Late Thursday night, Judge Indira Talwani entered a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking most of the Postal Service's new "Ballot Mail for Federal Elections" rule for any election on or before November 3.

This is notable because unlike a preliminary injunction, a temporary restraining order is very difficult to appeal, due to its short time period, maxing out around 14 days. But those 14 days may be key, as a lot of mail ballots go out during that exact window. Washington State ships its ballots on September 4, right smack in the middle of the freeze. That calendar may be the argument that the government will use to try to lift the order, but it’s a big lift.

UPDATE: Just because it’s hard to appeal doesn’t mean the feds ain’t gonna try, right?

If you are confused by this case, I wrote a primer on it a couple days ago that may help.

Anthropic v. U.S. Department of War

A federal judge in California entered final judgment for Anthropic, the company behind Claude, in its suit against the Department of War, on two independent grounds.

The first is First Amendment retaliation. The First Amendment is a shield against, among other things, government punishment for protected speech, and that shield gets thicker for matters of public concern. Matters of public concern are things that we need to know and discuss as voters. The court found that Anthropic's leadership engaged in a public debate with the feds about the safety of using its product without human oversight to pilot lethal drones, and that in response, Anthropic’s contracts were cancelled. Classic retaliation.

Second, the court held that when the government wishes to end a contract, it may do so, but must rely on the rules it has written for itself. The government does not have to keep working with Anthropic, but it does have to follow its own process. In other words, the government violated the due process guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment. Expect an appeal, because these defendants appeal nearly everything. Docket here.

Extragram v. Paxton

Finally, we said goodbye to Dolly Parton this week, but she gave us one last gift.

On remand from the Fifth Circuit, the district court struck down Texas's drag-performance ban as unconstitutionally overbroad. The law reaches performances that appeal to "prurient interests," lets local officials fine event hosts up to $10,000, and exposes individual performers to a misdemeanor.

The problem, among other things, is that drag shows are rarely the sort of sexual stripteases that a “prurient interest” law seems to suggest. They tend to be silly, gaudy, and occasionally a little blue, but a ban written broadly enough to sweep them in sweeps in a great deal of protected expression along the way.

The Court compared the ban and its breadth to the complaints often weathered by Dolly herself. Silly, gaudy, and a little blue, and often accused of appealing to prurient interests with her tight costumes and famous physique. But a law like this is no more righteous in applying to a drag performance, than it is to a Dolly Parton concert, said the judge.

Just lots of good will, and maybe one small thrill, but there’s nothing dirty goin on.

Thanks, Dolly.

But, this case is still incredibly important, if mind-numbingly confusing. So, to that end I have prepared a little primer. I’ll take you through the EO itself, then through the 4 major cases that make up the body of the storyline. And give you an overview of the last few weeks down at the bottom.

Feel free to skim the EO, but I made sure to include a section by section breakdown because IF people start talking intensely about SECTION 2(a) or something later this week, I want you to be able to quickly flip to it and know what they mean.

With that, here’s my overview.

EO 14399

The president issued an executive order on March 31, 2026, called Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections. This Executive Order is sort of well known for the central policy of asking the post office to run bar codes on mail in ballots against a list of approved voters before delivering those ballots to the states.

The following is my summary of the sections of the EO, which can be useful since they’re referenced individually by the court. You can skip over this next part for now. But keep it around as a reference for later.

Setion 2 (a)

The Secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to put together a list of eligible U.S. voters and send it to the chief election official of each state. The DHS Secretary will establish procedures for the states and individuals to update and correct the records regularly.

Section 2 (b)

Defines “eligible to vote” (18 y/o, U.S. citizen, etc.). The Attorney general shall prioritize investigations and prosecutions of state and local officials or anyone who issues federal ballots to those ineligible to vote, or engages in or aides and abets printing, production, distribution etc. of ballots to those ineligible to vote.

Section 3 (a)

Restates that the unlawful use of mail in connection with elections is prohibited.

Section 3 (b)

Directs Postmaster General to issue rules to provide for the following:

(i) Ballots should be redesigned so they’re marked as “Election Mail” and have trackable barcodes.

(ii) If states plan to use the USPS for mail in ballots, they should submit a list of eligible voters to the post office no fewer than 60 days before the election.

(iii) Ballots not on the state-specific list shall not be transmitted.

(iv) A method for connecting the names of approved mail-in/absentee voters to approved bar codes.

(v) Procedures for the states to amend their list of approved mail-in/absentee voters.

Section 3 (c)

USPS and Inspector General will coordinate with DOJ to investigate suspected unlawful use of federal election materials.

Section 4 (a)

DHS, SSA, Postmaster, and Commerce shall implement this order.

Section 4 (b)

AG shall enforce compliance and provide election officials with guidance.

Section 4 (c)

Within 90 days, DHS must establish infrastructure to transmit State Citizenship Lists described in Section 2 (a).

Section 5

AG and other secretaries will take all lawful steps to deter noncompliance with federal law.

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The Cases

Depending how you count, there are at least six open cases related to this executive order at this moment, which is part of why this is so confusing. These can generally be broken down into 3 groups, although the last one will have to be discussed as two separate cases, but we’ll get there. Let’s run through them.

NAACP v. USPS (20-cv-02295)

This case was brought by the NAACP, Public Citizen, and the Legal Defense Fund in 2020, and relates to USPS’s failure to prioritize on-time delivery of mail-in ballots. The case ended with a December 17 2021 settlement, where the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) agreed to favorable terms that prioritized ballot delivery when elections were underway. This Settlement was scheduled to expire in 2028.

When the Plaintiffs in this case saw the Executive Order and the Proposed Rules back in June, they believed that those rules violated their agreement from 2021. So they filed a Motion to Enforce Compliance with their Settlement Agreement on June 3. That Motion was Granted on July 1, 2026.

The Federal Government appealed (25-5257) that decision on July 6, and moved for a stay pending appeal. Their stay was granted by the Court of Appeals.

This case would basically be stuck in “stay-pending-appeal” land for quite awhile, but on August 10, the NAACP, realized that by the time they actually managed to brief their case and hold a hearing, the November 3 election would be over. So rather than waste everyone’s time, they requested that the district court Order to Enforce Compliance be vacated, and the appeal with it.

In other words, this case is no longer active vis-a-vis the executive order, but it plays into the story, so it’s worth knowing about.

DSCC v. Trump (26-cv-01114)

LULAC v. Executive Office of the President (26-cv-01132)

NAACP v. Executive Office of the President (26-cv-01151)

These three cases were brought in the D.C. District Court and were consolidated. Note that this NAACP case and the other NAACP case are different.

This case was rejected for a preliminary injunction because the court felt that the organizations had not yet experienced harm1. However, over the course of the district court pleadings and hearings and an Appeal (26-5193), a couple important legal theories emerged from the court.

1. The Plaintiffs in these cases, unlike a state who had to spend money to prepare for an election, had no financial loss until an actual change was made to the rules.2

2. Once an actual change was made to the rules in compliance with Section 3(b) of the EO, the Plaintiffs might suffer a harm.

On August 25, 2026, the Plaintiffs filed for a new Preliminary injunction under this second point. Now that final rules have been issued, the court’s contention has been fulfilled.

Finally, we have the two cases before Judge Talwani in Massachusetts Federal District Court. These cases are confusing for several reasons, so I’ll begin by trying to introduce them in small groups. They were consolidated on April 22, 2026 but also continue to receive independent filings.

League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump (26-cv-11549)

Plaintiffs are a consortium of non-profits across the US who educate voters on registering for and requirements of mail-in and absentee and regular voting.

California v. Trump (25-cv-11581)

Plaintiffs are a group of twenty-three states suing the administration on a number of theories. These include an unconstitutional infringement on the states’ authority to administer elections, and the financial costs associated with reprinting all of their mail-in ballots right before an election.

Alabama v. California and California v. Missouri

In many of the above lawsuits between the federal government and plaintiffs, be they states, or organizations, the federal government is often defending its own interests in election integrity, which makes sense, I suppose. There is also a group of states that argue that they have their own interests related to election integrity, and that while their goal is essentially to defend the executive order, they may not have exactly the same goals as the federal government. So, this group of states has intervened in these cases as parties to defend their own interests in upholding the executive order.

You will therefore see on documents “Alabama v. California” and “League of Women Voters v. Trump and State of Missouri” and I thought I should explain why. Alabama, in fact, brought its own petition before the supreme court to appeal one of the preliminary injunctions, which is why the injunction responds directly to “Alabama v. California.”

Recent Timeline of Case Procedures

June 18 - Both Massachusetts Cases

On June 18, Judge Talwani dismissed any portion of the cases related to future elections. She limited the scope of these cases to the November 3, 2026 election or before. This was designed to quiet any objections from the government that the case was not yet ripe because the rules would not likely be ready in time for the November 3, 2026 election. The government continues to argue the point though they fail to guarantee that the rules cannot be implemented before this November.

June 25 - California Case

Judge Talwani declares that sections 2, 3, and 5 of the EO are ultra vires, they violate the law, and they are void. She enjoins the government from doing anything to implement them for the November 3, 2026 election, or any federal election before that date.

July 1 - California Case

The Government appeals Judge Talwani’s decision to the first circuit and requests a stay pending appeal. Judge Talwani rejects their request. THIS IS THE STAY PENDING APPEAL REQUEST THAT WAS DECIDED IN THE SUPREME COURT THIS WEEK.

July 1 - NAACP v. USPS (the 2020 Case)

The motion to enforce compliance with the Settlement is granted on this date, effectively providing injunctive relief against the USPS.

July 13 - League of Women Voters Case

The Plaintiffs here have also requested an injunction, but Judge Talwani, noting that “irreparable harm” is a prerequisite for a preliminary injunction, says that there is no chance of harm as long as the motion is in place in the NAACP case and denies the request.

July 17 - NAACP v. USPS

The DC Circuit stays the Order Enforcing Compliance with Settlement pending appeal, removing the effecting injunction.

July 20 - League of Women Voters Case

Plaintiffs renew their request for a preliminary injunction now that the NAACP order is no longer in place. Unlike the California injunction which only operated in 23 plaintiff states, the LWV Plaintiffs request an injunction in all states where their organizations operate, in other words, a nationwide injunction.

July 27 - Trump v. California (SCOTUS - 26A124)

Appeal of July 1 Stay is presented to US Supreme Court

August 11 - League of Women Voters Case

Judge Talwani grants LWV Plaintiffs’ motion for a nationwide preliminary injunction, barring the USPS from implementing rules requested in the Executive Order.

August 18 - Alabama v. League of Women Voters (26-1944)

The Intervenor States (Alabama etc.) file an appeal of the preliminary injunction. I cannot find this case anywhere, but that is the case number according to the docket.

August 21 - League of Women Voters Case

The Government files a Notice on Friday evening (after the court closes) that the final rules have been posted for public review.

August 22 - League of Women Voters Case

Plaintiffs file Emergency Motion to enforce the Judge’s Order that the government not issue new rules related to the Executive Order Section 3. Plaintiffs request emergency hearing before the rules are fully finalized on August 27.

August 23 - League of Women Voters Case

Government responds suggesting that rules are not expected to go into effect until after the November 3, 2026 period controlled by the injunction and objects to the expedited schedule. The Government gives no actual guarantee that the rules will not become effective before the November 3 election.

August 23 - League of Women Voters Case

Judge Talwani issues a response to the government that releasing rules on a Friday after the courts were closed for the weekend was calculated to achieve the result it had achieved, and the hearing would be scheduled as requested.

August 24 - Trump v. California - SCOTUS (26A124)

Per curiam opinion issued.

The Supreme Court issued an opinion granting the stay of the June 25 injunction in the California case only. The Court does not mention the League of Women Voters case, and explicitly tailors its arguments to the impact of the Executive Order on the 23 Plaintiff States. However, the Defendants will argue over the following 48 hours, the arguments apply with equal force to the preliminary injunction issued in the League of Women Voters case and the judge should therefore stay that injunction as well.

The arguments used by the court for staying the injunction are as follow:

1. Merits of the argument that the Executive Order “unconstitutionally infringes on [the states] authority to administer elections.”

The Court breaks down each directive of Executive Order 14399 and finds that the language of each statement does not explicitly “demand that any proposed provision appear in the final rule.” The proposed provisions are just that, proposals. It is not until the Post Office actually processes these proposals into actual rules that we see an actual plan come to life and leave the Executive Branch.

“The Order is an internal directive fro the President to his subordinates mandating that certain agencies pursue certain policies. It neither requires nor forbids anything of anyone outside the executive branch.” Therefore, according to the court, the Order itself does not impact the State Plaintiffs directly on its own until actual rules are finalized.

1. Standing arguments fall short because the damage that the states will incur is contingent on rules that haven’t yet been written. Ripeness arguments fall on similar lines.

Judge Talwani argued that because states must spend money months in advance of an election on things like printing mail-in ballots, changes to the layout of those ballots represents an actual pocketbook injury. The Court said that this was a speculative injury that presumed certain facts not yet in evidence, at least until the final rules were promulgated.

NOTE: The opinion goes into detail on the sections of the EO and breaks them all out. I gave you a direct link to the opinion and the EO itself, as well as the sort of cliffs notes version of the EO to refer back to if you want to read the original. I think I hit the parts that are going to remain important moving forward, at least for now.

So. Where are we now?

The Supreme Court only stayed the preliminary injunction in the California case but left the nationwide injunction in the League of Women Voters case in place. But after the government asked Judge Talwani to vacate or stay the remaining injunction in the League of Women Voters case she granted their request and vacated the August 11 injunction.

The US Postal Service argues that it has never violated the preliminary injunctions in either the California or League of Women Voters Cases. It argues that the rules did not collide with the injunctions because the final rules are not likely to be implemented before the November 3, 2026 election, and both the California and League of Women Voters cases are restricted to elections occurring on or before that date. (See June 18). However, it offers no guarantee that it will not try to implement the rules before November 3.3

Judge Talwani disagrees, and issued an official finding that her injunction had in fact been violated. Rather than punish the violation, she simply gave the Plaintiffs instructions on the best course forward in response.

The Judge said in her Memorandum today (August 26) that the Supreme Court seems to say that until the Rules are on the books, no law has been violated. Therefore she has given the Plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint once the rules are finalized, theoretically tomorrow. She has vacated anything that may be in their way and encouraged them to file the amendment when they’re ready.

So now we wait for that. I’ll keep you updated.

Update:

(That was quick)

The Rules have been posted as of today, August 26, 2026.

League of Women Voters has filed a Supplemental Complaint as recommended by Judge Talwani, stating that with the Rules posted, the speculative damage has now become concrete. This has been filed alongside an Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and a Memo in Support.

A Texas appeals court has reduced the award that two Sandy Hook parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, won against Alex Jones for his claims that the school shooting in 2012 was a hoax. In Jones v. Heslin, No. 03-23-00209-CV, Texas’ Third Court of Appeals in Austin held that the trial court should not have allowed the parents to amend their pleadings after the verdict to get around the state's cap on punitive damages. Texas caps exemplary damages, and the cap can be exceeded only on grounds that are pleaded and found by the jury. Because that did not happen here, the court reduced the punitive award to the statutory cap of $750,000 per plaintiff. The compensatory damages the jury awarded were left in place.

Jones still faces a separate Connecticut judgment of roughly $1.4 billion arising from similar conduct. In other words, this was a drop reduced from a very large bucket.

ABC sues the FCC

ABC and its parent, Disney, have sued the Federal Communications Commission in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging that the agency is retaliating against the network for its news coverage and editorial choices in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint centers on an FCC order requiring all eight ABC-owned stations to file license-renewal applications years ahead of schedule, which ABC calls unprecedented. ABC traces the pressure to the 2025 controversy over Jimmy Kimmel and to its decision not to carry a presidential address live. ABC asked for an emergency order, and the court declined to hold an expedited hearing because the FCC has not yet taken formal action. Instead, Judge Loren AliKhan set a briefing schedule running into October and added a standby trigger: if the FCC schedules a hearing on the licenses, the parties must appear the next business day to argue over a restraining order.

The Kennedy Center sign fight

The dispute over renaming the Kennedy Center continues in Beatty v. Trump. After the board voted to add the President's name to the building, the court struck that down, and the board then proposed a sign reading "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Renovated by Donald J. Trump." The governing statute is worth reading for yourself at 20 U.S.C. 76j. Subsection (b) at the bottom restricts additional memorials, providing that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials may be installed in the public areas of the Center.

The statute does allow donor acknowledgments in specific spots, the marble walls of the north and south galleries, the Hall of States, and the Hall of Nations, for people who make major contributions. So a plaque thanking a donor, such as Donald Trump, for financing a renovation may be permitted in those designated areas, but the outside wall of a building that is itself a memorial to President Kennedy appears to be a different question.

Oregon's disaster-funding win

A federal judge in Oregon has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from conditioning disaster-relief funding on compliance with anti-DEI and "gender ideology" requirements. In City of Salem v. Mullin, Judge Michael McShane did not mince words, writing that "it is hard to imagine the connection between the use of preferred pronouns and the fires currently burning through central Oregon."

The conditions came from executive orders directing agencies to end federal funding of gender ideology, but the court found that no statute gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to impose them, and that doing so adds requirements to federal funding beyond what existing law requires. The court explained that even where the executive branch can attach conditions to spending, there has to be some nexus between the condition and the funding. Without one, the condition is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. The injunction holds for now while the case proceeds.

Last week the BBC filed a motion asking a federal court in Florida to authorize alternative service of its subpoenas on Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner in Trump v. British Broadcasting Corporation (No. 1:25-cv-25894). Subpoenas compel a person to appear and testify, and service exists to make sure the person actually knows they are supposed to be somewhere. According to the BBC, these three have been using Secret Service agents to block the process server from actually handing them documents. Hiding from a server is not how you challenge a subpoena, what you’re looking for there is a motion to quash.

Hiding from a process server just tells the court that you know you’re supposed to be somewhere and you don’t want to be there. So when someone dodges service long enough, a court can authorize alternative service, which can be service by certified mail or through the witness's attorney. Of course then, the fight moves to compelling the appearance, which is its own fun mess. But for the moment, the court is awaiting Trump’s response to the Motion for Alternative Service. Exactly how he can argue that they don’t know they’re being sought once he responds, is a bit of a mystery, but I’ll leave that for the robes.

US v. Lyons and the DOJ's Numbers

United States v. James Patrick Lyons was set for trial this morning in Minnesota over text messages Lyons, a California veteran and father, allegedly sent to federal agents during the immigration surge in Minneapolis. The Justice Department dropped every charge at the last minute. Prosecutors had originally called the messages "particular[ly] threatening," then walked that back, offered a misdemeanor with no jail time, and finally dismissed the case outright when Lyons would not fold.

This case fits a larger pattern documented in a New York Times breakdown of criminal charges against ICE protests. Of 558 charges it tracked from the operation, 246 ended in guilty pleas and only four produced actual convictions, well off the department's usual conviction rate of 90% (give or take). Cases built on distorted facts, withheld evidence, and video that later undercut the government have taken a real toll on the department's credibility and its morale.

Cultural Heritage v. Trump and the Eisenhower Building

The last case is Cultural Heritage Partners v. Trump (No. 1:25-cv-03969), which has a preliminary injunction hearing this afternoon. While most people have heard about Trump’s ballroom case, this is its cousin, over the Old Executive Office Building right next door. The grey Maine granite landmark, often compared to a giant wedding cake, is part of the greater White House complex, and Donald Trump thinks the grey color is ugly.

The administration wants to test white paint on the building's exterior, to consider painting over the grey stone, and preservationists are trying to stop it. The government argues this is different from the ballroom dispute because the plaintiffs here may lack standing. Further, all the White House says it plans to do is cut a few two-inch samples to see how paint adheres, not demolish anything. Though trust in its history of waiting for permission may be waning to say the lest.

If the ballroom ruling stated that the President cannot alter these buildings without permission, because they are not his to alter, then testing whether you can paint a building you do not own is still doing something to a building you do not own. We will have to see what the judge says this afternoon.

This week, in one of his first moves as Attorney General, Todd Blanche released a memorandum opinion on executive privilege. Executive privilege is the President's power to keep certain sensitive communications confidential, so advisers can speak candidly without fear that their words could be used against them later.

Traditionally the privilege covers the President's direct conversations with government advisers, and the President himself has to invoke it. Blanche’s new memo stretches that traditional definition considerably. It concludes that the privilege can also reach the President's communications with private advisers, including outside attorneys, so long as the exchanges concern official presidential decisionmaking, involve or reflect communications with the President or his close advisers, and stay confidential. The opinion was posted quietly, with no press release, the same day Blanche was sworn in.

Now whether the memo is legally sound and whether it is in line with the policy behind the privilege are two different questions. As with most privileges, the policy behind it exists to encourage honest advice. This policy exists in the same way attorney-client privilege encourages a client to be entirely honest with their lawyer in order to ensure that they are given the best possible advice. But this memo doesn’t clarify the rule, or root the expansion in the policy that creates the rule. It essentially just stamps "privileged" on every conversation in the executive branch, which starts to look less like protecting candor and more like a wall against transparency.

And this is an important point because even the attorney-client privilege meets its limits where the policy of transparency outweighs the policy of best advice. And transparency has a lot more sway in government contexts than it does in the attorney-client relationship.

That said, courts really do not like telling a president he has gone too far with executive power, and that is exactly the lever he is pulling here. Congress could hold an executive employee in contempt for over-asserting executive privilege, but that just hands the fight to Blanche's DOJ, and then to a court. Until this makes it to a test case, it would seem, we’re stuck for now.

The White House "Ballroom" Goes to the Supreme Court

This morning the Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court to freeze what might be the most famous stop-work order in the country. Trump wants to demolish the White House East Wing and build a ballroom roughly three times its size, and Judge Richard Leon blocked the work while the case plays out. The government argues that President Trump is fully authorized to make improvements to the White House as prior presidents have done. Though what counts as an “improvement” may be up for debate. The application, No. 26A203, follows the D.C. Circuit’s affirmation of Leon's injunction last week. And the president now has two pending emergency applications sitting at the Court.

Harvard Antisemitism Case Dismissed

A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department's Title VI case accusing Harvard of failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from a hostile environment during the 2023 to 2024 school year. This was a short order, and the reasoning was simple. The law cited in the complaint requires an ongoing pattern of violations, but the facts of the case relied almost entirely on incidents from two years ago. This is the second big courtroom win for Harvard, after that roughly $2 billion funding freeze got overturned last year.

Good news this morning for the roughly 320,000 employees of the VA. Back in 2025 the administration moved to unilaterally terminate their master union contract, and that fight is still ongoing. But a second front opened over a renegotiation deadline that landed this past weekend.

The contract said two things about that date. First, if a new deal was not reached by then, the existing terms simply continue until one is reached. And second, negotiations had to begin at least 30 days ahead of the date, or the contract would expire.

Predictably, the government argued that the union missed that 30-day window because the two sides did not sit down for a formal meeting until July 14, but Judge Melissa DuBose was not persuaded. She held that "negotiations" are not limited to formal meetings, and that the paperwork moving back and forth between the parties qualified.

She appeared unamused by the government’s tactics. In her words, the government's assertion that the union's purported failure "is a lawful basis on which to terminate the agreement is not well taken." For now, the contract stays in force.

National Alliance to End Homelessness v. HUD

Note: There are 4 cases here, 2 sets of 2 consolidated cases. It’s confusing, so I’m not going to over-explain that part.

At the center here is the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and its Continuum of Care program, which focuses on minimizing the trauma of homelessness as a primary goal. To that end, HUD has chosen a "Housing First" policy when appropriating funds provided under the Act. Housing First is pretty much as it sounds. Get people into stable housing first, then work on addiction, employment, and everything else.

The Trump administration decided to change that policy, steering roughly $1.3 billion toward transitional housing and conditioning aid on things like proving sobriety before it would commit to housing people. And it made the change rather abruptly and with little time for study or adjustment.

On August 7, Judge Mary McElroy set aside the Trump HUD's 2026 funding notice in its entirety as a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, because the agency skipped the notice-and-comment rulemaking the law requires. But, importantly, she declined to issue a permanent injunction. This was a procedural speed bump, not a brick wall.

Changing HUD policies is within the purview of the presidency. In fact, it is exactly part of his job. However, he is required to do it within the confines of the APA and other procedural requirements. These requirements ensure that decisions are made based on actual reasons, and that those reasons are recorded so they can be discussed at a later time, if needed. But if HUD goes back and does it the right way, with the receipts and the public comment period, it may be able to make many of these changes.

United States v. State of Maine

The federal government is suing Maine over unmarked undercover license plates for ICE. Maine has long issued untraceable plates so law enforcement can shield their identities, and in early 2026 it began requiring federal agencies to attest that plated vehicles would not be used for civil immigration enforcement as a condition of getting them. The state claims that the feds have no evidence that Maine has continued to provide unmarked license plates to anyone else since early 2026.

The United States says this discriminates against and regulates the federal government in violation of the Supremacy Clause and intergovernmental immunity. Maine's motion to dismiss opens with a favorite passage from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, that the Constitution "protects us from our own best intentions" by dividing power among sovereigns. Maine's core argument leans on the Tenth Amendment and the anti-commandeering doctrine, saying that the federal government cannot force a state to affirmatively help enforce federal law. States cannot hinder federal enforcement, but they do not have to assist it either.

Maine frames its policy as simply declining to help, not obstructing. We will see what the court says.

1. The White House ballroom

The D.C. Circuit just affirmed the district court's modified preliminary injunction over the demolition of the White House East Wing and the new ballroom project, and vacated the administrative stay the court itself had entered back in April.

The Panel said that each president is a temporary occupant, not the owner of the White House, and the residence belongs to every president today and tomorrow as well as to the American Citizens who paid for it. The court also made a rather poignant, I thought, comment that the White House is a place to protest and determine what it means to be an American.

The Court said that Congress has funded improvements and additions over the years, but they could find no instance of a president unilaterally using privately raised money to tear down substantial portions of a building. Congress authorized the White House and taxpayers funded it, and whether a massive ballroom gets built, the court said, is a question for Congress, not a matter of executive self-help.

The judgment (opinion by Judges Millett and Garcia, with Judge Rao dissenting) is stayed for fourteen days so the government can seek Supreme Court review. The conditional cross-appeal was dismissed as moot.

2. A judge runs out of patience with DOJ over the Epstein files

The Judge in Katie Phang's civil suit to force the Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act is nothing if not direct. Instead of wading through each side's briefs, Judge Emmet Sullivan repeatedly keeps ignoring their motions and issuing orders that cut directly to the quick of the matter, which he again did in a pointed order this week.

Early this week, Phang filed papers stating that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had been missing deadlines. Meanwhile Blanche filed for an extension. (Hilarious).

The court ignored both motions. It had told Blanche to produce documentation demonstrating that his redactions were limited to victims' names. Blanche instead sent a letter basically giving his “boy scout’s honor” that the redactions were on the up and up. The Judge was not amused. He also rejected the argument that "substantially similar" documents are duplicates exempt from production, and flatly refused that hand written notes were excused from production. Redact them by hand, he said.

Finally, the court pressed on the statute's requirement that every redaction carry a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress. The Judge demanded a firm timeline for Blanche to agree to comply with that requirement.

Blanche has been ordered to appear and explain himself on August 13.

3. The Fifth Circuit gives us a rare moment of good immigration news.

Findings of fact are hard to overturn in any area of the law, particularly immigration. Credibility findings in immigration cases are among the hardest. The person in the room, looking the applicant in the eye, is considered the best tool we have for testing the veracity of an applicant’s story, and so courts rarely disturb that judgment. And yet we have one of these rare cases here today.

Salaruddin Eqbal fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took power and sought protection under the Convention Against Torture. An immigration judge denied relief, finding that he lacked credibility because the dates and his story didn’t add up.

The Fifth Circuit reviewed the immigration judge’s finding that Mr. Eqbal lacked credibility and said they would only overrule a finding of fact like that under extremely limited circumstances. Applying the demanding substantial-evidence standard, the court would need to conclude that no reasonable factfinder could have arrived at the same conclusion as this immigration judge.

So, the Fifth Circuit dug in. Eqbal claimed to have worked as a bodyguard for a high level government official while in middle school in 1993. A claim that the judge found suspicious.

But after review, the Fifth Circuit found that Mr. Eqbal’s application claimed that he was in middle school for 15 years. On further examination, they discovered that “middle school” was just the box that Eqbal checked on the form, because his schooling did not match the American system of an elementary school, middle school, and high school. In 1993, he was, in fact, 19 years old, which made much more sense for a bodyguard.

A second major issue had Mr. Eqbal claiming to have begun work for the government in 1972, which again, seemed inconsistent. In fact, Mr. Eqbal had said 1372, the equivalent to 1993 on the Solar Hijri Calendar.

Taking these and other facts into consideration, the Fifth Circuit held that no reasonable finder of fact could have come to the same conclusion as the immigration judge in Mr. Eqbal’s case. They ordered the case to be reheard by the lower court using this new information.

4. Another voter-roll suit collapses

The Justice Department sued Monica Evans, who runs the District of Columbia's Board of Elections, after she turned over a nearly complete voter list but withheld the Social Security and driver's license numbers. The government wanted those too, and it built its demand on a surprising foundation: Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

That 1960 law let the Attorney General inspect state records the government had come into possession of, part of the era's effort to root out race-based barriers to voting. The DOJ's theory strings it together with the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 2002 Help America Vote Act, arguing that a statute from 1960 reaches statewide voter rolls that Congress did not require until decades later.

The court was not buying it. As the judge noted, Title III predates those later laws by more than three decades and was never drafted with list maintenance in mind. And on the statute's own terms, a state does not "come into possession" of a list it wrote itself, so the rolls do not fit the definition. Evans joins a long line: the DOJ has filed roughly thirty of these suits and lost about twenty, including one in the Sixth Circuit.

Thanks everybody for reading and watching! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Dr. Fauci held in contempt

On Thursday the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. Fauci appeared before the committee earlier but declined to answer, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The committee’s Republican members argued that his blanket presidential federal pardon mitigated any risk criminal charges, so the privilege no longer applied. Of note, the pardon does not reach state charges, and three states have now stated an intention to investigate the Doctor.

But the law regarding Fifth Amendment privilege was almost beside the point. A contempt vote is a political proceeding, not a legal one. Unlike a judge, whose job is to interpret what the law requires, senators answer to the voters who sent them. Senators can therefore vote more or less however they like, with the understanding that they could be held accountable at the next election. Whether Fauci actually holds a Fifth Amendment shield did not decide this vote. The only real check on that choice is the ballot box.

But, this dovetails beautifully into our next story.

U.S. v. Navarro

The counterpoint arrived just two weeks earlier. In United States v. Navarro, the D.C. Circuit upheld Dr. Peter Navarro's own contempt of Congress conviction, and the reasoning shows what Fauci may be walking into.

A contempt vote is political but only up to a point. Once Congress refers the charge, the Department of Justice files it in court, a federal judge takes over, and it becomes a legal proceeding. One element of the crime, being held in contempt, is already settled for Fauci and is not something the court gets to reconsider.

Navarro claimed executive privilege, but the D.C. Circuit held that the privilege belongs to the president alone, and the president is the one who must invoke it. Navarro invoked it himself, without asking Trump to assert it and without consulting counsel first, so he had neither privilege nor an advice-of-counsel defense to stand on. The trial court had combed through emails to establish exactly who Navarro talked to, and in what order, before he decided not to show.

Fauci looks different. He appeared at the hearing with his lawyer, said his lawyer told him to stay quiet, and followed that advice in good faith. The court reaffirmed that good-faith reliance on advice of counsel is still a solid defense to contempt, as long as you actually seek the advice. So there is a real chance Fauci lands in a better spot than Navarro did.

An important point worth watching: executive privilege has to come from the president, and cannot be invoked by other members of the executive branch. This could prove important over the next couple of years, so take note.

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Trump v. BBC: discovery stayed

A judge in Florida granted Trump's panicky last-minute emergency motion staying discovery in his defamation case against the BBC. Trump filed the suit back in December, claiming a BBC statement had harmed not only his own finances but those of other business entities, including the Donald Trump Revocable Trust.

In response, the BBC demanded to see the trust's financial records to prove the loss was real, which is a standard move. Trump, understandably not wanting to hand his trust records to a room full of journalists, argued that the trust was not a party to the lawsuit and should not have to produce anything.

A week ago the judge disagreed. If Trump is going to rely on damages, he has to turn over the proof, and it was due today. So last night Trump changed course and moved to amend his complaint, saying he no longer intends to pursue a damages theory premised on injury to his brands and businesses, which does make you wonder what is in that trust.

This morning the judge stayed discovery until that amendment motion is resolved. But one detail that I flagged is that the same lawyer filed for both Trump and the trust, which makes it hard to argue they are truly separate parties with separate interests.

David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury for Felony malicious property damage, which meant he caused more than $1,000 in damage. But in Hearn’s July 27th motion for the grand jury minutes, he said that the government’s own sole damages witness told the grand jury the pool was already damaged before Hearn touched it, that the repairs would have been needed regardless, and that he could not attribute any loss to Hearn. No damage, no dollar figure.

But apparently later on July 27th, Hearn was informed that the prosecution had failed to provide the final two pages of the grand jury witness’s testimony where he, in fact DID state that Hearn had caused more than $1,000 in damage. The problem was that those two pages also revealed that the between the witness’s first statement [no damage] and the second statement [more than $1,000], the witness was lead out of the room where he appears to have been coached on the correct answer. After a twenty-minute break with the prosecutor, the witness suddenly remembered the damage was “definitely $1,000 or more.” The prosecutor told the grand jury it “hopefully nailed down that specific question.”

So, on July 28, Hearn filed his second motion where he draw the court’s attention to this anomaly. In response the judge quietly consolidated all of the reflecting pool vandalism cases, suggesting that they might want to have a shared discussion about discovery. She needn’t have bothered. Within days the government moved to dismiss all of them. The three misdemeanors disappeared by nolle prosequi; Hearn’s felony, because a grand jury charged it, needs a judge’s sign-off, now set for September 11.

And there were two more people the government was preparing to charge. They never got the chance.

The full record is on the case page. Just search “Hearn.”

So I want to make a follow-up where I explain myself a bit better, because not only do I stand by my point, I think it is an incredibly important one to make a hundred days out from the next midterms.

I also think the news media has done you a pretty major disservice by treating court news like political news for the last 20 to 30 years. It has melted the branches into one in public life, and I think it has affected how we vote. So I think it is important to hear this before the next election.

There are about ten different concepts I would need to cover, and I cannot do them all in one video, so I am going to have to breeze past some things. Bear with me. There is a lot to cover here.

There are three general types of questions that get answered by the government. Those three questions also each align, generally, to a branch of government, about 85 percent of the time. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

First, you have questions of fact. I am going to call these "is" questions. More often than not, these belong to the executive branch. If the law says turn on the light at 6 p.m., then a maintenance worker looks at his watch and asks if it is 6 p.m. yet. If it is, he turns on the light. That is a question of fact. Is it 6 p.m. yet? What is the temperature? What color is the car? Facts. Little nuggets of information. We are not really talking about these today, but you should know they exist.

Second are questions of policy. I call these "should" questions. We have multiple options we can choose from, and the question is which one we should pick. Usually "should" means there are upsides and downsides either way. Should we tell the maintenance worker to turn the lights on at 6 or at 7? We will save electricity if we wait until 7, but people are less likely to trip over things if they can see better, so it is safer to tell them to turn the lights on at 6.

These are questions that require some sort of value judgment, some sort of balancing of good against bad, and that implies the decider has to use their own judgment, their own values, to make the decision. Is safety or savings more important? Those are policy questions, and they are usually left to the legislative branch. The legislature balances the good against the bad, answers the question, applies its judgment and its values, and writes a policy. It writes a law, and it codifies that decision in the law. So from now on, the lights will be turned on at 7, because savings is the most important thing to us. Or from now on, we will lower the speed limit from 55 to 45, because safety is the most important thing to us.

Sometimes the legislature will outsource policy questions it does not want to deal with to the executive branch. That is what regulations are. They are just policy decisions made by the executive branch after the legislature said, we will let you figure these ones out. But the key is that answering a policy question requires a value judgment, and we elect people to make those value judgments, to answer policy questions. That means when your elected official chooses 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., they may have to explain themselves to you. That is how they get held accountable for their decisions. If they want to get reelected, they may have to tell you why they chose 6 p.m. That is how our representative democratic system works. These representatives make value judgments, they answer policy questions on our behalf, and if we do not like the values they chose, we replace them.

The branches of government that are subject to that type of oversight are called the political branches of government. They are chosen based on their values. They answer policy questions based on those values. And if the people they are representing think they have the wrong values, or their constituents' values change, then they are replaced, and new people are elected.

The last type of question is questions of law. Questions of law ask what the law says and how it applies in this situation. The policymakers already decided what we should do. Now we need to know what we can do based on what they decided. So they changed the speed limit to 45. Can we go 40? Can we go 80 if there is an emergency? That is the question answered by judges, and it is not a judge's job to use their values to answer the question. Do they? No. A policymaker is intended to use their values. A judge, generally, is not. That is why, unlike policymakers, judges have to show their work. It is also why judicial opinions are so long. Judges have to demonstrate that they are not just choosing what they think should happen, but what the policymakers who wrote the law said should happen.

And judges have hundreds of years of rules to follow when they do this. I cannot even begin to explain that part. Someday I will. There are actually a few specific rules that require a judge to ask a policy question as part of their inquiry, but that is a whole rabbit hole for another time.

We put this layer of judges into our government specifically to solve two problems. Number one, laws are never written perfectly to apply to every situation, so a judge helps decide whether a law was supposed to apply to this set of facts. If someone drives 85 miles an hour, but they do it because their wife is in labor, did they break the 45 mile an hour speed limit?

The second problem judges solve is keeping the law relatively predictable. This is the key, because it would be unfair if laws changed from day to day. If, for example, that 45 mile an hour speed limit only applied to trucks one day and then applied to all cars the next with no notice, the public would not know how to follow the law. So the person who decides how to apply a law also needs to apply it the same way every time.

And this is where we get to the heart of that important line between the political and non-political branches. Because if the public changes its mind about lowering speed limits from one day to the next, your congressman may well change his mind too, at least if he wants to keep his job. But the judge cannot. Because the judge is not deciding whether we should lower speed limits, or whether the public wants us to lower speed limits, but what the speed limit law says today. Otherwise our law would be incredibly unstable and unenforceable. Someone in government has to be the referee and make unpopular calls. If a judge worried about losing their job every time public opinion on a topic changed, they would either have to risk their job or change their interpretation, which would make our law incredibly unstable.

That is why our federal judges are not held to regular elections. They are not susceptible to forced retirement. There is no way to influence how they decide to interpret a case by holding their job hostage, which makes them very different from an elected official, an official who has to run for their job every so often, and who is also known as a political official.

Now, can a judge's decision be influenced by things? Of course. They are a person. Can it be influenced by their political beliefs? Yes. Again, still a human. But are they in a political job, running in elections? No. The type of decision they are making is different from a politician's. The design of their job is different. The role they play in government is different. The questions they are answering are different. This is not the role, the job, or the question of a policymaker in a political branch of government. This is not the value-based decision-making of a representative whom you have sent to express your values in writing new law. This is not a political branch of the government.

So why is this also important? Because when the government makes bad decisions, because of the bad policymakers we have sent to Washington, it is not up to the courts to stand in as substitute policymakers. And before you accuse me of letting them off the hook, I am not. I am putting you on the hook.

Because the news media will portray a court decision that says the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights do not imply a right to privacy, and therefore the reasoning of Roe is faulty, as equivalent to Congress's failure to pass a law that codifies Roe. But if you wanted that law, then it was Congress's job to pass it. Why didn't they, and why haven't you replaced them all yet?

This is not to say the court did not put its finger on the scale. I would argue that the belief that there is no implied privacy right may just be shorthand for wanting to get rid of Roe and some other laws they do not like anyway. But the power of the court to overturn the express will of Congress is far more limited than you would imagine, and we as Americans are failing to pressure the correct branches.

Part of the problem is that it is easier to get our heads around one, or even nine, people we do not like than four hundred underperformers, and that is on us, not them.

So let me put a little bow on this. The Supreme Court is not a political branch. They may be partisan, but they are not political. You do not elect them. In less than 100 days, you will get to elect the people who make the changes you want. So quit complaining about the people who are easy to focus on and who you have no control over. Focus on the political branches, the ones you do elect, and go talk to your friends and neighbors about what is important to you before it is too late.

Thank you.

The Constitution has two Emoluments Clauses, and they do different jobs.

The Domestic Emoluments Clause (Article II, Section 1) applies only to the president. He receives a fixed salary and "shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." The federal government and the states cannot pay him anything beyond that salary. And that’s really all it says. Nothing about private business, or private payments. If the money comes from inside the U.S., the Emoluments Clause is probably not the place to complain about it.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9) is broader. It bars anyone holding an "Office of Profit or Trust" from accepting a present, emolument, office, or title from a foreign state without the consent of Congress.

There has been some debate over the years about whether the presidency is an “Office of Profit or Trust.” I have trouble seeing how it could mean anything else, but it presumably also applies to members of Congress and other government officers.

While clarity on the clauses is limited, what we do not know is how far they reach. Until 2017, no court had interpreted them. The Trump-era lawsuits got close. One judge read "emolument" broadly, as any profit, gain, or advantage. But the Supreme Court dismissed the cases as moot once he left office, which wiped those lower rulings off the books. But one case does appear to still hold firm, Blumenthal, which states that (at least under the facts of Blumenthal) members of Congress do not have standing to bring suit under the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

So we are left with the text, a handful of founding-era notes, and one enforcement path most people agree on: impeachment. Edmund Randolph said in the Virginia ratifying debates that impeachment would be a path Congress could take if the president violated the clause, and while the court hasn’t weighed in, they probably don’t need to. Impeachment is sort of whatever Congress says it is.

So watch the video and amaze your friends the next time they invoke these clauses incorrectly.

To that end, t…

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We have four stories today, gang!

Birthright citizenship quietly became settled law. Trump's defamation suit against the New York Times got one last chance to prove it isn’t nonsense. The Ninth Circuit told the government it cannot use a border detention statute on people picked up in the interior of the country. And I sat through the Anthropic summary judgment hearing, where a federal judge spent an afternoon trying to get a government lawyer to admit where the First Amendment starts. (hint - they never got there). So let’s catch up before the weekend!

1. A deadline passes, and birthright citizenship holds

Last month, when the Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment in Trump v. Barbara, Donald Trump swore revenge and said he would demand that the Court rehear the case. He had a limited window to file for rehearing, and he missed it. A couple of days ago that deadline passed. The decision is now settled law and cannot be reheard.

2. One last chance for the defamation case

Trump v. New York Times is one of several cases where Trump has sued a news organization for defamation. He is suing over the Times reporting that he was not famous until The Apprentice, among other things he did not care for. The judge found that Trump has not shown that "the challenged statements are not substantially true," or why they are defamatory. So he gets one last chance. In the July 27 order, the court gave him until August 27, 2026 to refile in a way that actually demonstrates defamation. Until then, the court is holding off on dismissing the case.

3. The border statute stops at the border

In Vasquez v. Bostock, the Ninth Circuit weighed in on immigration detention under sections 1225 and 1226. The question is whether a statute with limited protections for detainees captured at the border can be applied to detainees in the center of the country.

Sections 1225 & 1226:

We generally detain people for immigration purposes under Section 1226. Detainees held under 1226 generally must be released on bond and cannot be held indefinitely.

Section 1225 is also an immigration detention statute, but was written for people caught while crossing the border without permission, or so close to it that they had likely just crossed. Because they are most likely going to be turned right back and sent across the border again, we do not have to offer bond and there aren’t as many limits on 1225 detention. But it’s also designed to be a very quick detention and removal process.

Civil Detention

People in immigration detention are not held for punishment purposes as criminals, but rather are civil detainees. This is why immigration detainees do not get the same level of constitutional protection they would get if the detention were punitive.

There are crimes that people can be charged with related to immigration, but the people generally being discussed in these cases are not charged with those crimes, or they would get more protection, not less.

Why?

In theory, we are either holding people in civil immigration detention 1) while they move from point A to point B during their immigration process, a kind of waiting room theory, or 2) on the way to removal so they do not escape back into the US. Either way, civil immigration detention is supposed to be an administrative convenience rather than a punishment. It is also meant to be a short term detention, which is why it has been able to skirt certain constitutional protections provided to criminal detainees.

Section 1225 detainees are not provided bond or detention limits because they are expected to be very expeditiously returned to the border and pushed back across it. They should be within a few miles, so this process should take hours, not weeks.

However, since Donald Trump took office, the government has been holding almost everyone under 1225, no matter where they are detained. Meaning that the government has held people for months or longer without bond, in contravention of constitutional protections, under the guise of short term administrative convenience and a limited loophole.

Vasquez:

A new Ninth Circuit opinion says this is not allowed. People arrested in the interior of the country cannot be held under a statute designed for people caught crossing the border who will be held for a short time period. The diminished protection of 1225 is only justified by specific border circumstances, and without them it is not justified at all. The court also pointed out that the law has been read this way for a very long time, and that if the executive branch wants to announce a major change, it has to point to where Congress made that change, because Congress wrote these statutes, not the president. The Seventh Circuit reached a similar result recently.

This will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court. Keep an eye on it.

4. Where does the First Amendment start?

The last case is the big one: Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War. Yesterday I sat through the summary judgment hearing, let me give you the scoop.

FACTS

The federal government, including this department, had a number of contracts with Anthropic. Those contracts all said that Anthropic's technology could not be used for two things:

1. piloting unmanned lethal drones with no human oversight, because Anthropic says its system, like every AI model, makes mistakes and is not safe to fly lethal drones unsupervised; and

2. domestic surveillance.

All of that was in the contracts well before this fight. Then in late 2025 the department asked Anthropic to drop those two guardrails in the next round of contracts. Anthropic said no.1

Anthropic and Pete Hegseth negotiated for months. Then, on February 26, 2026, Anthropic's CEO released a statement saying the company could not concede to the government's demands because they fall outside the bounds of what today's technology should do. The next day, Trump ordered every agency to stop using Anthropic's technology, saying it put American lives at risk, and Hegseth declared Anthropic a supply chain security risk.

ISSUE: IDEOLOGY v. TRUST

Both sides agree that the executive branch can lawfully stop contracting with a vendor that declines its terms. Here is where they split. Anthropic says the government cannot retaliate against a vendor for its public rhetoric and ideology. The government says the problem is not ideology, it is trust: what Anthropic did was try to change how its products are used once the government has them, and the government no longer trusts that the company will keep doing what it says.

RULE

The big question came down to a line of cases that starts with Pickering v. Board of Education, a 1968 decision protecting the free speech rights of government employees, and a string of later cases that extend Pickering to contractors. The issue is whether Pickering and its successors protect Anthropic from retaliation here.

APPLICATION

Pickering & Umbehr protect government employees and contractors from retaliation for ideology and speech in certain situations. That is a given. In the hearing yesterday, Judge Lin attempted to nail down where the government believed the line between protected speech and ideology under Pickering ended. She did not have much success.

The Government suggested a sort of contractor trust doctrine, where statements by a contractor that suggested they would be unreliable in provision of service could grant the government a reason to sever the relationship. So the Judge provided a number of increasingly ridiculous hypothetical situations to see where the government attorney believed the line was crossed from contractor trust into Pickering. No matter how ridiculous the hypotheticals became, the attorney refused to say that they crossed that line. Everything, it seems was within the power of the government to cancel if the government or the president felt that the trust in the contractor was in question.

But as Judge Lin said in her opening, that would lead to an ad absurdum result where the president could just invoke trust to cancel any contract he didn’t want to fulfill.

HYPOTHETICALS

One actual example which the government would not confirm fell under Pickering:

A company makes surveillance drones, but for years it has said it will never build drones for lethal purposes, and everyone knows that about the company. It then publicly refuses a request from the president to build lethal drones. In direct response, the president buys billboards across the country calling the company and its CEO "enemies of the state," and tells others not to do business with them or face “unspecified consequences.” Does Pickering apply?

THE BLACK BOX

The government also used what I call the “black box” approach to persuade the court that its distrust was well founded.

The Black Box approach is often used by attorneys when the technology in question is not well understood. In short: assume nobody understands how the technology works, and you can claim it does whatever you need it to. But the Black Box approach can bite an attorney in the ass, as it did here.

The government argued that Anthropic controls this technology so thoroughly that it could change how it behaves at any time, or throw a kill switch and shut it down right when the government needs it most.2 As evidence, it repeatedly cited a report the government wrote itself as evidence of the risk.

Unfortunately for the government, Anthropic's lawyers provided a more thorough explanation of how large language models and model libraries actually work. So the judge said, in effect, you keep asserting (black box theory), but you are not giving me evidence that an LLM model is all that different from any other product purchased by the department.

A drone manufacturer could sabotage a firmware update, a weapons manufacturer could send a replacement bolt that does not work, how is this any different? If you are going to rest on this, you have to give me something, and there is nothing here.

CONCLUSION

I will wrap with the long quote from the judge that, to me, sums up the whole hearing:

I don't see evidence that Anthropic could alter the model after it was delivered or flip some kind of kill switch. I don't see evidence that Anthropic seeded the model before delivery with some nefarious thing that it could do or control mechanism that it could have. Nor do I see specific signs that there was a basis to suspect Anthropic would do either of those things. Really it seems like what we have is the government's argument that Anthropic criticized the Department of War's positions publicly and in the press, and that this public criticism created what the government calls a lack of trust. I worry that the government's position seems to be that if a government contractor goes out and publicly criticizes the administration in a defense contracting context, that the government can turn around and say, well, we don't trust you because you criticized us. And then the government can retaliate.

That is the judge's read. She wanted the government to show her a reasonable, logical line between Pickering and this trust argument, and she did not hear one. We will see what she comes back with, but after listening, I would be surprised if this is not fairly open and shut. It will be appealed, but what else is new.

GANG - Thanks so much for giving me a year! I hope I can stick around for another. If you’re not subscribing, what’s stopping you?

Trump takes the $83 million Carroll verdict to the Supreme Court

About two weeks ago, after the Supreme Court turned him away, Trump finally paid E. Jean Carroll the $5 million he owed her from one of her two defamation cases. A lot of people asked what happened to the other $83 million. Now we know: he has appealed that verdict to the Supreme Court, and this time the Justice Department is petitioning on his behalf too.

Both petitions come out of Carroll v. Trump, 20-cv-07311, the case that produced the $83.3 million award. Trump's own petition argues his 2019 statements calling Carroll a liar were official presidential acts protected by immunity. The government's petition argues it should be substituted as the defendant under an indemnity law because Trump was a federal employee, which would essentially make the DOJ his personal law firm. I do not see the Court taking this up unless it really wants to wander back into presidential immunity, and I think it has already handled that.1

Read more: Carroll v. Trump

Anthropic's First Amendment hearing is today, and it is worth listening to

Tomorrow (I said today, sorry) at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern, there is a live audio hearing in Anthropic v. Department of War, 26-cv-01996 over whether the federal government retaliated against Anthropic for exercising its First Amendment rights. You can listen in yourself by finding Judge Lin’s page, or check out brynodc.com/hearings.

Earlier this year, Anthropic refused to let the military use Claude to pilot unmanned lethal drones with no human oversight, and refused to let it use Claude for domestic surveillance. In response, the government issued a finding that Anthropic was a national security risk and cut off all spending on Anthropic, not just by agencies but by any contractor working for the government, which is most major companies. Anthropic sued twice. This case is the First Amendment retaliation challenge, paired with a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act that the decision was arbitrary and capricious because there was no real reason for it. Tomorrow is the hearing on Anthropic's motion for summary judgment, where it argues the judge has enough in front of her to rule in its favor now, without a trial. There is also a side motion about discovery. It is before Judge Rita Lin, and access is audio only.

Read more: Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War

A correction, and the early-retirement standing fight

Yesterday I told you there was a hearing in an AFL-CIO case I described as being about a forced loyalty oath. I was wrong. There are two AFL-CIO cases with nearly the same name filed around the same time, and I got them confused. One is the loyalty case. The other, the one that actually had the hearing, is AFGE, AFL-CIO v. Ezell, 25-cv-10276, about the government offering early retirement to a big chunk of federal employees.

The government's argument is simple: we offered people early retirement, they willingly accepted, no one was harmed, so there is no standing. The union's answer is that giving people nine days to decide whether to end careers that in some cases spanned decades is not exactly “willing,” and that the union was left responsible for advising them in that window. One of the judges kept pressing the practical problem: if we find this unlawful, then what, are we supposed to rehire everyone? The union's position is that fixing it is not the court's job; the court's job is to say whether the action followed the law.

Read more: AFGE, AFL-CIO v. Ezell

Two mail-in ballot rulings came out differently, and that is fine

The last story is about two cases over the same executive order on mail-in ballots, Executive Order 14399, which tells the Postal Service to write rules discarding mail-in ballots that do not come from an approved list of voters and pushes states toward bar-coded ballots. Two circuit courts have now gone different ways, and the easy headline is that they simply conflict. I do not read it that way.

In California v. Trump, 26-cv-11581, a group of states sued, the government said the case was unripe, and the district court and then the First Circuit sided with the states, so Trump has taken it to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile in Washington, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also sued in DSCC v. Trump, 26-5193, won at the district court, and then the D.C. Circuit reversed and said the case was not yet ripe. But these two findings are not, I believe, in conflict.

The DSCC's claimed harms, voter privacy, vote dilution, and its own operations, do not occur until the Post Office actually writes the rules. The states' harm is different. Elections take months and a lot of money to prepare, so the states are already spending to get ready, and the order threatens them with criminal charges for not following rules they have not even seen. Impending criminal threats are also a harm on their own.

So the same tree can have one branch that is ripe and one that is not. The harms claimed by the state are costing them money and putting them in danger of impending prosecution today, putting the two sets of harm on different timelines. Even the DC Circuit recognized that the DSCC, unlike a state, had no damage yet. It’s likely therefore that these two will be treated as confirmation that California v. Trump was decided correctly, rather than as two decisions in conflict.

Read more: DSCC v. Trump · California v. Trump

California v. Trump: the government conceded almost everything, then argued it was too early

The First Circuit refused to stay the order blocking the administration's mail-in voting rules, and the reason is worth sitting with. Under Executive Order 14399, the Postal Service would check every mail-in ballot against an approved voter list before delivering it. The district court granted summary judgment against the administration and barred enforcement. The administration asked the First Circuit to pause that while it appealed.

What makes the ruling unusual is how little the government contested. It did not dispute the summary judgment record. It did not dispute the facts the states put forward. It agreed it intended to use the voter lists it received to conduct investigations and criminal prosecutions. It agreed with a number of the district court's points.¹ Its single argument was that the states lacked standing, because the harm had not happened yet.

The panel held that concession against it. The election machinery is already running and the election is months away, so asking states to stop and rebuild is itself a harm. Rebuilding costs money, which is a pocketbook injury, the oldest and hardest to dodge form of injury in common law. And the executive order threatens state officials with criminal prosecution for following their own state laws.² Some states let seventeen-year-olds vote in primaries, so those voters appear on state rolls.³ Officials would have to either purge them in violation of state law or submit rolls and risk federal prosecution.

Asked how the threat of criminal prosecution is not a harm, the government answered that the order should be read as separate sections rather than one document, so the criminal provisions are unrelated to the rest. The panel was not persuaded.

Read it: First Circuit order denying the stay | Case page

Phang v. Blanche: a back door into the Epstein Transparency Act

Several people have tried to pry the Epstein files out of the Justice Department, mostly by going to the courts directly, as victims or as members of Congress. Those attempts have failed for a structural reason.⁴ The Act says the documents must be released, but it never says what happens if they are not, giving nobody a direct means of enforcing it.⁵

Katie Phang, a lawyer and a journalist, came at this issue from a different direction, and it is the direction courts understand best: money. Her argument is that she earns a living publishing stories, and the Justice Department is cutting into her profits by withholding documents she would use to produce those stories. And rather than try to propose a right of action from the Act itself, she instead uses the Act as evidence that the DOJ owes a duty to release the documents. She is therefore suffering a financial injury caused by someone failing to perform a duty. The statute is not the cause of action. It’s just the proof that the duty exists.⁶ That distinction sounds like hair-splitting, but it is exactly the kind of hair the law loves to split.

On Friday the government responded to a show cause order, arguing among other things that she cannot sue under this law. But the court seems to have decided to just ignore the government’s standing arguments, at least for now.

On Saturday, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a two-page order that was completely silent on essentially every substantive argument. He simply ordered the government to hand him the documents. Ten specific Bates-numbered records, unredacted, due July 30 at 3:00 p.m., along with documentation supporting the government's claim that the redacted names belong to victims and law enforcement personnel. He denied Phang's request to be present for that review, but the message seems to be that he’s not going any further until he knows whether these documents actually contain something useful.

We should know later this week whether he found what many assume is under those redactions.

Read it: Judge Sullivan's in camera review order | Case page

Rivas v. USCIS: where the Special Immigrant Juvenile road ends

The Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program lets children who have been abused or abandoned by a parent apply for a green card.⁷ This is part of a broader immigration policy of protecting victims, and discouraging abusers from threatening their victims into silence. Congress recognized that the threat of deportation is a powerful way to keep abusing someone without fear they will report it. So the law protects people who come forward, and for children, SIJ is one of those protections.

It’s also assumed that many of those children will later become citizens. Just mentioning that up front, you’ll see why in a moment.

This is a case about two kids who were abused or abandoned by their fathers, and successfully applied for green cards as lawful permanent residents (LPRs) through the SIJ program. Years later, both petitioned for green cards for their mothers, under a pretty run-of-the-mill immigration priority known as family reunification.⁸ One of the two was also a member of the military, so his mother applied under a special green card program for parents of members of the American military.

The problem is that the SIJ statute carries a specific exclusion, barring parents of children granted SIJ status from using that child’s changed immigration status to apply for a change of status themselves.⁹ This is primarily to prevent abusive parents from later leveraging that very abuse to their advantage. But this is also a program designed to solve a very narrow problem, and is therefore limited in its scope.

In this case, the plaintiffs argued that the statute is inapplicable in this set of circumstances. The statute bars parents of an alien granted SIJ status. The, now grown-up children are not aliens anymore. They are citizens. So the exclusion should no longer apply.

The Fourth Circuit disagreed for a few reasons.

First, it’s important to note, as I said earlier, that continuing on a path to citizenship is not only allowed, or expected, but is considered sort of the natural progression. So anyone who is provided relief under the SIJ will likely become a citizen down the road. The plaintiffs are not, therefore, differentiated from anyone else using this program.

Second, the language of the statute does not separate abusive parents from non-abusive parents. Which means that any reading of the SIJ program that provides a path to LPR status through an SIJ child would apply equally to both the abusive and non-abusive parent. And, the exclusion exists to stop parents from leveraging the abuse of their children into immigration benefits, not to encourage more abuse.

A program that provided a path to LPR and citizenship for abusive parents through the abused child would encourage exactly that behavior. That cannot be what Congress intended. The exclusion is intentionally broad. So it does not matter that this parent was not the one who caused the abuse, or that one mother applied through a program aimed at parents of military members.

The children got status because they were abused or abandoned. The statute makes that the end of the line.

Read it: Fourth Circuit published opinion | Case page

*The case is captioned Fuentes v. USCIS. Both men are plaintiffs, and Fuentes is first-named.*

Notes

¹ "Before the district court, the Government did not dispute the declarations and other factual submissions by the Plaintiff States. And in its request for a stay pending appeal, it contests only the legal implications of those undisputed facts. Finally, the Government has conceded several points in the district court and in its motion to our court." Order at 6, California v. Trump, Nos. 26-1774, 26-1779 (1st Cir. July 25, 2026).

² Section 2(b) directs the Attorney General to prioritize investigation and prosecution of state and local officials "who issue Federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote in a Federal election," and the statute defines eligibility to reach only citizens "18 years of age or older by the date of the upcoming election." Exec. Order No. 14,399 § 2(b), 91 Fed. Reg. 17,125 (Mar. 31, 2026). The district court read multiple sections of the order to "implicitly threaten[] enforcement" of federal criminal statutes against state and local officials. Order at 5, 17, California v. Trump, Nos. 26-1774, 26-1779 (1st Cir. July 25, 2026).

³ Ohio: "At a primary election every qualified elector who is or will be on the day of the next general election eighteen or more years of age . . . shall be entitled to vote such ballot at the primary election." Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3503.011. Virginia: "Any person who is otherwise qualified and will be 18 years of age on or before the day of the next general election shall be permitted to register in advance and also vote in any intervening primary or special election." Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-403.

⁴ Survivor Haley Robson wrote to Judge Richard M. Berman about the Act. His entire reply: "Thank you for your letter of January 18, 2026. It is both generous and kind, and I am most appreciative. There is, respectfully, no relevant case on my docket at this time. And for that reason, I am not able to issue a ruling or action. Thank you again." Letter, United States v. Epstein, No. 1:19-cr-00490 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 23, 2026), ECF No. 96. Two days earlier, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer denied Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie leave to appear as amici curiae seeking a special master to oversee DOJ's compliance, holding that "[t]his criminal case does not give the Court any charter to supervise DOJ's compliance with the EFTA." Opinion & Order, United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 21, 2026), ECF No. 844.

⁵ Epstein Files Transparency Act, Pub. L. No. 119-38, 139 Stat. 656 (2025). The Act runs three sections. Section 2 directs the Attorney General to make the records public within 30 days, lists nine categories of covered material, bars withholding for "embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity," and permits narrow redactions for victim privacy, CSAM, active investigations, images of death or injury, and properly classified information. Section 3 requires a report to the Judiciary Committees. Searching the full text for "cause of action," "right of action," "enforce," "judicial review," "mandamus," "remedy" and "penalty" returns nothing. The statute commands disclosure and supplies no mechanism to compel it.

⁶ Complaint ¶ 58, Phang v. Blanche, No. 1:26-cv-01417 (D.D.C. filed Apr. 27, 2026), ECF No. 1: "Plaintiff has a non-statutory right of action to ask a court to enjoin and declare unlawful official actions that are ultra vires. The Epstein Files Transparency Act establishes a nondiscretionary duty for Defendant to produce all covered materials possessed by the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation related to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell." Id. ¶ 59: "Defendant has failed to fulfill a statutory duty, and Plaintiff has been unable [to] perform her job as a journalist as a result."

⁷ 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J) defines the special immigrant juvenile classification. Since the 2008 amendments it turns on a finding that "reunification with 1 or both of the immigrant's parents is not viable due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment or similar basis under state law." William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 § 235. A juvenile with SIJ status may then petition to adjust to lawful permanent resident status under 8 U.S.C. § 1255, and may apply for naturalization five years later under 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a). The exclusion clause at issue is 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J)(iii)(II): "No natural parent or prior adoptive parent of any alien provided special immigrant status under this subparagraph shall thereafter, by virtue of such parentage, be accorded any right, privilege, or status under this chapter." That clause has remained unchanged in every amendment to the INA since the SIJ program was created.

⁸ Family reunification here runs through 8 U.S.C. § 1151(b)(2)(A)(i) and 8 C.F.R. § 204.2(f). As the Fourth Circuit noted, "[t]ypically, only United States citizens who are 21 years or older may petition for immigrant visas on behalf of their parents," and lawful permanent residents "can generally only sponsor their spouse or unmarried children, with limited exceptions." That is why the plaintiffs' citizenship was what made these petitions possible in the first place.

⁹ The exclusion clause is 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J)(iii)(II). USCIS implements it through 8 C.F.R. § 204.11(i), which mirrors the statute: "The natural or prior adoptive parent(s) of a petitioner granted special immigrant juvenile classification will not be accorded any right, privilege, or status under the Act by virtue of their parentage. This prohibition applies to all of the petitioner's natural and prior adoptive parent(s)." See also 87 Fed. Reg. 13066, 13093 (Mar. 8, 2022). The Fourth Circuit's analysis proceeded in two parts: whether the statute bars the parents, and whether the regulation "faithfully carries out that statutory bar."

Every case above is on the tracker at brynodc.com, with the dockets and the underlying documents.

In Re Kevin Bolan

Bryan Rafael Gomez, a noncitizen in ICE detention, filed a habeas petition in April 2026 asking for release. The Assistant U.S. Attorney handling the case, Kevin Bolan, filed a brief arguing that Gomez was subject to mandatory detention. But Judge Melissa DuBose disagreed and on April 28, ordered him released pending a bond hearing. But Gomez v. Nessinger, No. 1:26-cv-00245, is the setting, not the big story here.

Because Kevin Bolan’s brief failed to mention that Gomez was the subject of a warrant out of the Dominican Republic for an alleged homicide, information that likely would have swayed the case in the prosecution’s favor. Judge DuBose found out about the outstanding warrant two days later, when ICE unveiled a press release describing her as an activist Biden appointed judge who had released a murderer.

On May 7, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. opened a disciplinary proceeding and appointed former Scalia clerk Niki Kuckes as special counsel to investigate.

Bolan admitted at a show cause hearing in In re Kevin Bolan, No. 1:26-ad-00003 that he “knowingly omitted significant criminal involvement history” at the direction of ICE, who told him there was a legitimate law enforcement reason to withhold the information, and that a “use authorization” was required before he could disclose it to the court. And the court does seem to agree that he was unaware that the “legitimate law enforcement reason” did not exist. However, not everyone was so unaware, and the record shows the omission may have been a political hit job.

Per Judge McConnell’s response, the Dominican warrant was not actually withheld from the public, but rather “[u]nknown to [Bolan] ICE had already disclosed that warrant to the public at least twice.” Including in a press release where ICE claimed to have captured 5 Illegal immigrant murderers, allowed in by Biden border policies.

In other words, it appears that someone at ICE publicly released the information on Mr. Gomez’s prior arrest warrant. Then ICE told Bolan not to tell the judge, so that once DuBose released Mr. Gomez, having no evidence to justify holding him, ICE could accuse her of ignoring the arrest warrant and releasing a violent criminal onto the streets.

While “there is no reason to conclude that you [Bolan] were part of a scheme to deceive the Court, or that you acted in bad faith or for personal gain,” it still appeared that the “false public statement by ICE put [Judge DuBose] in personal danger and undermined public faith in the federal courts.”

The court’s finding is issued as a letter in Bolan’s bar file, which is a bit of a slap on the wrist. The letter, they said, would serve as a “public reminder of the critical importance that the court places on the duty of candor for all lawyers who appear before” them, rather than a specific formal misconduct charge.

Sustainability v Trump

The Sustainability Institute v. Trump, No. 2:25-cv-02152 (D.S.C.) relates to two Executive orders issued by Donald Trump designed to reduce spending on green energy programs and “DEI.” EPA guidance issued after the EOs shut down an environmental grant program in February 2025 that was providing money to the eight plaintiffs in this case.

On June 11 the court granted partial summary judgment and held that "Defendants' internal guidance terminating the ECJ Program in contravention of § 7438 was arbitrary and capricious and unlawful." It vacated the guidance. In footnote 1 it also rejected the government's mootness argument, holding that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act rescinded only balances that were unobligated when it passed.

Then nothing happened, and plaintiffs were rebuffed by the government when they tried to restart payments. So the plaintiffs moved to enforce the judgment on June 29. The government responded that vacating the guidance did not compel anyone to do anything.

On July 22 the court granted that motion in part and said this: "the EPA is defying this Court's prior order because of an interpretation of the Act which this Court specifically rejected."

The problem is that the court never really did order the EPA to start paying again. A careful reading of the June 11th judgment shows that the judge told the plantiffs that they had won but that ordering the EPA to rebuild the ECJ program would take too much red tape. “requiring EPA . . . to implement the ECJ Program… would presumably require ordering EPA to rehire and staff the ECJ Program…Under the circumstances noted here, however, the requested relief appears impractical.” p. 11.

As for the money owed to the plaintiffs, the judge sends them to the Court of Federal Claims to figure that out. “Plaintiffs, however, are of course free to pursue their claims for alleged unlawful termination of their grants in the CFC.” Id.

Now, the judge also says that the guidance violated the APA and he therefore vacates the guidance. But on its own, the EPA may have been right to read the order as a paper tiger. Still, in his second order, he seems to suggest that the money is meant to be paid at least through September 30, 2026. However, once again he suggests that he ordered that back in June.

The September 30, 2026 date appears in the June 11th order three times, and every one of them is the court reciting what the statute says, in the background section and in the standing analysis. The conclusion of the order grants partial summary judgment, denies the motion to dismiss in part, and vacates the guidance. It does not order anyone to spend a dollar. It denied the permanent injunction the plaintiffs asked for. A lawyer at EPA reading that on June 12 and concluding there was no affirmative order to resume payments was not obviously being lawless.

That said, the new order finally provides all of the clarity of a Mississippi mud bath. He grants the motion in part, fails to tell us which part, and yells at the government for ignoring him when he told them to keep paying the plaintiffs in his first order. Will we get another round of motions? Can’t wait to see.

League of Women Voters

League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-11549 (D. Mass.), before Judge Indira Talwani.

This is a case about Executive Order 14399. Section 2 directs USCIS and the Social Security Administration to compile lists of confirmed citizens eligible to vote in each state. Section 3 tells the Postal Service to redesign mail ballots so they are identifiable in transit and traceable to a sender, and to treat ballots from people not on the federal list as undeliverable.

Three orders, in this order, and the dates matter.

June 18. The court dismissed, on prudential ripeness grounds and without prejudice, the claims about elections after November 3, 2026. Everything about this year's election stayed alive.

July 13. The court denied the preliminary injunction, without prejudice, for a narrow reason. On July 1 the District Court for the District of Columbia had already enjoined1 the Postal Service from implementing Section 3, in NAACP v. USPS, No. 1:20-cv-02295. With that injunction in place there was no irreparable harm left for this court to prevent, and irreparable harm is a threshold requirement for a preliminary injunction. The order expressly invited a renewed motion if the D.C. injunction were stayed.

July 22. The court ruled on the motions to dismiss. The constitutional claims survive. The plaintiffs plausibly alleged that Section 3 violates the separation of powers, is ultra vires, violates principles of federalism, and burdens the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act claim survives too. The APA count challenging Section 2 was dismissed for failure to state a cause of action, so this was a partial win, not a clean sweep.

Judge Talwani starts from the Supreme Court's decision last month in Watson v. Republican National Committee, for the proposition that the Constitution "lodges power over congressional elections in state legislatures 'primarily' and in Congress 'ultimately.'" Then the sentence the case turns on:

“The President plays no role in the regulation of elections.”

Further, the judge says that Congress "has not delegated authority to USPS to sort the mail, let alone to refuse to transmit mail ballots for certain voters."

The statutory definition of nonmailable matter is exhaustive, and ballots are not in it. So the President cannot add a category to that list even if the category had nothing to do with elections. Since it does have to do with elections, this isn’t even in his ocean, let alone his wheelhouse.

BIG CURVEBALL

On July 17 the D.C. Circuit stayed the D.C. injunction, in NAACP v. USPS, No. 26-5257. That removed the one thing preventing irreparable harm. So, on July 20 the plaintiffs renewed their motion for a preliminary injunction.

A hearing on that renewed motion is set for August 7, 2026 at 10:00 a.m., in Courtroom 9. The reason the injunction was denied no longer exists, and the court has already said the underlying constitutional claims are plausible. I would not bet against them this time.

AAALRIGHT - Thanks for being subscribers, if you are. If not, please become one! Consider a paid subscription to keep me going please!

And I’ll see you all next week.

The website is up. It still has some hiccups, but it’s up. And the best part, is I have sort of managed to get what I wanted all along - a news server that also gives you links to the primary files. It’s a little clunky, but I’m improving it every day.

The cool part is that I’m gating some data for Substack Subscribers only. The general info will be available to everybody, but if you’re a subscriber to my Substack you’ll get more access. If you’re a paid subscriber you’ll get even MORE access. Gotta come up with a fun way to thank those guys.

But go check it out. I have a ton of cases covered, an Executive order database, lists of every DOJ employee for the past few years and how long they’ve been there and what cases they’ve worked on. It’s all of the data that I needed to answer your questions but presented in a nice fashionable website. So Brynodc.com - go check it out and then give it a few days and check it out again. It’ll keep getting better (I hope).

Now - Today I have several stories, but they basically break down into two big stories:

Story Number 1: The Trump Settlement.

Story number 1 (the first two cases in the video) revolve around one storyline. In 2023 Charles Littlejohn was convicted of a single felony count of unlawfully disclosing tax records and sentenced to five years. Judge Ana Reyes used the maximum sentence because of the number of tax records he released (about 7,600) and his intention to interfere with an election. She did not mince words about the high penalty associated with interfering with democracy.

Littlejohn was a Booz-Allen contractor working for the government who released the returns of America’s wealthiest individuals to demonstrate how easy it was for the super wealthy to avoid paying taxes. Included in his list were Donald Trump, DJTJ, Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization.

This week the DC Court of Appeals rejected his request to reconsider the sentence, finding it to be reasonable under the circumstances. But this is not the only court news around this disclosure in the news this week.

In response to the disclosure of his IRS records, President Trump filed a suit for damages from the Federal government, seeking $10B. But the DOJ, according to the Judge in that case, never made any attempt to defend itself against the suit. Instead agreeing to a massive settlement that admitted guilt on behalf of the government, promised immunity for the Trump family and organization, and set up a $1.7B Anti-Weaponization fund (“the Fund”) to disburse damages to the wealthy individuals who had been “harmed” by the disclosure.

On July 13, the judge issued a new order in that case. The Judge states that when the DOJ failed to defend the government against the charge, she appointed an amicus curiae to defend the government instead. Still, to avoid liability, the DOJ and President Trump reached the so-called settlement. But this, according to the judge was not a settlement in fact.

The judge spends 50 pages going into copious details on the influence that President Trump exercised over the DOJ in its defense against him. Finding that, as a practical matter, Donald Trump was playing both Plaintiff and Defendant, the Judge held that no controversy can actually exist between a person and themselves. As such, the court system lacks constitutional jurisdiction over the case, and always has. The court case, therefore never existed to begin with.

Without a case or controversy, there can be no settlement. The judge, therefore not only declared the settlement void, but void ab initio, never existing to begin with. As such she has banned the parties to the case from ever using the settlement in legal filings in any way. She also imposed sanctions on the attorneys for filing false claims under Rule 11.

But the story isn’t over.

Because there is another case about the fund formed out of the settlement in Virginia, Floyd v. DOJ. Now the DOJ abandoned plans for the fund in early June, reportedly. And so on Friday the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the Floyd case because there was no Fund any longer.

But the filing on Friday relied heavily on discussions of the settlement to make its points. Did it technically violate the Florida Court’s order? Maybe not. It walked to the line, but may not have crossed it, since all of its references to the settlement avoid relying on its existence to make their point. But the Judge may not see it that way, we’re going to have to wait this one out. Whether anyone decides to make a “federal case” out of this or not remains to be seen.

But this case has really dominated this past week across a lot of different dockets.

Story Number 2: The Secret Court

I recommend watching the video to get this story because this is a bit of a confusing one. But here’s the general idea.

In 1996, Congress created a special court to operate like FISA for immigration cases. When the government could prove that just holding a particular immigration case in open court itself posed a danger to the country, special rules could be applied. This court, known as the Alien Terrorist Removal Court is made up 5 federal judges, also FISA judges, who may hear cases under this particular act and designate cases for special treatment.

Petitions are filed ex parte, without the defendant (or respondent) present or necessarily even notified, and are held behind closed doors. If the judge finds that a danger exists, it will then notify the person and schedule a hearing in open court. But in that hearing, the DOJ is essentially able to mark anything for redaction and not even the defendant him or herself may see it. An independent lawyer may be appointed for Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders) to review the evidence in private and argue in camera. But that attorney may not release the contents of that evidence, or faces a minimum of 10 years in jail.

The thing is, until this week, no case has ever been brought before this court. This week, the DOJ brought its first case under this law. The Court rejected it, but we know nothing about the case really. Just that Judge Joan Ericksen said no. The judge said that “the Government could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration.” That’s all we know. So as a procedural protection, the court is working. That’s good news anyway.

Ok whelp, getting this old machine moving again, so prepare yourself. And go check out the site!

The DOJ is fighting an expedited FOIA request to turn over documents before Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing. Among other arguments the DOJ says that the Epstein Files aren’t a big enough media story to warrant expediting the request.

I have all of the documents available on Brynodc.com so you can read them yourself. I had a heck of a time getting my hands on them. The FOIA Requests, rejections, and biggest filings are all there. Hearing is in 5 minutes. Gotta run!

Phang v. Blanche (1:26-cv-01417)

A preliminary injunction was issued in a case brought by an attorney and journalist over the DOJ’s failure to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act. There have been several attempts to bring lawsuits under this act, but the act itself doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism, which makes it tough. Katie Phang brought a suit under the administrative procedures act saying that the DOJ’s failure to comply with federal procedures related to the act have deprived her of information that she should have access to, and deprived her of money as a journalist. I think the second argument is stronger, just because it’s more concrete. But regardless, I think the real value here is shifting the conversation nationwide back to these files and the criminal actities they may uncover.

In re: Subpoenas (26-mc-00043)

Several high level Minnesota officials were sent subpoenas by a federal grand jury to appear, mostly as the official face of Minnesota statutes. In other words, it looks to me like they were mostly there to confirm that yes, this is in fact what the law book in front of you says. Normally the apex doctrine blocks high level officials from being dragged in via subpoena when their testimony is not actually required to get the point across. But the judge here didn’t bother with Apex. This, he said, was clearly part of a concerted effort by the administration to pressure the Minnesota officials into complying, or rather into supporting federal immigration efforts in the state, in violation of the 10th amendment. So these subpoenas were all quashed.

In re Trump (25-5452)

Judge Boasberg in DC District Court was looking into contempt charges over Trump officials ignoring his order to halt or turn around a plane headed to El Salvador last year. A three judge panel from the DC Circuit issued a writ of mandamus halting his investigation, saying that he was overstepping his authority. But on Wednesday the DC Circuit Decided to rehear that decision en banc, using a larger panel of judges to revisit the 3 judge panel’s decision. This is not a common court procedure. It’s usually reserved, and it is likely that such is the case here, for situations where other judges feel incredibly strongly that a case was decided incorrectly. Grab popcorn. This will be a hot one.

California v. Trump (1:26-cv-11581)

In one of several cases with the same name about executive orders related to voting rights, the district court has permanently blocked enforcement of certain provisions of Executive Order No. 14248. States are generally the decision makers when it comes to election law and this was a pretty bold swing by the administration. For now it is blocked and the court has declined to issue a temporary stay pending appeal.

Alright everybody - that’s friday for ya. I’ll be back with supreme court updates soon!

Follow along on the case tracker: tracker.brynodc.com

Manuia le aso!

I am not ready to tell anyone yet because what I’ve been working on is still.. in progress. There are broken links, and references to the wrong cases and to blank cells in spreadsheets. But I wanted to show you guys what your support has allowed me to do. Even if I still have a lot of problems to track down

So. Go ahead over to:

Br…

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