‘Breathtaking in its audacity’: Trump’s conflict with judges has escalated to new heights
CNN
Judge James Boasberg – who ruled Wednesday that the administration showed “willful disregard” for his mid-March order halting deportation flights amid dispute over the legality of the removals – is the first judge to find “probable cause” of criminal contempt.
Judge James Boasberg – who ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration showed “willful disregard” for his mid-March order halting deportation flights amid dispute over the legality of the removals – is the first judge to find “probable cause exists” to hold administration officials in criminal contempt. But the legal fight over whether federal officials defied Boasberg’s orders is playing out on a larger tapestry of administration scorn and recalcitrance towards the judges that have curtailed President Donald Trump’s agenda, with the tone set at the top by Trump himself. Trump officials have launched personal attacks against Boasberg and other judges on social media and in public appearances. Government lawyers have claimed ignorance when asked basic questions about the facts underlying legal disputes. And faced with rulings pausing Trump policies, the administration has expressed a remarkable disdain for judicial authority in the guidance its offered agencies for following those judges’ commands. “It’s breathtaking in its audacity and lack of decorum,” said retired Judge John Jones III, a George W. Bush appointee who served on a federal court in Pennsylvania. “It’s unlike anything I have ever seen from the Justice Department and, really, in fact, any lawyers who practice in federal court.” The administration’s cavalier attitude has been front and center in the case concerning the mistaken deportation of a migrant in Maryland to a super-prison in El Salvador. Those proceedings reached a new level of intensity after the Supreme Court last week left mostly intact an order from the district judge requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” the migrant’s return to the United States. At a Tuesday hearing before US District Judge Paula Xinis, DOJ attorney Drew Ensign tried to challenge how she was interpreting the Supreme Court’s instructions and indicated that the administration would appeal any order she issued broadly defining the term “facilitate,” the key verb the Supreme Court embraced in its order last week.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.