Latest news with #Reagan-appointed
Politico
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Judges are still broadly blocking Trump policies despite the Supreme Court's injunction ruling
Moss, an Obama appointee, emphasized that his decision was not one of the now-verboten injunctions. Instead, it relied on two alternative routes the Supreme Court acknowledged remained available for those challenging Trump's policies: class actions, which allow large groups to band together and sue over a common problem, and the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that permits courts to 'set aside' federal agency actions that violate the law, including rules, regulations and memos laying out new procedures. The ruling by Moss drew intense outrage from the Trump administration, which accused the judge of going 'rogue' and violating the Supreme Court's intentions. Hours later, U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered federal health officials to restore hundreds of web pages containing gender-related data that officials took down pursuant to a Trump executive order cracking down on 'gender ideology.' He described the move as an example of federal officials 'acting first and thinking later.' Despite the nationwide implications of his ruling, Bates emphasized that the APA allows courts to effectively undo unjustified agency action, adding that even the Justice Department did 'not argue that more tailored relief is even possible here, let alone appropriate.' The judge also left open the possibility that officials could go back to the drawing board and find a lawful way to restrict content related to so-called 'gender ideology.' And in Massachusetts, Reagan-appointed U.S. District Judge William Young was careful to emphasize that his expansive ruling restoring health research grants — cut following the same executive order cited by Bates — was nonetheless tailored only to provide relief to the organizations that sued. Like Bates, Young's ruling relied on the APA. 'Public officials, in their haste to appease the Executive, simply moved too fast and broke things,' Young wrote. In short, the Supreme Court's ruling on nationwide injunctions may be the tectonic shift that wasn't. Despite the extraordinary potential to reshape the judiciary, its immediate impact — particularly in the innumerable challenges to Trump's effort to single-handedly slash and reshape the federal government — may be limited.
New York Post
02-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Former FBI Director James Comey's daughter Maurene suffers high-profile loss as prosecutor in Diddy trial
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey played a leading role on the eight-member team that prosecuted rapper Sean 'Diddy' Combs in a sex trafficking and racketeering trial that came to a close Wednesday with mixed results. The daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, Maurene Comey faced a setback when the jury found the performer not guilty of some of the most serious charges, including racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. However, the jury did side with prosecutors on two counts, finding Combs guilty of violating the Mann Act of 1910 by transporting women across state lines for prostitution. Maurene Comey was a prosecutor in the Jeffrey Epstein trial prior to his death in prison and also had a lead role in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial. She leads the violent and organized crime unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). SDNY is the same stepping stone her father, James Comey, used to catapult himself to national prominence. 3 Maurene Comey arrives at the Federal courthouse during the Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial at U.S. court in Manhattan, in New York City, U.S., May 21, 2025. REUTERS The ex-FBI director and prominent Trump foe worked similarly as a federal prosecutor there in the 1980s, when noted Trump ally Rudolph Giuliani was the Reagan-appointed U.S. attorney. He returned to Manhattan in the 2000s after former President George W. Bush appointed him to the role once held by 'America's Mayor.' Lately, the elder Comey received blowback for posting a photo of stones on a beach in the shape of '86 47,' which many observers considered to be a wish for President Donald Trump's death – with '86' being a cipher for 'kill' and '47' denoting Trump as the 47th president. 3 Sean 'Diddy' Combs listens as prosecutor Maurene Comey makes her closing arguments during Combs' sex trafficking trial in New York City, New York, U.S., June 27, 2025, in this courtroom sketch. REUTERS In court, Maurene Comey offered the prosecution's rebuttal prior to the jury being sent off to deliberate the charges against Combs. Maurene Comey argued from the dais that Combs 'never thought the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud what he had done to them,' and suggested the rapper believed he was 'untouchable.' She also offered arguments that Combs had been involved in firebombing a Porsche owned by rapper Scott 'Kid Cudi' Mescudi, according to TMZ. 3 Maurene Comey questions 'Jane' during Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial in New York City, New York, U.S., June 9, 2025 in this courtroom sketch. REUTERS Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! At the close of the trial, Maurene Comey argued to Judge Arun Subramanian that Combs should be denied the bond requested by defense attorney Marc Agnifilo. 'There is serious relevant conduct here that will merit a lengthy period of incarceration,' she said, according to the New York Post. While occupationally a proverbial chip off the old block, Maurene Comey has remained largely silent during James Comey's recurring controversies, from his '86 47' post that drew demands for investigation by the Secret Service to his rhetorical battles with Trump.
Politico
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Politico
‘My duty is to call it out': Judge accuses Trump administration of discrimination against minorities
A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan on Monday accused the Trump administration of 'appalling' and 'palpably clear' discrimination against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ Americans. 'I've never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I've sat on this bench now for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this,' said U.S. District Judge William Young, a Massachusetts-based jurist who took the bench in 1985. Young's sweeping rebuke during a court hearing was a reference to two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that led the National Institutes of Health to rescind funding for research related to racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people. Though Young said he was uncertain whether he had the power to block the executive orders themselves, he declared the NIH cuts Monday to be 'illegal' and 'void,' and he ordered the NIH to immediately restore the research funds. An appeal is likely. 'I am hesitant to draw this conclusion — but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it — that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community,' the judge said. 'That's what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.' Young's commentary was an extraordinary departure for a federal judge of any era even at a moment when Trump's policies have been facing stiff resistance in the courts. Trump swept into office in part on his promise to withdraw government support for programs he deems supportive of 'diversity, equity and inclusion' initiatives as well as any he claims support 'gender ideology extremism.' The orders led to a governmentwide crackdown on funding for programs and research related to minority communities — and has spawned a long list of lawsuits calling the abrupt cuts illegal. Young isn't the first Reagan-appointed judge to take issue with the Trump administration. Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington has blocked the Trump administration's efforts to relocate transgender women to men's prisons, and he has used his perch to defend the courts against criticisms from Trump and his allies. In similarly memorable remarks from the bench, Judge John Coughenour, based in Seattle, accused Trump of viewing the rule of law as an 'impediment' to his priorities. Trump allies have brushed off the judges' critiques as relics of an earlier age of establishment-led government. The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Trump aide Stephen Miller posted on X in response to Young's commentary, calling DEI 'illegal racial discrimination.' 'The government cannot be forced to discriminate against Americans based on race,' Miller said. Judges have routinely and repeatedly found that the administration's race to terminate contracts, dismantle agencies and deport immigrants has been tainted by illegality and violations of due process, but few have mounted such a broad-based rejection of the administration's policies themselves. 'You are bearing down on people of color because of their color,' Young said. 'The Constitution will not permit that. … Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?' The Justice Department has contended that its efforts to cut research grants — and many other programs and agencies — were simply a reflection of the new Trump administration's policy priorities, reflected in Trump's executive orders and unreviewable by the courts. They say the president should have broad latitude to set priorities and pause funding for programs that no longer align. But Young said the administration made virtually no effort to push back on claims that the cuts were discriminatory. 'We're talking about health here, the health of Americans, of our LGBTQ community,' he said. 'That's appalling.' Young's comments came after he ordered the Trump administration to restore hundreds of scientific grants the National Institutes of Health terminated earlier this year. His order came as part of a lawsuit from more than a dozen state attorneys general and advocacy groups for public health researchers that alleged the grant terminations were haphazard and discriminatory. The Department of Justice, which defended NIH, argued the terminations align with congressional mandates to 'improve research.' 'Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore rather than seriously examine biological realities. … It is an improvement to eliminate these,' DOJ lawyer Thomas Ports Jr. said during the hearing. Young pressed the DOJ for an explanation: 'Where's the support for that? … I'm asking you [to] just explain to me 'often used to support unlawful discrimination.' I see no evidence of that.'
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to U.S. to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been returned to the U.S. to face federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee, according to NBC News, in a case that became emblematic of the combined coarseness and incompetence behind the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. The Maryland resident, who was illegally deported to El Salvador in March, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gains and the unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gains, according to a copy of the indictment obtained by NBC News. ABC News first reported the indictment. A judge in 2019 had ordered Abrego Garcia not to be removed to El Salvador, due to the potential persecution the Salvadoran native could face there. Nonetheless, in March, federal officials detained Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, and flew him and others to a notorious prison in El Salvador, where he and others have been held without having been convicted of, or charged with, any crime. (Others have brought separate litigation.) U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to facilitate his return, and the Supreme Court largely upheld her order on April 10, ruling that it 'properly requires the Government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.' The justices noted that the government said his removal to that country 'was the result of an 'administrative error.'' Yet, the government still resisted returning him. During further litigation before Xinis after the Supreme Court ruling, the Obama-appointed judge criticized officials' 'continued mischaracterization' of the high court command, accusing them of acting in 'bad faith.' The government has argued that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which it has deemed a foreign terrorist organization. Addressing that accusation during the litigation, Reagan-appointed appellate Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote, 'Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.' This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration's legal cases. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Pardon Power Isn't as Absolute as He Thinks
In 2017, President Donald Trump insisted that his power to pardon was 'complete'—a claim consistent with his generally absolutist views of the office's powers, and one also inherited from his predecessors. 'The President, in his action on pardon cases, is not subject to the control or supervision of anyone,' said President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general. President Dwight Eisenhower's pardon attorney claimed that in exercising the power, 'the President is amenable only to the dictates of his own conscience.' President Bill Clinton's pardon attorney advised that any cooperation with congressional investigators on pardon matters was entirely voluntary. The pardon power is expansive, and also now a near-weekly tool to reward Trump's political allies. But just last week, a federal court punctured the popular idea that the power is somehow immune to a normal constitutional check. Among the recipients of Trump's January 6 pardons was John Sullivan, who turned a profit from selling video footage from the riot—money the government later seized. Sullivan claimed, with the backing of the Justice Department, that the government must now reimburse him. Pardons are supposed to relieve a recipient from punishment, and so Sullivan argued that repayment should be a part of that promise. But the court ruled against him, concluding that 'funds may not be drawn from the Treasury without an appropriation, plain and simple.' That is, any repayment would run through Congress, which decides how money is dispensed. The case is nominally about whether a pardonee gets to reclaim seized property. But it is more fundamentally about the separation of powers. The president is vested with the power to pardon, while Congress is vested with the power to spend money. Sullivan received his pardon, but 'money is money, the Treasury is the Treasury, and the Constitution says what it says: Once money is in the Treasury, it can only be withdrawn pursuant to a Congressional appropriation,' wrote the Reagan-appointed judge. This was not the first time this particular issue landed in court; the last time, interestingly enough, was after another insurrection. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson pardoned hundreds of thousands of former Confederates, including Herman Knote, whose property the federal government confiscated and sold during the Civil War. After receiving his pardon, Knote sued to claim the proceeds from the government's sale of his property, claiming, like Sullivan, that the pardon entitled him to the money. The Supreme Court disagreed. In Knote v. United States, the court held that while clemency lifts the punishment for a crime, the pardon power cannot simultaneously undermine other parts of the Constitution—in this case, again, Congress's power of the purse. 'Whilst a full pardon releases the offender from all disabilities imposed by the offense pardoned,' the funds from the property sale had already been deposited into the Treasury. And unfortunately for Mr. Knote, once there, they 'can only be withdrawn by an appropriation by law.' When the pardon power bumped up against another part of the Constitution, the former was not entitled to run roughshod over the latter. 'However large, therefore, may be the power of pardon possessed by the President,' the court added, 'and however extended may be its application, there is this limit to it, as there is to all his powers.' Presidents have nonetheless continued to claim that the pardon power is a kinglike exception to the rule; federal courts have also continued, in case after case, to remind them that they are wrong. In 1915, for instance, the Supreme Court found that President Wilson could not cleverly pardon a newspaper editor as a means of compelling his testimony to a grand jury by abrogating his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. The court held 'that the power of the President under the Constitution to grant pardons and the right of a witness must be kept in accommodation.' In 1974, the court held that a president's clemency powers include the authority to impose conditions on a commutation, provided those conditions do not violate other constitutional provisions. The exercise of the pardon power, said the court, cannot 'offend the Constitution.' In other cases this year, the Justice Department has argued that Trump's January 6 pardons somehow cover criminal offenses unrelated to January 6. Courts, in response, have mostly balked. Last month, prosecutors moved to dismiss the gun possession conviction of an alleged drug dealer by claiming that the pardon covered the offense because it was discovered during a January 6–related investigation. A district court denied the motion (a 'bad faith' and 'unreasonable' one, it added). The defendant's lawyer also argued that 'courts don't have the authority to interpret a pardon,' while prosecutors said courts should defer to the executive branch's own interpretation—challenging not just the potential check itself, but the authority to exercise a check in the first place. Again last month, a federal appellate court reasserted its constitutional authority to review the scope of a pardon, and struck down the Department's attempt to inappropriately apply it to separate crimes. Courts are playing their part. But as with the current administration's general assault on the rule of law, and despite insisting on their role in performing a constitutional check, courts alone are not going to rein in escalating abuses. Ever since President Richard Nixon dangled pardons to his Watergate henchmen, presidents have used the pardon power to self-deal—granting clemency to friends and family members and donors, and to obstruct investigations and reward loyalty. But nothing has come close to President Trump's abuse of the power. As a Washington Post investigation of all clemency acts during his first term concluded: 'Never before had a president used his constitutional clemency powers to free or forgive so many people who could be useful to his future political efforts.' His second term appears no different. By one recent estimate, Trump has wiped out more than 700 years of prison time for his allies and supporters since retaking office. To make matters worse, while pardons can be used to commit certain crimes, like to bribe or obstruct justice, the Supreme Court issued an opinion last year that effectively immunizes a president's 'official acts' from criminal liability, including pardons. In recent months, a lucrative cottage industry of 'pardon shopping' has formed, with pardon seekers paying big to lobby the president's inner circle, according to The Wall Street Journal. The court's ruling now helps to insulate a president from criminal accountability—say, if it were discovered that a pardon functioned as a bribe. Yet the ruling does not insulate a president from congressional oversight. Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have voiced alarm in recent months at expanding abuses—Democrats criticizing President Joe Biden's pardons of family members and Republicans denouncing Trump's January 6 pardons. They include Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, a longtime pardon reform champion, but also Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who suggested that Congress 'revisit' the scope of the power. Bipartisan majorities of Americans also support clearer limits. There are two branches responsible for checking executive power, not one. A basic role for lawmakers could start with an investigation of pardon practices by recent administrations of both parties. This may seem far-fetched for our currently languishing legislature, but consider congressional hearings that examine the Hunter Biden pardon alongside Roger Stone's. The exercise has bipartisan precedent: from Ford to Clinton, Republicans and Democrats have jointly investigated pardon abuses. A step further, Congress could work toward a sense of resolution—a kind of joint statement of principles—to clarify the constitutional meaning of clemency. Resolutions are not law, but they can be important reassertions of political norms. Congress could also create new tools, such as passing legislation to specifically sharpen its pardon oversight tools, or even initiate discussion of a constitutional amendment. All of this is dependent upon a basic recognition that the pardon power is less invincible than many presidents would have us believe. Repeating the fanciful claim of an unchallengeable power does not make it so. What courts are offering is not just a constitutional check, but also a reminder that constitutional checks on the pardon power are well within the realm of the possible.
