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Category: Law

Trump adopts view of legal impunity invoked by neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik

Trump adopts view of legal impunity invoked by neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik

In his 1500-page manifesto, “A European Declaration of Independence,” Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who murdered 77 people on July 22, 2011, in the section headed “Because our survival depends on it,” writes, “He who saves his country, violates no law,” which has been attributed (without evidence) to Napoleon. Donald Trump has now emphatically made the same declaration. The New York Times reports: President Trump on Saturday posted on social media a single sentence that appears to encapsulate his…

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DOJ’s independence is threatened as Trump’s team asserts power over cases and staff

DOJ’s independence is threatened as Trump’s team asserts power over cases and staff

The Associated Press reports: Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.” Yet in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing exactly that. Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump…

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What happens if Trump administration officials repeatedly and defiantly ignore court orders?

What happens if Trump administration officials repeatedly and defiantly ignore court orders?

Trevor W. Morrison and Richard H. Pildes write: For an official to stand in continued, open defiance of a court order, he might have to defy the entire judicial system. At that point, there is no question we would be in a constitutional crisis, and the courts could well run out of options. Here, the resolution of an ultimate confrontation between the branches, which would dominate the news, would also depend on the response of a range of actors in…

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New lawsuits accuse Musk of violating the Constitution’s rules about the appointment of federal officers

New lawsuits accuse Musk of violating the Constitution’s rules about the appointment of federal officers

Politico reports: Elon Musk’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle the federal government at the behest of Donald Trump have already sparked a legion of lawsuits. Now the legal challengers are setting their sights on a new target: Musk himself. Two new cases accuse the ultra-wealthy CEO of illegally amassing too much government power without the accountability typically required of high-level executive branch officials. They are seeking court orders that would force Musk to halt the cost-cutting and information-gathering activities he…

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The opposition is growing: Trump is getting substantial pushback, both from the courts and elsewhere

The opposition is growing: Trump is getting substantial pushback, both from the courts and elsewhere

Quinta Jurecic writes: During his first term in office, Donald Trump loved to complain about judges on social media. Reliably, whenever his agenda was held up in court or his allies faced legal consequences, he would snipe online about “so-called judges” and a “broken and unfair” legal system. Now, in Trump’s second term, this genre of cranky presidential post has returned. A judge who blocked the administration’s mass freeze of federal-grant funding is “highly political” and an “activist,” according to…

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Ambitious and ‘rigorously honest’ prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, quits rather than do Trump’s bidding

Ambitious and ‘rigorously honest’ prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, quits rather than do Trump’s bidding

The New York Times reports: Danielle R. Sassoon shot like a laser through the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, with stints fighting violent crime and securities fraud as well as handling appeals before she was elevated, at age 38, to be its interim head. There, just weeks into her tenure running the country’s most prestigious federal prosecutor’s office, she encountered an obstacle that threatened to stall her rapid rise: the desire of President Trump’s administration to drop corruption charges against New…

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Trump is ignoring the Impoundment Control Act, welcoming a fight in the courts

Trump is ignoring the Impoundment Control Act, welcoming a fight in the courts

Sarah Harrison writes: At the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, he and his administration have issued unprecedented directives to halt domestic and foreign spending in order to align that spending with his “America First” agenda. The orders have had immediate and sweeping impacts, including widespread confusion over exactly what funding must be paused, ensnaring billions of dollars in the freeze and ending the employment of federal workers and contractors necessary to execute on those funds. Although the White House Office of Management…

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At least five IGs investigating Elon Musk’s companies were fired by the Trump-Musk administration

At least five IGs investigating Elon Musk’s companies were fired by the Trump-Musk administration

  The New Republic: “Five inspector generals that were looking into Elon Musk’s companies were fired by the Trump-Musk administration,” said Texas Representative Greg Casar. “These inspector generals, who are independent, protected by law; they are the people that find the waste, fraud, and abuse … fired because they were looking into Elon Musk.” “You know what Elon Musk doesn’t seem to be looking into?” Casar continued. “His own contracts.” “Just last year, Elon Musk was promised $3 billion from…

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Noah Feldman specifies the tipping point for a constitutional crisis

Noah Feldman specifies the tipping point for a constitutional crisis

  The Trump administration has seen several of its executive orders frozen — from its campaign to end birthright citizenship to the destruction of USAID. Now a judge in Rhode Island has become the first to declare that the White House has disobeyed a court order. Could this signal the start of a constitutional crisis? Harvard law professor and Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman joins Walter Isaacson to discuss.

Never before has a corporate executive been handed so much power over government operations

Never before has a corporate executive been handed so much power over government operations

The New York Times reports: President Trump has been in office less than a month, and Elon Musk’s vast business empire is already benefiting — or is now in a decidedly better position to benefit. Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man who has been given enormous power by the president, have been dismantling federal agencies across the government. Mr. Trump has fired top officials and pushed out career employees. Many of them were leading investigations, enforcement matters…

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This obscure law is one reason Trump’s agenda keeps losing in court

This obscure law is one reason Trump’s agenda keeps losing in court

Lawrence Hurley writes: Lawyers challenging President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of executive power in the courts are turning to a familiar weapon in their armory: an obscure but routinely invoked federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act. While lawsuits challenging such provocative plans as ending birthright citizenship and dismantling federal agencies raise weighty constitutional issues, they also claim Trump failed to follow the correct procedures as required under the wonky 1946 statute. Trump fell afoul of the law in some…

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Trump administration illegally allowed DOGE to access workers’ data, lawsuit alleges

Trump administration illegally allowed DOGE to access workers’ data, lawsuit alleges

The Verge reports: The Trump administration breached a federal privacy law by letting workers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access information on millions of government workers, privacy advocates including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) allege in a new lawsuit filed on behalf of two labor unions and a group of current and former federal employees. The groups allege that DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) violated the Privacy Act of 1974, which protects information maintained…

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Efficiency − or empire? How Elon Musk’s hostile takeover could end government as we know it

Efficiency − or empire? How Elon Musk’s hostile takeover could end government as we know it

Elon Musk, right, has moved to take the reins of key pieces of the U.S. government. Brandon Bell/Getty Images By Allison Stanger, Middlebury Elon Musk’s role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, is on the surface a dramatic effort to overhaul the inefficiencies of federal bureaucracy. But beneath the rhetoric of cost-cutting and regulatory streamlining lies a troubling scenario. Musk has been appointed what is called a “special government employee” in charge of…

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Musk operatives granted access to confidential info about X’s competitors

Musk operatives granted access to confidential info about X’s competitors

Caleb Ecarma and Judd Legum write: With Elon Musk’s social media platform X poised to launch a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment services, Musk’s associates have been granted access to confidential information about X’s competitors, an official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) told Musk Watch. Staffers at the United States Department of Government Efficiency Service, or DOGE, a White House body led by Musk, embedded themselves at the CFPB late last week. Politico reported on Saturday that Office…

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Judge rules the White House failed to comply with court order

Judge rules the White House failed to comply with court order

The New York Times reports: A federal judge on Monday said the White House has defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate. The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered Trump administration officials to comply with what he called “the plain text” of an edict he issued on Jan. 29. That…

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The courts blocked Trump’s federal funding freeze. Agencies are still withholding money

The courts blocked Trump’s federal funding freeze. Agencies are still withholding money

By Jake Pearson and Anjeanette Damon This story was originally published by ProPublica When the federal courts first blocked the Trump administration’s funding freeze, Jessyca Leach was cautiously optimistic. For days, the pause had prevented her from accessing the money she needs for her Phoenix health clinic to serve thousands of at-risk people, most of them poor and many of them members of the LGBTQ+ community. Things had gotten so bad that she had to lay off three employees and…

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