders and policy changes that target diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and education curricula. This week he signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and directed the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to lead a taskforce on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government.

He is also seeking to marginalise the mainstream media and supplant it with a rightwing ecosystem that includes armies of influencers and podcasters. A “new media” seat has been added to the White House press briefing room while Silicon Valley billionaires were prominent at his inauguration. Musk’s X is a powerful mouthpiece, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has abandoned factchecking and the Chinese-owned TikTok could become part-owned by the US.

Trump has sued news organisations over stories or even interview edits; some have settled the cases. The Pentagon said it would “rotate” four major news outlets from their workspace and replace them with more Trump-friendly media. Jim Acosta, a former White House correspondent who often sparred with Trump, quit CNN while Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, was hired to host a new weekend show on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.

But the most dramatic change has been the way in which Trump has brought disruption to the federal government on an unprecedented scale, firing at least 17 inspectors general, dismantling longstanding programmes, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills.

Government workers are being pushed to resign, entire agencies are being shuttered and federal funding to states and non-profits was temporarily frozen. The most sensitive treasury department information of countless Americans was opened to Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team in a breach of privacy and protocol, raising concerns about potential misuse of federal funds.

Musk’s allies orchestrated a physical takeover of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), locking out employees and vowing to shut it down, with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, stepping in as acting administrator. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on X.

Musk’s team has also heavily influenced the office of personnel management (OPM), offering federal workers a “buyout” and installing loyalists into key positions. It is also pushing for a 50% budget cut and implementing “zero-based budgeting” at the General Services Administration (GSA), which controls federal properties and massive contracts.

Musk, a private citizen who has tens of billions of dollars in government contracts, is slashing and burning his way through Washington with little accountability and has significant potential conflicts of interest. An array of lawsuits is demanding interventions to stop him unilaterally gutting government. Protests are erupting outside government agencies and jamming congressional phone lines.

But critics aiming to sound the alarm that a shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover face intimidation or punishment. Edward Martin, the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, threatened legal action against anyone who “impedes” Doge’s work or “threatens” its people. Martin posted on X: “We are in contact with FBI and other law-enforcement partners to proceed rapidly. We also have our prosecutors preparing.”

Murphy, the Democratic senator, said: “What’s most worrying to me right now is there’s a whole campaign under way to try to punish and suppress Trump and Musk’s political enemies. It started with the pardoning of the January 6 rioters; now everybody knows that they are at risk of having the shit beat out of them if they oppose Donald Trump.

“It extended to the seizure of government funding. It’s clear now that Musk and Trump are going to fund entities and states and congressional districts that support them and will withhold funds from entities and states and congressional districts that don’t support them.”

He added: “Now you have this lawyer who represented January 6 defendants, the new acting DC US attorney, trolling activists online, threatening them with federal prosecution. It’s dizzying campaign of political repression that looks more like Russia than the United States.”

Democrats such as Murphy are determined to fight back but, being in the minority, have few tools at their disposal. Republicans have mostly appeared content to cede their own power. The party’s fealty to Trump was demonstrated again this week when senators in committee voted to move forward with the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F Kennedy Jr as director of national intelligence and health secretary respectively – two mavericks whose selection would have been unthinkable just a year ago.

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “There had been some lingering optimism that at least some Republican senators would draw the line at some of the more absurd Maga appointees but that hasn’t happened. That also demoralises any potential opposition.”

He added: “What Elon Musk represents is basically a hostile takeover of the government and the complete indifference of the Republican Congress to the ways that it is being stripped of its core constitutional functions is demoralising. It is this mood that nothing can be done or will be done to stop them. You’re seeing that in the business community, in the political community, and it’s a fundamental loss of faith in the rule of law and in our system of checks and balances.”

One guardrail is holding for now. Courts have temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship, cull the government workforce and freeze federal funding. Even so, commentators warn that the blatant disregard for congressional authority, erosion of civil service protections and concentration of power in the executive branch pose a grave threat.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “You’d have to have your eyes fully closed not to be deeply concerned and outraged about the vacuum that Donald Trump is operating in now. In a real sense, US democracy has died this month. It doesn’t mean it’s dead for the long term but at this moment the idea of an accountable representative system, as the framers of the constitution wrote it, is no longer present.”

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Judge blocks law requiring 25-foot buffer zone for working police

 A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a state law, approved last year, that creates a buffer zone around police, making it a criminal offense to come within 25 feet of a working officer after being ordered to step back, reported the Louisiana Illuminator.

The preliminary injunction was issued Friday in response to a lawsuit filed in July by six media companies, including Verite News’ parent company Deep South Today, asking for the law to be blocked.

The media groups — represented by the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Louisiana attorneys Scott Sternberg and Marcia Suzanne Montero — say the law could interfere with journalists’ First Amendment rights to cover police actions and expose police misconduct. They also argue the law is unconstitutionally vague, allowing police to invoke the buffer arbitrarily.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is a defendant in the suit, contends that the law is a common-sense public safety measure that will protect police officers while they are on the job. In a December court hearing, attorneys representing Murrill also argued that the media groups’ suit is based on purely hypothetical grounds, as the law has yet to be enforced since it took effect in August.

But in his ruling, Judge John deGravelles of Louisiana’s Middle District, said the threat to newsgathering warrants immediate action.

“Plaintiffs’ journalists are regularly within 25 feet of peace officers, and now face the threat of arrest and prosecution if an order to retreat is given,” deGravelles wrote. “The distance required is likely to impede Plaintiffs’ non-obstructive newsgathering. … Therefore, the Act has a chilling effect on Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights,” even if it has not yet been enforced.”

DeGravelles, a federal court appointee of former President Barack Obama, also agreed with the plaintiffs that the law is overly vague.

“Here, while the Act clearly states that an officer can enforce a 25-foot buffer zone, it lacks any standard by which an officer may issue an order to stand back or retreat,” the judge wrote.

Louisiana is one of several states that have passed police buffer zone laws. Similar laws in Arizona and Indiana have faced legal challenges on constitutional grounds. The Arizona law was struck down in 2022. The Indiana law has faced two separate challenges. In one case, the law was upheld. In another, it was struck down.

The  preliminary injunction will be effective while the case is pending. The plaintiffs’ ultimate goal is a permanent block on the law.

In a statement, Murrill said she had not seen the ruling yet but would “continue to defend the law.”

“We think it is a reasonable time, place and manner restriction from obstructing and interfering with working police,” Murrill said. “We are trying to protect the public. This is a reasonable law.”

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Faith in criminal justice system below 20 percent

Americans’ faith in major societal institutions hasn’t improved over the past year following a slump in public confidence in 2022, reported Gallup.

The five worst-rated institutions -- newspapers, the criminal justice system, television news, big business and Congress -- stir confidence in less than 20% of Americans, with Congress, at 8%, the only one in single digits.

Last year, Gallup recorded significant declines in public confidence in 11 of the 16 institutions it tracks annually, with the presidency and Supreme Court suffering the most. The share of Americans expressing a great deal or fair amount of confidence in these fell 15 and 11 percentage points, respectively.

Neither score recovered appreciably in the latest poll, with confidence in the court now at 27% and the presidency at 26%. However, the survey was conducted June 1-22, 2023, before the Supreme Court issued decisions affecting affirmative action in education, college loan forgiveness and LGBTQ+ Americans’ access to creative services. Any or all of these decisions could have altered the court’s image as well as that of President Joe Biden, who spoke out against the rulings.

Public confidence in each of the other 14 institutions remains near last year’s relatively low level, with none of the scores worsening or improving meaningfully.

Overall, the new poll finds small business enjoying the most public trust, with 65% of Americans having a great deal or fair amount of confidence in it. A majority, 60%, also have high confidence in the military, while less than half (43%) feel this way about the next highest-rated institution, the police.

The medical system and the church or organized religion round out the top five annually rated institutions, albeit with meager 34% and 32% confidence ratings, respectively. Another six -- the U.S. Supreme Court, banks, public schools, the presidency, large technology companies and organized labor -- earn between 25% and 27% confidence.

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