Former U.S. Attorney sue DOJ and AG Blanche over his firing

Less than three hours after a right-wing influencer revealed a blog post critical of Donald Trump, the DOJ fired U.S. Attorney Will Rosenzweig. He received an emailed letter signed by Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, dismissing him from his position as the U.S. attorney for Miami, effective immediately. No reason was provided, reported The New York Times.

Mr. Rosenzweig has now sued the Justice Department along with Todd Blanche, who now runs the department, and Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, asking for financial damages and his job back. In doing so, he joined a growing list of former prosecutors and federal agents who have gone to court in an effort to fight back against the widespread purge of law enforcement officials deemed to be disloyal to the president.

During Mr. Trump’s second term, agents and prosecutors have been fired for any number of reasons. Some were seasoned veterans who lost their jobs while trying to protect subordinates from being dismissed. Others were accused, sometimes incorrectly, of having worked on criminal cases involving the president. Many worked on cases stemming from the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Mr. Rosenzweig’s firing was one of several that shared a different twist: right-wing commentators claimed to be behind them. On the morning after he was terminated, Ms. Winters reposted a message from another far-right influencer, Laura Loomer, announcing the news. Ms. Winters’s message, punctuated by a smiley-face emoji, declared: “Got this guy fired.”

Many of Ms. Winters’s posts have since been deleted, but lawyers for Mr. Rosenzweig included screenshots of them in their lawsuit. In the posts, she said that Mr. Rosenzweig had “smeared” Mr. Trump in his writings by calling him “mentally unfit” and a “white supremacist.”

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Lethal injection secrecy being challenged in South Carolina

How much a state secrecy law really hides from the public will be up to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments Tuesday as part of a broader challenge on executions in South Carolina, reported States Newsroom.

The question arose as part of an ongoing federal lawsuit filed last year by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The lawsuit as a whole argues the 2023 expansion of the law, which keeps secret almost all information about who carries out executions and how, violates people’s First Amendment right to free speech.

Legislators passed the law to help prison officials buy the drugs needed to carry out executions through lethal injection.

The boundaries of that law is what justices heard arguments on Tuesday. Under the law, violators can be sent to prison for up to three years.

Attorneys for the state and ACLU agreed on one thing: Any information already out in the open can be repeated without fearing arrest.

The secrecy law worked as intended. Four months after its passage, the Department of Corrections announced securing the drugs, and executions resumed in September 2024. Since then, seven men have been put to death. Four chose to die by lethal injection, and three selected the newly added firing squad.

No other death warrants are imminent, as inmates wait on appeals.

Public versus confidential

Under the interpretation attorneys for both sides proposed, only an employee who leaks restricted information about the execution process or the drugs could face punishment.

ACLU seeks halt to SC law that keeps execution information secret

The recipients of that information shouldn’t be liable, as long as they didn’t break any other laws to get it, attorneys said. That would include an employee’s spouse, a reporter writing an article, or an advocate trying to sway public opinion.

“Once the leak has been made, everyone else can keep talking about it,” said Grayson Lambert, an attorney for the governor’s office.

The law was clearly written with that interpretation in mind, said Lambert and Joseph Spate, who works in the attorney general’s office. Otherwise, enforcing the law would be impossible in some situations.

If, for instance, members of the execution team identify themselves in a viral social media post, the attorney general’s office couldn’t possibly go after every person who shared it, Spate said.

“The attorney general wouldn’t be able to prosecute potentially millions of violations of the statute,” he said. “The reason for that is because the General Assembly has not funded the attorney general’s office to prosecute millions of offenses against the shield statute.”

The ACLU read the law in a much stricter way.

The nonprofit didn’t want to put anything in the open that could lead to an employee’s arrest, and without clarification, the ACLU believed that could be anything, even information already made public through other means, said Allen Chaney, an attorney for the ACLU.

“South Carolina is executing people again, and the ACLU wants to talk about that without running the risk of being criminally prosecuted,” Chaney said. “All we’re seeking is clarity. We want to know what the act covers so that we and others don’t have to guess as to whether our speech might result in criminal liability.”

The interpretation of the law the attorneys agreed upon would give the ACLU the clarity it needed, Chaney said.

The nonprofit has nearly 3,000 pages of information about the execution process found through court documents, statements from prison officials and news reports that advocates compiled in the hopes of giving the public a fuller understanding of the execution process, Chaney said.

None of those documents would break the law, Lambert said.

“If the ACLU walked out of court this morning and handed a reporter on the courthouse steps that entire document production, the ACLU is not going to be prosecuted,” he said.

Even though the attorneys agreed, an opinion from the state Supreme Court would set precedent in case attorneys for a future attorney general interpret the law differently, Chaney said.

The state’s chief prosecutor will change in January, when Attorney General Alan Wilson’s replacement takes office. Wilson is running for governor this year.

“We need a definitive and clear opinion from this court,” Chaney said.

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CREATORS: President Settles Extraordinary Lawsuit With Himself

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
May 26, 2026

Never has there been a more egregious abuse of power in American history than the settlement of President Donald Trump v. the Internal Revenue Service. The President sued the IRS — essentially suing himself — while the lawyers defending the government against the lawsuit also work for him. Trump was well aware of the incongruous nature of his lawsuit, telling reporters, "I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself."

Let's put that in perspective. The president oversees the Department of the Treasury. The IRS is an agency of the Department of the Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury serves at the pleasure of the President. The Department of Justice is also an agency of the executive branch of government — headed by the president's former attorney — whose attorneys must adhere to the president's opinion on matters of law.

The Justice Department announced that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has established a $1.776 billion fund to settle Trump v. IRS. According to Lawfare, the name "Trump chose for this instrument of partisan self-dealing — conjured by a president suing his own government and settling with himself, a product of the politicized use of the legal system he claims to deplore — is 'The Anti-Weaponization Fund.'"

As the fund is currently configured, Trump will not be entitled to compensation directly from the fund. According to Lawfare, "the money will be doled out by a five-member board he effectively controls, operating under procedures that need not be disclosed, with the identities of recipients potentially kept secret."

Before you cheer for the president's magnanimous decision to not accept monies for himself, consider that the settlement directs that the government would be "forever barred and precluded from prosecuting or pursuing" pending tax claims against Trump, his family members and businesses.

According to The New York Times, the addendum to the settlement agreement was posted, without fanfare, on the department's website. According to The Times, the addendum "revealed the determination of Mr. Trump and his appointees to ram through maximalist measures with minimum outside scrutiny at a moment when they still have uncontested control of government."

The immunity from IRS auditing ignores that the IRS is required by regulation to audit the president's tax returns every year. It is also worth noting that The New York Times reported in 2024 that an audit of Trump by the IRS could cost the president more than $100 million.

His $10 billion lawsuit and the resulting $1.8 billion settlement do not pass constitutional muster. In 1937, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes reasoned that justiciable cases and controversies not only require that disputes be of the types specified in Article III of the U.S. Constitution, but the controversy must be definite and concrete, "touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests."

There are no adverse interests in this settlement. The president's IRS made a deal with the President's DOJ to use taxpayer money to compensate supporters of the president. This lawsuit and settlement should have been laughed out of court.

The judge overseeing Trump's suit, Kathleen Williams of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, raised the case and controversy concern. To avoid briefing and arguing the matter, Trump withdrew the suit in exchange for the "slush fund" and IRS immunity.

If Congress does not act — both houses having been emasculated by the President's influence with the extreme wing of the GOP — the Courts will need to step into the void. The slush fund is being challenged by police officers who helped defend the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This money grab must be thwarted.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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DOJ sues DC Bar Association over ethics enforcement alleging 'blatantly partisan arm of leftist cause'

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia Bar over its efforts to discipline Trump administration lawyers, escalating the department’s feud with legal ethics authorities, reported The New York Times.

The lawsuit defends Jeffrey Clark, a government lawyer in the first Trump administration who sought to undo the results of the 2020 presidential race, and Ed Martin, a current senior Justice Department official. The suit was filed by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Stanley E. Woodward Jr., the No. 3 official at the Justice Department.

In accompanying statements, Mr. Blanche accused the D.C. Bar of acting as a “blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes.” Mr. Woodward said that the bar would “no longer be permitted to probe sensitive executive branch deliberations,” adding that lawyers in the federal government must “be free to share their candid legal advice with their bosses and colleagues.”

That position — that lawyers at the Justice Department or other federal agencies are above scrutiny by legal ethics officials — is likely to be challenged by a host of legal profession entities.

The lawsuit centers on the long-running battle over the D.C. Bar’s effort to disbar Mr. Clark, an environmental lawyer who had no formal role in investigating elections, over his push to promote Mr. Trump’s baseless assertions of fraud in Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory in 2020.

While the lawsuit is focused on Mr. Clark, Justice Department leaders in the suit also argued in defense of Mr. Martin. Two months ago, the D.C. Bar filed disciplinary charges against Mr. Martin over what it cast as his misconduct in seeking to punish Georgetown University’s law school.

Mr. Martin has spearheaded efforts by President Trump to use the Justice Department to pursue the president’s perceived enemies — what the administration claims are corrective measures intended to end “weaponization” of law enforcement by Democrats.

Increasingly, the Trump administration has clashed with state and local bars, as interest groups and some lawyers argue that unethical conduct by government lawyers acting on behalf of the Trump administration should be investigated and potentially punished.

The Justice Department is pushing forward a proposal to try to stall or delay state and city bars from conducting ethics investigations of its lawyers, and the new lawsuit argues that the D.C. Bar is among the entities that has shown partisan bias.

To back up that claim, the lawsuit points to how the D.C. Bar handled the case of Kevin E. Clinesmith, a former F.B.I. lawyer who pleaded guilty to making a false statement when he altered an email to try to justify court-ordered surveillance of a former 2016 Trump campaign adviser. After his plea, Mr. Clinesmith had his bar license suspended for a year.

The suit called Mr. Clinesmith’s punishment a “slap on the wrist” for suborning unlawful surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and compared it to the effort to disbar Mr. Clark for “attempting to tell a lie” about the 2020 election.

The lawsuit also invokes the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision granting partial immunity to presidents, suggesting that if a president has immunity, lawyers working for him in the government are also protected from ethical discipline.

“The president’s constitutionally required immunity would provide little protection if executive branch attorneys could be targeted for internal executive branch deliberations,” the lawsuit argued.

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CREATORS: Qualified Immunity Gets Yet Another Boost From SCOTUS

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
April 27, 2026

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that permitted a civil rights suit to move forward against a Vermont police officer who allegedly used excessive force against a woman during a 2015 demonstration at the governor's inauguration.

Detective Jacob Zorn was sued by Shela Linton. The Vermont Capitol was closed for the inauguration. Protesters showed up anyway and were told by police that they had to leave or they would be arrested for trespassing. The protesters were unfazed and the police moved in.

Zorn asked Linton to stand up. According to the U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Zorn took Linton's arm, put it behind her back, placed pressure on her wrist and lifted her to her feet. Linton sued Zorn for using excessive force under the federal civil rights statute — Title 42 of the U.S. Code 1983 — alleging a state actor violated her constitutional rights.

Section 1983 grew out of the Civil Rights Acts of 1871. The Act was passed after the Civil War to prevent public officials and the Ku Klux Klan from violating the constitutional rights of former slaves.

Section 1983 provided relief — in the form of money damages — to claimants whose constitutional rights had been violated by a police officer or public official acting under state authority. The Act provides that a wrongdoer "shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law."

About 100 years after the Civil Rights Act, the Supreme Court established qualified immunity, a potential defense to wrongdoers. About a decade later, the high Court further refined qualified immunity. The Court ruled a state actor would be immune from liability if, at the time of the harm, the conduct "was not clearly established" as a civil rights violation. The Court continued, "An official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly be said to 'know' that the law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful."

The 2nd Circuit Court reasoned that its 2004 decision in a case involving the arrest of anti-abortion protesters at a women's health center in Connecticut "clearly establish(ed)" that the tactics that Zorn had used in arresting Linton, "such as a rear-wristlock on a protestor who is passively resisting arrest constitutes excessive force and is therefore violative of that arrestee's Fourth Amendment rights." Therefore, the court of appeals concluded that law enforcement officials like Zorn would have been on notice that they could be held personally liable for such conduct.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. The high court held, according to SCOTUSblog, that government officials are entitled to qualified immunity "unless they could have 'read' the relevant" cases governing their behavior before acting "and 'know(n)' that it proscribed their specific conduct." The Court found that the 2004 case on which the court of appeals relied "did not clearly establish that Zorn's specific conduct violated the Fourth Amendment."

The Supreme Court has yet again made it more difficult to establish qualified immunity, providing further protection to police officers who harm individuals by violating their constitutional rights. The standard of "clearly established" unlawful conduct is clearly getting more and more beyond the reach of most claimants.

In 2018, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that a decision favoring the police tells officers that "they can shoot first and think later and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished."

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Minnesota sue DHS over failure to provide investigative materials from three shooting

Minnesota sued the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over their refusal to provide state investigators with access to evidence regarding three shootings by DHS agents in the state, reported JuristNews.

The complaint alleges that DHS and DOJ unlawfully denied the state’s requests for evidence pertaining to the shootings. According to the state, it has a legal right to investigate the shootings that took place, asserting that it “retain[s] the sovereign authority—and responsibility—to investigate crimes committed within [state] borders.” By refusing to cooperate with state investigators, Minnesota claims that the federal government is violating the Administrative Procedure Act.

The lawsuit stems from three shootings by federal authorities in Minnesota that occurred during “Operation Metro Surge,” the DHS immigration enforcement effort within the state that saw thousands of DHS agents deployed to Minneapolis and St. Paul. The shootings include those of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Pretti and Good were both killed, while Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg. The federal government has defended the shootings on grounds of self defense.

Minnesota alleges that it has requested evidence in connection to the three shootings from the DHS and DOJ, following the proper procedure as required by the Supreme Court in Touhy v. Ragen and by 5 U.S.C. § 301. Minnesota argues that agencies may prescribe regulations for state requests for information connected to investigations, but they cannot prohibit any disclosure. The state further claims that DHS denied its request for evidence on the grounds that the Department would not release matters regarding criminal investigations. Minnesota rebuffed this argument by citing 6 C.F.R. § 5.41, which allows for disclosure related to criminal investigations. The DOJ has likewise refused to provide evidence, the state contends, citing Department policy to not disclose information pertaining to Operation Metro Surge. Minnesota maintains that both of these refusals unlawfully interfere with its ability to investigate under Touhy.

The lawsuit comes against the backdrop of ongoing controversy surrounding Operation Metro Surge. Following the shooting of Pretti and Good, the Trump administration decided to end the operation. Though DHS agents remain in the state, hundreds have been recalled. The DOJ also opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Pretti, but refused to do so for Good.

Minnesota is seeking a declaration from the court that the withholding of evidence is unlawful, and an order to release the evidence.

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CREATORS: Circumventing Legislatures by Ignoring the Constitution

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS

March 17, 2026

Last June, a federal judge in Texas blocked a two-decade-old law offering undocumented residents the same discounted tuition as other in-state college students, after the Trump administration sued Texas over the law.

That is not surprising. Making it difficult for undocumented residents has become the cornerstone of this administration. However, what is surprising is that the state's Republican lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to change the law only days before the lawsuit was filed.

Most surprisingly, the day the federal lawsuit was filed, the state of Texas settled. According to The New York Times, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, simply agreed that the state law should be invalidated.

The legislature, which was unable or unwilling to amend or strike the law, was sidestepped. What is wrong with smart lawyers at the Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office finding a clever way to get done what the 181 members of the Texas legislature could not?

The problem is that sham lawsuits violate the U.S. Constitution and this is not the only time the Trump Justice Department has colluded with states to violate the Constitution, circumventing the legislative process.

Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution limits federal court jurisdiction to actual, ongoing disputes between adverse parties, prohibiting courts from issuing advisory opinions or ruling on hypothetical scenarios.

Pursuant to the "Cases and Controversy Clause," parties to a lawsuit must truly be adverse to each other, the dispute must be concrete and the dispute must be capable of being resolved through an award of specific relief. That was not the case in Texas. The outcome was known before the suit was filed.

In Florida, according to The New York Times, the Trump administration reached a legal settlement in February, with the Republican-led state requiring the Department of Homeland Security to forgo its authority to admit immigrants for 15 years. Though reached with a state government, the settlement could affect immigration policy for the whole nation.

In Kentucky, the federal Department of Transportation proposed a settlement in a case with a pair of industrial companies challenging decades-old racial and gender-based preferences, acceding to the businesses and agreeing to end use of the preferences in its contracting nationwide.

More than a half a century ago, Chief Justice Earl Warren suggested that cases and controversies "limit the business of federal courts to questions presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of resolution through the judicial process ... a tripartite allocation of power to assure that the federal courts will not intrude into areas committed to the other branches of government." As a result, suits that are collusive or feigned by two friendly parties to resolve a question of interest to them are unconstitutional.

If the blatant legal schemes in Texas, Florida and Kentucky — defying the Constitution —are not enough, consider this major Trumpian hustle. Trump is suing himself and demanding a settlement. The IRS falls under the executive branch of the U.S. government. It operates as a bureau within the Department of the Treasury, which is one of the 15 executive departments. The Secretary of the Treasury is appointed by the president and serves at his pleasure.

At the heart of the case is Trump's contention that the federal government should be held liable for the leak of his federal tax returns during his first term as president.

Trump wants the Treasury Department and IRS to pay damages to him in the amount of $10 billion. Could Trump demand that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent settle the case and pay out?

You probably think something like that is far-fetched. Well, Democrats in the United States Senate don't think so; they introduced the "Stop Presidential Embezzlement Act," which would block any financial benefit to Trump resulting from the $10 billion lawsuit. 

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Trump administration doing legislative end run by suing friendly adversaries

Last June, the Trump administration hauled Texas into court, claiming that a decades-old state law once championed by Republicans violated federal law.

Within six hours, the two sides reached an agreement, reported The New York Times.

Instead of fighting, Texas immediately settled. Led by Attorney General Ken Paxton, a close ally of President Trump, Texas simply agreed the state law, which allowed undocumented high school students to pay in-state tuition at public universities, should be invalidated. The resolution eliminated any need for a slow and messy vote to overturn the statute in the State Legislature.

It was one of a string of lawsuits in which the Trump administration has reached settlements with friendly adversaries.

The strategy appears to have allowed the administration to do an end run around the legislative process and enact policies that will affect states and, in some cases, the whole country.

The settlements have come despite Supreme Court rulings that require lawsuits to be waged between adversarial parties and a reticence among administration officials dating to Mr. Trump’s first term with entering legal settlements that bind the government’s hands.

In some cases, like in Texas, the legal maneuver has allowed states to quietly break free from their own laws, outside the normal legislative process. In others, it has helped the Trump administration lock in changes at the federal level that could persist for years after Mr. Trump leaves office.

In Florida, for instance, the Trump administration in February reached a legal settlement with the Republican-led state requiring the Department of Homeland Security to forgo one of its authorities to admit immigrants for 15 years. Though reached with a state government, the settlement could affect immigration policy for the whole nation, through the next four presidential administrations.

In Kentucky, the federal Transportation Department proposed a settlement in a case with a pair of industrial companies challenging decades-old racial and gender-based preferences, acceding to the businesses and agreeing to end use of the preferences in its contracting nationwide.

Asked to comment on the pattern of settlements, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department indicated that the laws at issue in each case were problematic for different reasons. In Florida, a judge had already sided with the state before the agreement. And in Texas, the spokeswoman said the fact that the law remained on the state’s books, despite the parties agreeing it was illegal, amounted to a real dispute.

But the speed at which cases have been settled and the shared political priorities involved have led outside groups and former officials to call foul, arguing that the cases appear plainly collusive.

“This isn’t a controversy,” Shelby Leighton, a lawyer at Public Justice, said of cases the Justice Department has brought regarding in-state tuition. She is asking a judge in Kentucky to reject a settlement there similar to the one in Texas. “The federal government and the state government agree a hundred percent on the issue, and they’re just working together to do an end run around the democratic process.”

The Supreme Court has long maintained that federal judges cannot hear cases where there is no genuine dispute between the parties, warning that the Constitution bars judges from hearing cases that are not adversarial. Such collusive lawsuits are dangerous, the justices have found in multiple instances, because they exclude third parties with real stakes in the outcome.

For decades, the Justice Department has likewise discouraged legal settlements that could reduce the executive branch’s power in the long run.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese III, sent a memo to colleagues specifically urging them to use caution when ending lawsuits through consent decrees, a particular type of settlement in which the resolution is monitored by a judge.

At the time, the Reagan administration was defending the government against a crush of lawsuits from environmental groups.

The department, Mr. Meese wrote, should not enter into a consent decree that “divests the secretary or agency administrator, or his successors, of discretion committed to him by Congress or the Constitution,” particularly if the power had been granted to allow government officials “to respond to changing circumstances.”

The vision was reaffirmed and expanded in 1999 by Randolph D. Moss, now a federal judge in Washington, under President Bill Clinton.

In the mid-2010s, during President Barack Obama’s second term, conservative scholars accused him too of collusive lawsuits, criticizing what they called “sue and settle” schemes, especially in the environmental realm. Academics cataloged a number of examples in which they said watchdog groups sharing the administration’s environmental goals sued the Environmental Protection Agency or a related department, followed by a quick settlement that shifted regulations.

But Mr. Trump’s officials have generally been critical of using legal settlements to achieve policy aims, particularly given their history of use to force police reform. Last year, Mr. Trump issued an executive order prompting the Justice Department to withdraw from oversight of nearly two dozen police departments. 

For that reason, the administration’s actions in Florida stunned many legal experts.

The state had sued the Biden administration in 2023, seeking to stop the federal government from paroling scores of migrants arrested at the southern border into the country, just as strict pandemic-era restrictions at the border were expiring.

At the beginning of February, Mr. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security entered a consent decree to settle the three-year-old suit, agreeing to impose a 15-year freeze on using a mass parole power that allows the government to quickly release migrants into the country while they wait for a court date.

Strikingly, of the six members of the Florida attorney general’s office helping represent the state when the suit was filed, four are now senior officials in Mr. Trump’s Justice Department. Just two months before the case was settled, a fifth — James Percival — took over as the top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security.

A homeland security spokesman provided a signed ethics agreement Mr. Percival submitted to the Office of Government Ethics in which he agreed to recuse himself from lawsuits that he worked on, directly related to Florida. A separate signed authorization from the department’s secretary, Kristi Noem, directed Mr. Percival to step aside from cases involving the state “if you personally worked on litigation related to the same matter while serving in the Florida Office of the Attorney General.”

“Mr. Percival has fully complied with that commitment during his D.H.S. employment,” the spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said that the agreement was approved by the department’s leadership and that the agency does not entirely avoid consent decrees.

Under the consent decree, Florida can return to court at any time to challenge any federal parole policy, citing the consent decree in which the government agreed to forgo the authority. The agreement will be overseen by Judge T. Kent Wetherell, a Trump appointee.

Tom Jawetz, who served as the Homeland Security Department’s deputy general counsel in the Biden administration, said the agreement would put “an asterisk” on future presidents’ ability to use the parole power, even if they hold different policy views on immigration than Mr. Trump.

“They’re going to have to think about, not just whether using parole is within their legal authority, but also whether Florida is going to believe it’s a violation of this consent decree, and what the consequences of being hauled into court will be over that decision,” he said.

In the case out of Kentucky that the Trump administration inherited, officials used a lawsuit as an opportunity to take a swipe at diversity requirements set out in a law passed by Congress.

On returning to office, one of Mr. Trump’s earliest priorities was purging race-based preferences and other hiring practices he deemed “diversity, equity and inclusion” from the federal government and beyond. The president has said those policies, intended to correct years of systemic racial inequality, amounted to reverse racial discrimination against white people.

Two federal contractors sued in 2023 over set-asides in the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, which Congress enacted in 1983. Last year, the Transportation Department ceased defending the law and moved to settle with the companies, adopting their stance that the practice of favoring businesses owned by women or certain ethnic minorities was unconstitutional.

A judge has not yet accepted the settlement agreement. But after a coalition of minority-owned business groups intervened in the lawsuit, the Transportation Department bypassed the court proceedings, issuing a new federal rule that effectively tossed out the diversity requirements nationwide.

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CREATORS: The U.S. Senate's Great Money Grab

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
December 2, 2025

In early October, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) revealed that the FBI obtained personal cell phone data from eight Republican senators as part of an investigation into the conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election so that outgoing President Donald Trump could remain in office.

In 2023, the FBI sought and obtained data about the senators' phone use from Jan. 4 through Jan. 7, 2021. The data showed when and to whom calls were made, as well as the duration and general location of the call. The data did not include the content of the call.

Some members of the Senate were outraged by the revelation. The U.S. Senate was so incensed at the perceived invasion of privacy that it decided that American taxpayers should pay the "aggrieved" senators millions of dollars to prevent the FBI from ever investigating senators without letting them know in advance.

While literally millions of federal workers were not being paid during the 43-day government shutdown, lawmakers were scheming about how to cash in on the government impasse.

As Americans were standing in line at food pantries, Senators were sitting in the proverbial "smoke-filled room" drawing up a real money grab — even by the lowly standards of the U.S. Congress.

Senate Republicans secured a provision in the bipartisan, shutdown-ending government funding package that could award senators millions of dollars for having their phone records collected without their knowledge as part of the election investigation.

A person with direct knowledge of the legislative negotiations confirmed to Politico that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) oversaw the inclusion of the money grab provision. It was tucked into the legislative branch spending measure for fiscal year 2026, part of a three-bill appropriations package approved by the Senate.

According to the blog Lawfare, the law created a civil cause of action — "that is, the ability to sue in court — if a senator is not notified when providers (cell phone companies) receive a subpoena for his or her data, or that of his or her staff."

The law makes it possible for eight sitting senators to cash in. The legislation conveniently provides that this new cause of action is retroactive to January 2022 — the data was obtained in 2023.

This means that those eight senators will recover a minimum of $500,000. Eight senators voted to create a retroactive cause of action so they could recover at least half a million dollars.

Lawfare suggests, the $500,000 remedy is available for each "instance," which means that a typical subpoena seeking data from a senator's cell phone and email account could cost $1 million. Collecting the same data from a Senator's staff — say, five individuals plus the senator — could cost taxpayers $6 million in damages. Lawfare further points out that the common practice of "refreshing the collected data by issuing new subpoenas as the investigation progresses could double or triple the amount of damages."

The controversy got more interesting when members of the House of Representatives finally read the legislation they passed to end the government shutdown. It was unclear if the House was outraged more by what the Senate did or by finding out the payoff did not include members of the House.

The House recently voted 427-0 to repeal the self-serving part of the new law. According to PBS, a senior White House official, who was granted anonymity to describe President Trump's thinking, said that the president had no objections to the language added by the senators and indicated privately that he does not think it was a bad provision. The source said, "The White House had been fully looped in as senators drafted the bill."

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Lawsuit: DC roadblocks unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment

Residents of Washington, D.C., are turning out in force to protest the Trump administration's takeover of the city's law enforcement, which has included police checkpoints on popular streets staffed by federal agents, reported Reason Magazine.

NBC News and other outlets reported that more than 100 protesters turned out on Wednesday night to heckle federal law enforcement at a checkpoint on 14th Street Northwest and warn drivers of the police ahead. 

And good for them.

Leaving aside the dubious overall legality of the White House's takeover—the D.C. attorney general filed a lawsuit over that issue Friday—the use of such generalized roadblocks is obnoxious, impinges on Americans' traditional freedom to travel, and is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. 

Scott Michelman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of the District of Columbia, tells Reason police checkpoints "are inherently problematic."

"They're evocative of a police state where law enforcement stops ordinary people going about their business for no reason at all," Michelman says.

And that's why, Michelman says, the Supreme Court sharply limited the use of police checkpoints. "They can't be used as a pretext for general crime control activities, and they can't be used just to harass the community, which is what I fear was happening this week on 14th Street," he says.

The Court ruled in the 2000 case City of Indianapolis v. Edmond that police roadblocks or checkpoints are only legal when they serve a specific road safety concern—such as stopping drunk drivers—not when they're used for general crime control.

"We cannot sanction stops justified only by the generalized and everpresent possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime," the Court wrote.

A Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) spokesperson told The Washington Post that the roadblock was a "traffic safety compliance checkpoint," which the department has been setting up around the city weekly since 2023. The spokesperson said officers "stopped 28 vehicles, issued 38 infraction notices and arrested one man for driving without a permit and counterfeit tags," reports the Post.

The focus on car safety would at least arguably pass muster under Indianapolis v. Edmond, but that then raises the question of why federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, who are typically tasked with investigating complex international crimes, were spending their time enforcing local traffic laws and checking vehicle tags.

However, The New York Times reported that federal agents were running sobriety checkpoints, not vehicle safety checkpoints.

"It's hard to take any of these conflicting explanations very seriously," Michelman says. "Instead, it appears that in keeping with President Trump's general contempt for the people of D.C., he's just interested in a campaign of harassment."

It's this sort of ambiguity that could get D.C. in trouble, as it has in the past. MPD used to operate "Neighborhood Safety Zone" checkpoints in the Trinidad neighborhood until a federal appeals court ruled they were unconstitutional in 2009.

Despite the fairly clear rule from the Supreme Court, police departments across the country still try to get away with setting up general anti-crime checkpoints.

In 2022, the Mississippi Justice Center filed a lawsuit challenging Jackson, Mississippi's use of "ticket, arrest, and tow" checkpoints, causing the city to overhaul its policies. 

In 2019, Madison County, Mississippi, also settled a lawsuit over police roadblocks that happened to predominantly appear in black neighborhoods. As Reason reported in a 2017 investigation, black residents of Madison County had felt under siege from their sheriff's office for generations.

Several New England ACLU chapters also successfully sued to shut down a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoint in New Hampshire in 2023 that was nearly 100 miles from the Canadian border. The civil rights groups argued that the CBP was using the checkpoint to detain and search motorists, well beyond its authority and far from its jurisdiction.

Using vehicle safety regulations as a fig leaf to allow federal law enforcement to harass and investigate drivers shouldn't be tolerated by courts, and from the looks of it, it rightfully won't be tolerated by D.C. residents.

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Law&Crime: Donald Trump's latest legal effort may escalate fight over Jeffrey Epstein files

Matthew T. Mangino
Law&Crime News
July 23, 2025

President Donald Trump has all sorts of problems with the criminal justice system.

He pardoned hundreds of men and woman who were convicted of storming the capitol on Jan. 6, and his Department of Justice has purged career prosecutors who effectively conducted the prosecutions.

The Trump DOJ, headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, has launched an investigation into the former director of the FBI James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan who looked into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump has fared much better with civil lawsuits — not those litigated, but those settled. His record with civil verdicts — those verdicts rendered by a jury — is not so good. New York Attorney General Letitia James got a verdict for the people of New York for $355 million against Trump for business fraud.  E. Jean Carroll was awarded $88.3 million as a result of two successful defamation jury verdicts against Trump.

On the other hand, Trump received a $15 million settlement – not in the form of a jury award, but money forked over by ABC Disney Entertainment. Paramount CBS did the same, handing Trump $16 million, and then announced the end of the popular "Late Show," hosted by Stephen Colbert, after Colbert called the payment a bribe to secure an upcoming merger.

No wonder, then, that Donald Trump has filed another lawsuit against a big-time media company. The president has sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters for libel and slander over claims that he sent disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a lewd letter and sketch of a naked woman.

President Donald Trump, from left, speaks while signing an executive order as Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick, Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison, chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle Corporation, listen in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The lawsuit was filed in a Florida federal court seeking $10 billion in damages. According to The Guardian, the suit came only a day after the WSJ "reported on a 50th birthday greeting that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein in 2003 that included a sexually suggestive drawing and reference to secrets they shared."

The card reportedly concluded with "Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret."

Trump has denied the report and claimed the letter is a fake.

This lawsuit may be more about trying to extract Trump from the center of the Epstein scandal than to cash in another cowering media outlet.

A little more than a week ago, a two-page memo from the Department of Justice and the FBI said they found no evidence that Epstein blackmailed powerful people or kept a "client list," and they reiterated that he died by suicide in his prison cell in 2019.

According to NPR, Epstein's death and imprisonment have been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories, including a "prominent belief amplified by numerous right-wing figures who now serve in the Trump administration that the sex trafficker's death is proof, in part, that the government is run by shadowy figures out to undermine Trump."

As the outrage on the right grows, Trump posted a lengthy message on his Truth Social website telling his supporters to "not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about," and spread baseless conspiracies that the so-called files were created by Democrats to go after him. That post didn't go over well with Democrats or Republicans.

While pressure from Democrats is the norm, dissent from within the Trump administration is not. The President's inner circle — Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — have been at odds with each other over the handling of the Epstein files. Prominent GOP leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have suggested the files be released.

Then, on Friday, the president capitulated, ordering Bondi to seek the unsealing of grand jury testimony from the prosecution against Epstein."

Will the grand jury testimony calm the storm — or just fuel the growing tumult facing Trump and his administration?

(Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. He is a regular contributor to Law&Crime. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino)

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Trump's case against Wall Street Journal faces hurdles

 Donald Trump's legal case against the Wall Street Journal over a story about the U.S. president and Jeffrey Epstein could face hurdles, one of which is that it does not appear to comply with Florida state rules over the timing of defamation lawsuits, legal experts told Reuters.

If the case proceeds, Trump would need to clear a demanding "actual malice" standard that must be met by public figures to win in U.S. defamation cases. The standard means Trump must prove the paper knew the article was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth.

The Wall Street Journal lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases Trump has filed against news outlets, and experts said his demonstrated willingness to sue could have a chilling effect on coverage of his administration even if the suit was ultimately unsuccessful.

Trump sued the Journal and its owners including Rupert Murdoch in Miami federal court on Friday, seeking at least $10 billion on each of two defamation counts. He said the newspaper defamed him in a July 17 report that said Trump's name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.

A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Journal's parent, said on Friday the company was confident in the accuracy of its reporting and would vigorously defend itself against the lawsuit.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty and the case was dismissed after his death.

Backers of conspiracy theories about Epstein have urged Trump to release investigative files related to the disgraced financier and sex offender.

Two lawyers with experience in defamation law said Trump did not appear to have complied with a Florida law requiring anyone bringing a defamation case against "a newspaper, periodical, or other medium" to notify the defendant at least five days before filing suit.

That means the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, would have no option but to dismiss the case if the Journal asked him to do so, though Trump may be able to re-file it, the experts said.

The Journal published its story on Thursday. In his lawsuit on Friday, Trump's lawyers said the Journal informed Trump about the forthcoming article last Tuesday, and they sent the paper an email that same day asserting that the article would be false and defamatory.

That timeline does not appear to comply with Florida's five-day notice law, said Marc Randazza, who said he had been practicing defamation law in Florida for more than 20 years.

"I don't even need to look at the merits of the case. The game is over," said Randazza of law firm Randazza Legal Group in Las Vegas. Randazza said Trump's case was "at least colorable" on the merits.

The White House deferred comment to Trump's lawyer in the case, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dow Jones declined to comment.

TRUMP MUST CLEAR HIGH BAR

In addition to the five-day notice hurdle, Trump would likely struggle to prove that the Journal acted with "actual malice," said Andrew Fleischman of law firm Sessions & Fleischman in Atlanta.

To back Trump's claim that the Journal knew the story was inaccurate, his complaint says the president informed the Journal before publication that the reporting was false.

Fleischman said a disagreement about the truth of an assertion is not enough to prove actual malice. Instead, Trump would need to demonstrate that the paper was deliberately lying.

The billions in monetary damages Trump was seeking is a "PR figure" designed to attract attention, said Fleischman, who frequently defends clients against defamation claims.

The figure would far exceed the largest defamation judgments and settlements in recent history, including a $1.3 billion judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Fox News' settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million.

Trump, a Republican who has pledged to "straighten out the press," has a mixed record in the numerous lawsuits he has filed against media outlets.

Judges have dismissed cases he brought against CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. More recently, television network ABC and CBS parent company Paramount (PARA.O), opens new tab have opted to settle cases brought by Trump.

Walt Disney (DIS.N), opens new tab-owned ABC News in December paid $15 million and publicly apologized for comments by anchor George Stephanopoulos, who inaccurately said Trump had been found liable for rape. Trump had been found liable of sexually abusing, but not raping, the magazine writer E. Jean Carroll.

Paramount's $16 million settlement came as the company seeks approval from U.S. regulators for its merger with Skydance Media. Trump had initially sought $10 billion in his lawsuit, which alleged CBS deceptively edited an interview with Democratic former Vice President Kamala Harris to favor her rival presidential bid.

Even if the Journal prevails, Trump's willingness to file claims against news organizations could have a chilling effect on journalists given the costs of defending against them, experts said.

BONGINO CASE DISMISSED

Trump would not be the first member of his administration to run up against Florida's five-day notice provision.

In 2019, podcaster Dan Bongino - who is now the deputy director of the FBI - sued online news outlet the Daily Beast for defamation over a story about his departure from the National Rifle Association's online video channel.

The case was dismissed the next year. U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez in Miami sided with the Daily Beast in finding that Bongino did not comply with the provision, but said the basis of his decision was that Bongino's case lacked merit.

Neither the FBI nor Bongino's personal lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment.

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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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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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DOE sues New York for allegedly violating civil rights law with Native American mascot ban

The US Department of Education (DOE) announced Friday that New York state has violated federal civil rights law by banning Native American school mascots while permitting mascots derived from other ethnic groups, reported Jurist. This comes after the DOE launched an investigation into the state’s mascot controversy last month.

The investigation was launched after The Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) filed a complaint with the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), alleging that the New York Department of Education (NYDOE) and the New York Board of Regents (BOR) are violating federal civil rights law by forcing the Massapequa School District to eliminate its “Chiefs” mascot based on its association with Native American culture. In 2023 the BOR voted unanimously to adopt a NYDOE regulation that prohibits the use of Indigenous team names, mascots, and logos by public schools. Four Long Island school districts filed a federal lawsuit challenging the regulation, claiming that it violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal district court judge in March, finding that the school districts did not provide enough evidence that the policy infringed on First Amendment rights.

In its subsequent investigation, the OCR concluded that New York’s policy was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it bans names, mascots, and logos based on Native American race and national origin, but does not ban those “that appear to have been derived from other racial or ethnic groups, such as the ‘Dutchmen’ and the ‘Huguenots.'” Title VI prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin” in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated in Friday’s press release:

Rather than focus on learning outcomes, the New York Department of Education and Board of Regents has set its sights on erasing Massapequa’s history—while turning a blind eye to other districts’ mascots that are derived from or connected to other racial or ethnic groups. We will stand with the people of Massapequa until commonsense is restored and justice is served, and until New York comes into compliance with federal law.

The OCR states that New York must rescind the regulation prohibiting the use of Indigenous mascots. The OCR also demands that the state issue letters of apology to Indigenous tribes which acknowledge the BOR “violated Title VI by discriminating against Native Americans” and “silenced the voices of Native Americans and attempted to erase Native American history.” If these conditions are not met within ten days, the DOE notes that it may refer the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for enforcement proceedings, and federal funding may be pulled from the state.

This comes amidst a spate of legal actions surround the DOE. Last month, a federal judge in New Hampshire granted a preliminary injunction that blocks the DOE from withholding federal funding from schools that implement diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In March, a coalition of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for sweeping layoffs across the DOE, stating that the layoffs represent an illegal dismantling of an agency created by Congress. Executive Order 14242, signed March 20, outlines President Donald Trump’s intention to close the DOE.

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