Attention to the Unseen

The Associated Press reports: A federal judge will hear arguments on whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed National Guard soldiers and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles following June protests over immigration raids. President Donald Trump’s administration federalized California National Guard members and sent them to the second-largest U.S. city over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and city leaders, after protests erupted June 7 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested people at multiple locations….

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Asha Rangappa writes: In February, I wrote a piece for Substack called “A Battle for the Soul of the FBI.” That battle is (pretty much) over, and I’m sad to say that the FBI — at least the one we knew — lost. Weirdly, I’m writing this on the same evening that William Webster, the FBI’s third director, died at the age of 101, a little more than a century after the FBI’s first and longest-serving director, J. Edgar Hoover,…

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The New York Times reports: If Republicans succeed in pulling off an aggressively partisan gerrymander of congressional districts in Texas, they will owe the Supreme Court a debt of gratitude. In the two decades Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has led the Supreme Court, the justices have reshaped American elections not just by letting state lawmakers like those in Texas draw voting maps warped by politics, but also by gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and amplifying the…

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Anna Bower writes: A bitter political and legal battle is unfolding in Texas. On Sunday, more than 51 Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives fled the state in an effort to block Republican attempts to re-draw the state’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Hours later, Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to remove the absent lawmakers from office if they didn’t return for a scheduled floor debate by 3 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 4. In response, the Democrats invoked a…

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Politico reports: The Trump administration is escalating its efforts to punish lawyers whom it sees as obstacles to the president’s agenda. The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to impose “substantial monetary sanctions” on a California lawyer who briefly halted but ultimately failed to block the deportation of an immigrant from Laos who pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the 1990s. Joshua Schroeder, an immigration and intellectual property attorney based in Los Angeles, appears to be the first target…

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Renee DiResta writes: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has recently released a series of declassified documents she claims expose a “treasonous conspiracy” by former President Barack Obama and his top intelligence officials to sabotage Donald Trump. Gabbard’s performance—part of an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to retcon “Russiagate”—led to an announcement yesterday by Attorney General Pam Bondi assigning an as-yet-unknown federal prosecutor to convene a grand jury investigation into President Obama and others. Before diving into the barrage…

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The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University yesterday filed and today made public an almost-two-hundred-page brief describing evidence presented during trial in a case challenging the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen faculty and students for their pro-Palestinian advocacy. The case was filed in the spring on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), AAUP’s Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers campus chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association. Judge William G. Young of the U.S….

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CNN reports: Numerous victims of Jeffrey Epstein took aim at the “public legitimization” of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell as they urged a federal judge considering unsealing grand jury transcripts to take their privacy into account when making his decision. Lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who represent numerous victims, including a woman who testified at Maxwell’s criminal trial, also questioned the motives of the Justice Department as the Trump administration tries to tamp down criticism from some of his most…

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The New York Times reports: Justice Department lawyers have long enjoyed a professional benefit when they appear in court. As a general rule, judges tend to take them at their word and assume they are telling the truth. But in the past several months, as members of President Trump’s Justice Department have repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them, some jurists have started to show an angry loss of faith in the…

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Middle East Eye reports: Hundreds of British Jews have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper describing the proscription of direct action group Palestine Action as “illegitimate and unethical”. A delegation is expected to deliver the letter, which has been signed by over two hundred British Jews, to Downing Street on Tuesday afternoon. Lead signatories include authors Michael Rosen and Gillian Slovo, comedian Alexei Sayle and lawyer Geoffrey Bindman, who instructed Starmer when the prime minister…

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