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The anti-Trump lawsuits are here
The courts are the biggest remaining impediment to Trump’s power grab.
Joey Sendaydiego for Vox
Patrick Reis was the senior politics and ideas editor at Vox. He previously worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Politico, National Journal, and Seattle’s Real Change News. As a reporter and editor, he has worked on coverage of campaign politics, economic policy, the federal death penalty, climate change, financial regulation, and homelessness.
Welcome to The Logoff. I want to focus on the coming legal fight over Donald Trump’s agenda, because the courts seem to be the largest remaining hurdle to the administration’s attempt to radically expand Trump’s power.
What’s the latest? Two federal workers today sued over Elon Musk’s tech takeover at the agency that oversees the federal workforce, Wired reports. The lawsuit asks for a temporary restraining order to force Musk and his team to disconnect a server that has allowed them to directly email nearly every federal worker.
FBI employees are suing to block Justice Department heads from compiling a list of employees who worked on the January 6 investigation, Politico reports.
Labor federations and others on Monday sued the Treasury Department over Musk’s access to the federal payment system, arguing it illegally disclosed millions of Americans’ personal and financial data.
Are other lawsuits coming? Yes, likely many, including:
- Experts say Trump lacks the legal authority to shutter the US Agency for International Development. The question will almost certainly fall to the courts.
- Critics are promising to sue over Trump’s plan to house detained migrants at a Guantánamo naval base. (The first migrants were flown there today.)
Why haven’t more suits been filed already? Legal work is often slow, as a rushed filing can doom a lawsuit in court. Additionally, the legal system generally requires someone to demonstrate they’ve been harmed by an action before suing. Those factors make the legal system likely to lag behind Trump’s actions, but that doesn’t mean the suits aren’t coming.
Have any lawsuits already been successful? Yes, at least temporarily. A federal judge stalled Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship, and a separate federal judge suspended the administration’s attempt to freeze basically all federal spending. Both cases, however, are likely to be appealed, perhaps all the way up to the Supreme Court.
And with that, it’s time to log off …
Okay! It has been a day. And so I want to preview something I’ve been saving up since this newsletter started. A podcast that combines two things I enjoy: new ways of understanding human history, and (more importantly) very good dogs. So please feel free to treat yourself to this 26-minute podcast on the domestication of canines. And yes, it’s titled “Who let the wolves in?”
