As of March 15, at least 46 federal court decisions involving Donald Trump’s agenda or Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have at least temporarily paused some of these initiatives.
There’s a logjam of cases making their way from lower courts to the Supreme Court, where the fate of most of those initiatives will be decided. Trump knew that federal courts, with few exceptions, would oppose him. Most of the judges were appointed by Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and the cases have been filed in left-friendly districts like Boston, Maryland, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
More than 160 lawsuits have been filed, keeping federal judges busy sorting out what’s legal and what isn’t. However, these are the preliminary bouts. The Main Event will begin once these cases start being taken up by the Supreme Court.
The media’s hair-on-fire approach to these lower court cases is a hysterical exaggeration. To date, Trump hasn’t “defied” any court. His threats to impeach judges who don’t agree with him are typical Trump bombast, and Republicans who try to impeach any of these judges will be embarrassed.
All of this is a sideshow to the showdown at the Supreme Court that will determine the fate of Trump’s agenda one way or another.
The legal battle over deportations comes amid other court fights the Justice Department is defending to protect the president’s agenda. On Tuesday, a DC District Judge Ana Reyes indefinitely blocked Trump’s ban on transgender service members, a controversial policy Trump brought back from his first term.
In Maryland, District Judge Theodore D. Chuang said that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had overstepped their authority when trying to shut down USAID. The judge’s ruling indefinitely blocked the dismantling of the agency.
The administration’s show of force has continued publicly.
“These activist judges are trying to control our entire federal government,” Bondi said Wednesday on Fox News.
Trump is piling on Judge James Boasberg, calling him a “radical left lunatic judge.” Boasberg is demanding more information on the deportations of Venezuelans.
“If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
The Justice Department is supposed to give the judge more information on the deportations on Thursday at noon. It’s not likely to satisfy him, which means the first real test for Trump and the federal courts on the president defying a judicial order will be coming shortly.
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The DoJ appealed Boasberg’s opinion, which will be heard next week in Washington. The most liberal appeals court in the country is not likely to agree with the government’s arguments.
On to the Supreme Court, where Trump is confident he will prevail.
Trump said in an interview on Tuesday on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle that his administration would not defy any court orders and that he was confident the Supreme Court would rule in his favor in the case over the deported Venezuelans.
The administration is eager for the deportation case – and other legal fights – to go before the nation’s high court despite Roberts’ rebuke of Trump’s demand for judges to be impeached, a senior White House official with knowledge of the strategy said.
Roberts is part of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which includes three members appointed by Trump during his first term in office.
“We view Roberts stepping in as him saying he is an establishment guy, this is just against the D.C. code of ethics to call for impeachment of a judge, but he will ultimately be on our side and he is,” the official said.
Many of the suits filed against Trump’s agenda are being pursued by people with no official “standing” before the court. Unless a plaintiff can show direct harm would come from an official action, they are not likely to prevail.
This is why many of Trump’s actions will eventually be declared legal or only modified slightly. Some big cases involving firing civil servants are not likely to go his way, nor will getting rid of entire departments without Congressional authorization be successful.
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