Attention to the Unseen

The Guardian reports: Amy Coney Barrett, the Donald Trump-appointed conservative supreme court justice, has been branded a “DEI judge” by furious rightwing figures, after she voted to reject Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2bn in foreign aid. Coney Barrett, part of the court’s rightwing majority, split with her fellow conservative justices this week. She and John Roberts, the chief justice, voted to leave in place a ruling from a US district judge which ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze the…

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Erwin Chemerinsky writes: It is not hyperbole to say that the future of American constitutional democracy now rests on a single question: Will President Trump and his administration defy court orders? Federal judges have issued more than a dozen temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against Trump administration actions. But it is unclear whether the government will comply, and in at least two cases, judges have said their orders were ignored. The Trump administration is already facing at least 100…

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NBC News reports: Two of President Donald Trump’s allies have launched bids for leadership roles with the D.C. Bar Association, an under-the-radar effort that would give them more control over the influential legal group. The push comes amid bar associations’ confrontations with the Trump administration, and some federal attorneys have looked to their state groups for ethical guidance amid Trump’s rapid reshaping of government. Bradley Bondi — a lawyer who is Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother — and Alicia Long…

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Politico reports: Senate Republicans urged Elon Musk on Wednesday to better coordinate with them, with many suggesting the tech billionaire send Congress a package of proposed spending cuts to enshrine the work of his Department of Government Efficiency initiative. The message was delivered during a closed-door lunch organized by Florida Sen. Rick Scott in the latest instance of congressional Republicans, who have generally praised his efforts, counseling Musk to more closely loop in lawmakers. The meeting came just hours after…

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NBC News reports: The head of the FBI’s New York Field Office was forced out of the bureau on Monday, a month after he urged his employees to “dig in” after the Trump administration removed senior FBI leaders and requested the names of all agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, five sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. In an email to FBI staff in New York on Monday, Dennehy said that he had been forced to retire….

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The New York Times reports: Congressional Republicans, egged on by Elon Musk and other top allies of President Trump, are escalating calls to remove federal judges who stand in the way of administration efforts to overhaul the government. The outcry is threatening yet another assault on the constitutional guardrails that constrain the executive branch. Judicial impeachments are rare and notoriously time-consuming. The mounting calls for removing federal judges, who already face increasing security threats, have so far not gained much…

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The Washington Post reports: A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary workers across the government, ruling that the terminations were probably illegal, as a group of labor unions argued in court. U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered OPM to rescind its previous directives to more than two dozen agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Science Foundation…

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The Bulwark‘s Tim Miller discusses with Ben Wittes the ramifications of the FBI declining to take action when there is clear evidence of criminal actions:  

HuffPost reports: A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Monday blocking certain agencies from sharing sensitive records with President Donald Trump’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. Several labor unions filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management to prevent them from forking over data to DOGE as it seeks to fire workers, end federal contracts and unilaterally close agencies. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland said Monday…

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Rolling Stone reports: Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has already vowed to operate as a legal attack dog for Elon Musk and DOGE, and is now styling himself and those in his office as President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers. “As President Trumps’ lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first,” Martin wrote in a post from the United…

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The Guardian reports: An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the US appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by the Guardian from its digital accounts. Founded in 2018, the Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counter-terrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist…

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The Associated Press reports: Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk’s demand that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week — or risk losing their jobs. That resistance has intensified a pervasive sense of chaos and confusion, while highlighting a potential power struggle among President Donald Trump’s allies, that is affecting federal employees across the country as a new workweek is about to…

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