Latest news with #Roberts-authored
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
At congressional address, Trump told Chief Justice Roberts he ‘won't forget'
What was Donald Trump thinking about when he thanked Chief Justice John Roberts and said he wouldn't 'forget'? If the answer lies in any Trump-friendly court rulings, then the president might've been thinking about multiple things. Trump made the remark Tuesday night, as he shook hands with the Supreme Court justices attending his congressional address. Starting at about 2:20:05 on C-SPAN's recording, the president shook hands with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy (who stepped down during Trump's first term, making way for Justice Brett Kavanaugh's appointment); then Trump's third appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whom Republicans pushed through at the end of his first term after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died; then Kavanaugh; then Justice Elena Kagan; and finally Roberts, whom Trump thanked 'again,' said he wouldn't forget, and then patted him on the back/shoulder area. An obvious first guess at what Trump could've been talking about (if anything specific) is the immunity decision that Roberts authored last year. The high court's handling of that appeal helped Trump avoid a trial in the federal election interference case and could even help him overturn his state conviction in New York in his only criminal case that went to trial before he won the 2024 election. On the subject of that political victory, another crucial Roberts Court decision last year was in Trump v. Anderson, the case that kept Trump on the ballot despite the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban. And on the subject of Jan. 6, there's the Roberts-authored ruling in Fischer v. United States, which narrowed obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants in a case that could've also benefited Trump's legal challenge to his federal election interference charges. We'll never know the full extent to which the Fischer ruling would've helped Trump; due to the Justice Department's policy against charging sitting presidents, his victory in November led the prosecution to drop the case entirely. To be sure, Roberts hasn't always sided with Trump. Indeed, on Wednesday morning, the chief justice and Barrett were in the majority of a 5-4 decision rejecting the administration's bid to avoid paying out certain congressionally appropriated funds. As Trump's litigation-packed second term gets underway, the president will likely win some court cases and lose others. But he has the Roberts Court to thank for being in a position to play the game at all. 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 Donald Trump's legal cases. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The first case of Trump's second term reaches the high court
It took less than a month for a case from Donald Trump's second presidential term to reach the Supreme Court. The administration's appeal stems from Trump's attempt to fire a top government watchdog in a dispute that implicates long-standing precedent that protects independent federal agencies. How the justices handle it could give us the first glimpse of their thinking at this early stage of an already litigation-packed term. The background here is that Trump sought to fire Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel. The OSC is an independent agency that protects federal employees and applicants from retaliation for whistleblowing and other protected practices (not to be confused with the Justice Department's special counsels, like Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump). A divided federal appeals court panel issued a ruling over the weekend that keeps Dellinger in his position for now, which prompted the administration to seek emergency relief from the high court. Specifically, Trump's acting solicitor general, Sarah Harris, wants the court to undo a trial court judge's temporary restraining order against the government — which is set to expire Feb. 26 — and to immediately pause the order while the justices consider the matter. 'This case involves an unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate relief,' Harris (a former Clarence Thomas clerk) wrote to Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency litigation from the District of Columbia. She cited the Roberts-authored immunity decision in Trump's favor that touted the president's power, as well as other recent rulings that enhanced presidential authority over federal agencies. Harris cast Trump's bid to remove Dellinger earlier this month as 'uncontroversial,' while deeming the lower court reaction extraordinary. 'Until now,' she wrote, 'as far as we are aware, no court in American history has wielded an injunction to force the President to retain an agency head whom the President believes should not be entrusted with executive power and to prevent the President from relying on his preferred replacement.' Absent emergency relief, Harris warned, lower courts would be 'embolden[ed]' to grant restraining orders against the White House. 'This Court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will,' she wrote. The application comes as Harris recently wrote to Congress that the government is prepared to seek the reversal of a 1935 precedent called Humphrey's Executor, which has long protected agency independence. Opposing the government's high court bid, Dellinger's lawyers wrote that the administration is trying to create an exception to the general rule that temporary restraining orders can't be appealed. 'To accept its theory and grant its request for relief would be to invite more of the same: a rocket docket straight to this Court, even as high-stakes emergency litigation proliferates across the country,' they wrote. They added that Humphrey's Executor and other precedents cited by the government 'all support the constitutionality of the OSC's for-cause removal limitation.' And they called it 'an especially unfortunate moment at which to weaken the OSC, given the historic upheaval currently occurring within federal employment and the continued importance of ensuring that whistleblowers are guarded from reprisal.' We could soon learn what Roberts and his colleagues make of all this. To be sure, they could issue a procedural-type ruling — such as lifting the restraining order for a brief period while they further consider the issue — that wouldn't necessarily determine how the court will ultimately resolve the merits of the issue. And their eventual resolution as to the merits of Dellinger's removal also won't necessarily determine how they'll deal with other agencies and lawsuits. But whatever the court does decide will be scrutinized closely not only for what it means on this important issue but for any indications of how the court might treat Trump's broader bid to consolidate power in his second term. 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 Donald Trump's legal cases. This article was originally published on
