Judge rules Trump unconstitutionally retaliated against ABA by canceling grants
May 15 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration unconstitutionally retaliated against the American Bar Association when it abruptly canceled millions in grants awarded to the world's largest association of lawyers and legal professionals.
Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction against the cancelation of the five grants and ordered the Justice Department to fully pay out the $3.2 million previously allocated to the ABA. The grants were intended to train lawyers and judges who work with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
"The ABA has made a strong showing that Defendants terminated its grants to retaliate against it for engaging in protected speech," the President Barack Obama-appointed judge wrote in his ruling.
The Trump administration has been accused of retaliating against President Donald Trump's perceived political opponents, including law firms associated with Democrats and judges who have ruled against his policies.
The ABA is among those who have described such attacks as threats to the judiciary, and in February, it joined a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's freeze of international development grants to the U.S. Agency for international Development.
In April, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum calling out ABA over its lawsuit against the government and support for "activist causes," essentially severing the Justice Department's interactions with the organization. The department then canceled the grants the next day
The organization filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration on April 23, accusing it of unlawful retaliation for exercising its First Amendment right to petition the courts.
"This lawsuit is necessitated by DOJ's undisguised efforts to retaliate against the ABA for taking positions that the current Administration disfavors," the lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of ABA stated.
In his ruling Wednesday, Cooper said the government does not have any "meaningful" arguments to contest ABA's claims, stating it points to deficiencies in the organization's performance of its grant obligations while conceding that similar grants administered to other organizations remain in place.
"The government claims that it had a non-retaliatory motive for terminating the grants: They no longer aligned with DOJ's priorities. But the government has not identified any non-retaliatory DOJ priorities, much less explained why they were suddenly deemed inconsistent with the goals of the affected grants," he said, adding that similar grants to other organizations continue without the government explaining why those are still being maintained.
"The government's different treatment of other grantees suggests this justification is pretextual."
Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman celebrated the ruling in a statement, saying it is "welcome news" for survivors of domestic and sexual violence and for their families.
"For decades, the American Bar Association has provided critical training to lawyers to enable the provision of essential legal services to survivors. The court recognized today that the ABA is being unconstitutionally targeted by the Department of Justice because of their longstanding and unchanged stance on the importance of the rule of law and our Constitution," Perryman said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Insurrection Act not off the table for LA protests, Trump says
The Brief Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump did not rule out invoking the Insurrection Act in response to the Los Angeles ICE protests. "We're not going to let them get away with it. We're going to have troops everywhere," Trump said. President Donald Trump said he won't rule out invoking the Insurrection Act as violent protests against federal immigration officers continue in Los Angeles for a third day. National Guard troops clashed with protesters Sunday, firing tear gas at crowds as protesters moved onto the freeways surrounding downtown and blocked traffic. Police said two LAPD officers were injured after they were hit by motorcyclists who tried to breach a skirmish line. Trump deployed hundreds of National Guard troops to California after confrontations between federal immigration officers and protesters who tried to stop them from carrying out immigration sweeps. THE LATEST: LA ICE protests, Day 3: National Guard arrives, as directed by Trump The backstory The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few guardrails requires the president to request that the participants disperse. Congress passed the act in 1792, just four years after the Constitution was ratified. Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Associated Press it's an amalgamation of different statutes enacted between then and the 1870s, a time when there was little in the way of local law enforcement. "It is a law that in many ways was created for a country that doesn't exist anymore," he added. READ MORE: Torrance 9-year-old detained by ICE faces potential deportation to Honduras It also is one of the most substantial exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military for law enforcement purposes. What they're saying Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump did not rule out invoking the Insurrection Act in response to the Los Angeles ICE protests. "Depends on whether or not there's an insurrection," Trump said. "We're not going to let them get away with it. We're going to have troops everywhere, we're not going to let this happen to our country. We're not going to let our country be torn apart." Trump said he did not believe the protests constituted an insurrection as of Sunday afternoon, but he said, "you have violent people, and we're not going to let them get away with that." Dig deeper Presidents have issued a total of 40 proclamations invoking the law, some of those done multiple times for the same crisis, Nunn said. Lyndon Johnson invoked it three times — in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington — in response to the unrest in cities after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. During the Civil Rights era, Presidents Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower used the law to protect activists and students desegregating schools. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School after that state's governor activated the National Guard to keep the students out. George H.W. Bush was the last president to use the Insurrection Act, a response to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King in an incident that was videotaped. The Source This report includes information from President Donald Trump's comments to reporters Sunday and previous reporting from FOX TV Stations. FOX's Catherine Stoddard contributed.
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Los Angeles unrest: The projectiles flying in both directions
() — Some protesters in the increasingly violent clashes with law enforcement in Los Angeles have thrown rocks and launched water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers, while police have fired foam and rubber bullets, tear gas and 'flash bangs' to try to disperse crowds. Sunday marked the third straight day that demonstrators took to the streets of L.A. or neighboring communities in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in southern California. The escalating physical threats faced by police officers undercut claims that most or all protesters are simply trying to voice their anger about the Trump administration's immigration policies, observers said. Anti-ICE protests intensify in Los Angeles on third day of unrest 'This is a very dangerous activity for law enforcement to get involved in because the crowd is so large,' retired FBI special agent Bobby Chacone told 'NewsNation Prime' Sunday. 'You can get surrounded. You can get separated. (Police) have to keep those lines strong, and they have to take people into custody, particularly if you know who the ringleaders are.' Some observers fault Feds for chaos in LA County Sunday's confrontations arguably were the most disruptive yet, as protesters set fire to several autonomous vehicles and briefly took over part of the 101 Freeway. As police officers lined up on the other side of the median, some members of a crowd on the overpass above rained projectiles on them, independent journalist Anthony Cabassa said. 'There's a lot of anarchists, a lot of bad-faith actors, that come to these protests and take advantage of the situation. They vandalize, they break up bricks and throw them at police, and they kind of get the crowd going,' he said. Cabassa said there is an 'online network of people' who frown on reporters like him who document these violent tactics. 'They're not happy that it's being reported because it kind of debunks the idea of this being a mostly peaceful or wholly peaceful protest,' he said. NewsNation national correspondent Mills Hayes was on the scene in L.A. In one live report on Sunday, she held up pieces of rock that protesters had thrown at police, as well as non-lethal 40 mm foam and rubber bullets fired by officers. Police also have fired canisters of tear gas and flash bangs throughout the weekend. National Guard members deployed by President Trump over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom were stationed in the downtown area. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How the Musk-Trump feud became an online battle like no other
What happens when the world's most powerful man and the world's richest man - both accomplished attention-seekers - clash on the internet? We're finding out in real time. This week, billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump took to their respective social platforms to sling mud at the other after a fallout over federal spending. What started as a volley of barbs snowballed into a feud involving multiple social platforms and millions of onlookers, as everyone from big-name politicians to no-name meme accounts hurried to offer their takes and declare their allegiances. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The split could have profound real-world consequences, as both men show their willingness to leverage financial and political power to hit back at the other. It also illustrates how quickly a conflict can escalate when it is fanned by algorithmic feeds and the demands of the attention economy, which prizes outrage and relishes a high-profile feud. While Trump and Musk circle their wagons, drumming up support and smearing the other through posts on X and Truth Social, millions of smaller content creators stand to capitalize on the attention the feud generates. On Thursday afternoon, the number of active users on the X and Truth Social mobile apps both reached 90-day highs, according to preliminary estimates by Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm. Between 2 and 6 p.m. Eastern time that day, the firm estimates that X usage was up 54 percent compared with the previous seven days, while Truth Social was up more than 400 percent, albeit from a much lower baseline. 'Public feuds like this drive social media engagement like crazy,' said Casey Fiesler, a professor of information science at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies social media ethics. 'It's high-octane content because it's easy to meme and very algorithmically rewarded.' Musk, whose business empire includes X as well as Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and artificial intelligence start-up xAI, kicked off the fight on Tuesday when he posted on X to criticize a congressional spending bill backed by the president: 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,' he wrote. The post was viewed more than 141 million times and sparked a flurry of commentary on X and elsewhere online. Gen Z internet personality Lil Tay, known for over-the-top posts flaunting luxury goods, got 2.8 million views on a reply clapping back at Musk for his former support of Trump, while far-right commentator Charlie Kirk referenced Musk's 'tweet heard around the world' in a post funneling viewers to Apple Podcasts to stream his talk show. Over the next two days, Musk continued to take shots at Trump on X, at one point posting a poll asking whether America needed a new centrist political party, while Trump told White House reporters that his and Musk's relationship was on the rocks. Then on Thursday, Musk escalated the back-and-forth by claiming in a post on X that Trump is implicated in the Epstein files, documents that allegedly contain the names of people who consorted with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually assault minors. The post exploded, drawing almost 200 million views in a day and stoking a second wave of content from politicians, creators and meme-makers. A post from an anonymous X user, liked by 192,300 people, mused: 'Who gets JD Vance in the divorce?' The vice president soon provided an answer, posting that Trump has 'earned the trust of the movement he leads.' On X, where Musk's changes to the platform's verification feature have blurred the lines between real public figures and paid subscribers, fake politicians joined the fray. 'Every time I smell a movement, I know you'll be next to it,' came a reply to Vance from an account for Rep. Jack Kimble - a fictitious congressman with more than 93,000 followers whose posts have often fooled social media users. Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon seized the moment to make headlines with his podcast, in which he called for Trump to seize SpaceX and perhaps even deport Musk. Politics creators such as Philip DeFranco took to TikTok with beat-by-beat breakdowns of the feud, while Musk's estranged daughter Vivian Wilson posted to her Instagram stories a clip of herself laughing, with the caption, 'I love being proven right,' possibly in reference to past comments criticizing her father and Trump. In the Reddit community r/politics, self-styled sleuths conducted deep dives into Epstein-related court filings, at times linking to books and YouTube series that claim to investigate Epstein's celebrity accomplices. Far-fetched conspiracy theories floated around X as users speculated whether Trump and Musk could be secretly working together toward some noble end. Critics of Musk and Trump delighted in the affair. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who at 35 is a social media star in her own right, was stopped by a reporter outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday and asked for her reaction to Trump and Musk's war of words. She was quick to spit an online catchphrase: 'Oh man, the girls are fighting, aren't they?' The clip spread quickly on TikTok, where it was boosted by left-leaning talking heads and news accounts. Academic research on online algorithms has shown that social feeds often prioritize content that elicits fear or rage. High-profile fights can boost the power and profiles of people involved, as with the infamous internet feuds between Kim Kardashian and Kanye West or influencers Trisha Paytas and Ethan Klein, said Fiesler. But trending conflicts are also a boon to the second-order creators, who jump to offer 'side takes,' playing off the argument of the day to drive traffic to their own products and profiles. A divisive court battle between actress Amber Heard and her ex-husband Johnny Depp, for instance, spawned its own media ecosystem, with creators and channels dedicated entirely to dissecting the feud - at times even falsifying or exaggerating information to keep viewers hooked. 'This [Musk-Trump feud] is half my TikTok feed right now,' Fiesler said. 'The more that people talk about it, the more people feel obligated to talk about it and take sides.' It's a dynamic the principals in this fight have long since mastered. Vance posted on X on Thursday a picture of himself with the popular podcaster and comedian Theo Von, with the tongue-in-cheek caption, 'Slow news day, what are we even going to talk about?' Musk reposted it, adding a 'laughter' emoji. Under Musk's ownership, X has lost advertisers and users turned off by his politics and lax approach to hate speech, with rivals such as Bluesky and Meta's Threads siphoning left-leaning users in particular. Now he risks alienating Trump loyalists. But in the meantime, even critics of his leadership of X acknowledged Thursday that it seemed to have 'the juice' - that is, it was driving the conversation - at least for the moment. 'A public blowup between the world's richest man and the president of the U.S. is hard for people to resist witnessing first-hand, even for those that may not regularly use X,' said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at eMarketer, a market research firm. 'That said, our media usage is so fragmented and we're being bombarded with the news from every channel that it's not likely to be significant or sustainable.' Truth Social, meanwhile, has become an increasingly important component of Trump's communication strategy, with the self-styled influencer-in-chief firing off a steady stream of posts - at times dozens a day - lauding his own actions or taking aim at rivals. White House employees and right-leaning creators then spread the posts to other platforms, broadening Truth Social's reach and influence even as the platform underperforms compared with X, Threads or Bluesky. (Sensor Tower estimates X has about 100 times more active users.) The Trump-Musk brouhaha exemplifies how online influencer culture has permeated politics, said Renée DiResta, a professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and the author of 'Invisible Rulers.' 'Online beefing is not about winning - it's a kind of performance,' she said. The interactive nature of social media allows the audience to get in on the action. 'We pick sides, cheer for our champion and keep the fight going. We make memes - we can grab some attention for ourselves and help shape the fight if we make good ones.' But what might be harmless fun in the case of celebrity gossip, she said, has a darker side when the warring parties are among the world's most powerful people. In a striking example, a threat from Trump on Thursday to cancel government contracts with SpaceX prompted Musk to reply that the company 'will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately' - a move that would have severed NASA's only means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station. A pseudonymous X user who had fewer than 100 followers at the time replied to Musk's post, urging him to 'take a step back' and reconsider. Within hours, Musk responded: 'Good advice. Ok, we won't decommission Dragon.' The online bedlam prompted sports commentator Darren Rovell to revisit a tweet he posted in 2016 that has since become a meme: 'I feel bad for our country. But this is tremendous content.' Related Content To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears
