- He seeks early high court help as judges pause his initiatives
- Trump seeking to fire head of independent whistleblower agency
Asking the justices to take the unusual step of intervening in a just-filed lawsuit, Trump says the court should lift a temporary restraining order that shields
The clash will offer an early clue about the court’s receptiveness to Trump’s broad definition of White House authority in his new term as he tries to remake the government. It comes amid a broader Trump effort to
In a brief filed Sunday, the administration called on the court to send a message to judges around the country as they manage at least a dozen requests to pause Trump initiatives involving the federal workforce, government spending, citizenship rights and
“This court should not allow the judiciary to govern by temporary restraining order and supplant the political accountability the Constitution ordains,” acting Solicitor General
The request, likely to be the first of many Trump-related emergency applications in the coming months, asks the court to carve out an exception to the usual rule that temporary restraining orders can’t be appealed. TROs, as they are known, are designed to be interim orders that maintain the current state of affairs until a judge can give a case fuller consideration.
Dellinger told the court Tuesday that granting the administration request would “open the floodgates to many more fire-drill TRO appeals.”
Dellinger was nominated by then-President
The special counsel’s office is designed to provide support for whistleblowers and isn’t related to the prosecutions of Trump during Biden’s presidency by a lawyer with a similar title.
Firing Officials
The case in many ways is an ideal one for the Trump administration as it looks to score an early victory at the Supreme Court. The court in recent cases has said the president has broad constitutional power to fire executive branch officials. In perhaps the
That history makes it highly likely the court would strike down the special counsel’s job protections were it to consider them directly, says
“The court is likely to think this case is not particularly close on the merits,” Adler said. The court might see the special counsel and CFPB disputes as so similar that the “normal presumption against intervening might be overcome,” he said.
Even so, granting the request could force trial judges to rethink how they approach similar cases, says
“They’re saying even taking the time to do that while maintaining the status quo is causing irreparable harm to the president’s prerogatives,” Fogel said. A decision accepting that would be a “sea change.”
The Dellinger case may already be casting a shadow. On Tuesday, US District Judge
The states “legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight,” Chutkan
But she said the states hadn’t shown they would suffer “imminent, irreparable harm” as a result of Musk’s work. “Even a strong merits argument cannot secure a temporary restraining order at this juncture,” she said.
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Sara Forden
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