Attention to the Unseen

NBC News reports: Federal judges are frustrated with the Supreme Court for increasingly overturning lower court rulings involving the Trump administration with little or no explanation, with some worried the practice is undermining the judiciary at a sensitive time. Some judges believe the Supreme Court, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, could be doing more to defend the integrity of their work as President Donald Trump and his allies harshly criticize those who rule against him and as violent…

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Politico reports: A federal judge has declared President Donald Trump’s use of military troops in Los Angeles illegal, barring the Pentagon from using National Guard members and Marines from performing police functions, like arrests and crowd control. In a 52-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer warned that Trump appears intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.” Trump billed his deployment of troops to Los Angeles, starting in early June, as a way of…

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Michael Scherer writes: Days after Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to put an end to the Justice Department’s revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, captains of the legal resistance gathered by Zoom. Norm Eisen, a former attorney for Barack Obama’s White House, had convened lawyers, Democratic communications strategists, a neoconservative Trump critic, and a former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. This one was big, Eisen said from his parked car in Baltimore, where he had traveled for a lawsuit to overturn…

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The Guardian reports: The arrest of a US army veteran who protested against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has raised alarms among legal experts and fellow veterans familiar with his service in Afghanistan. Bajun Mavalwalla II – a former army sergeant who survived a roadside bomb blast on a special operations mission in Afghanistan – was charged in July with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Spokane, Washington….

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The New York Times reports: When Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, dispatched his National Guard troops to Washington to support President Trump’s crackdown on crime, Democrats and other critics wondered why he didn’t keep them within state lines. Memphis, after all, has long been one of the most dangerous cities in the country, with a murder rate about twice as high as the nation’s capital, according to F.B.I. statistics. Nashville has a higher rate of violent crime than Washington as…

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The New York Times reports: The White House has informed Congress it intends to cancel $4.9 billion that lawmakers approved for foreign aid programs, invoking a little-known and legally untested power to slash spending without their approval. The 15-page notification, sent to Congress on Thursday night and reviewed by The New York Times, is the administration’s first attempt to push through what is known as a “pocket rescission.” It is an effort to unilaterally claw back money that has already…

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The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to secure a felony assault indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter. The remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington was the second time in recent days that it was unable to persuade grand jurors to bring an indictment in a felony assault case against a federal…

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Politico reports: A federal judge has forcefully rejected a highly unusual lawsuit the Trump administration filed against 15 other judges whom the Justice Department accused of hindering the president’s mass deportation agenda. In tossing out the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen — an appointee of Donald Trump — lamented what he described as the White House’s months-long “smear” of the federal judiciary. Cullen wrote in a 39-page decision Tuesday that the lawsuit was unprecedented, defective and the wrong way…

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Nick Miroff writes: In a video produced by the Department of Homeland Security this month, two tricked-out ICE vehicles roll around on the National Mall to “Toes” by rapper DaBaby: “My heart so cold I think I’m done with ice (uh, brr) / Said if I leave her, she gon’ die / Well … you done with life.” The vehicles feature a new ICE logo and DEFEND THE HOMELAND in block letters, painted in a color scheme similar to the…

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The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors on Monday reduced the charges against a woman accused last month of assaulting an F.B.I. agent during a protest against immigration officials in Washington, refiling her case as a misdemeanor after they were unable to persuade three grand juries over a month to indict her with a felony. It is highly unusual for prosecutors to fail even once — let alone three times — to obtain an indictment from a grand jury given…

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