Congress

As Trump steamrolls Washington, courts flex their power to slow him down

Published

1 year ago

February 9, 2025

President Donald Trump’s “shock and awe” assertion of executive power has hit a wall in the courtroom — at least for now.

At least nine federal judges — from Washington, D.C., to Washington state — have halted aspects of Trump’s early-term blitz, from his effort to rewrite the Constitution’s birthright citizenship guarantee to his sweeping effort to freeze federal spending to his plans to break and remake the federal workforce.

That trend reached a crescendo Friday when U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols — a Trump appointee — blocked a plan by Trump and Elon Musk to put 2,200 USAID employees on leave, part of a rapid-fire effort to dismantle the foreign aid agency. Hours later, a federal judge in New York blocked Musk and his alliesfrom accessing sensitive Treasury records, citing a risk of improper disclosure or hacking. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, was the most sweeping of its kind so far.

All the rulings so far are temporary: They prevent the policies from taking effect while the courts consider the legal challenges more fully. And looming over them all is the Supreme Court, which is almost certain to have the final say on Trump’s extraordinary assertions of executive power. Trump’s legal strategy revolves around finding a sympathetic audience there: The high court has a six-justice conservative supermajority, including three of Trump’s own appointees.

But even if the wins for Trump’s adversaries are short-lived, they’re accomplishing one thing: slowing down Trump’s effort to project his administration as an unstoppable, invincible force able to steamroll any impediments to his assertion of power.

As dozens of lawsuits challenging Trump’s early policies are rushing through several strategically chosen federal district courts around the country — and as a Republican-controlled Congress has shown little interest in clashing with the leader of their party — these courts have emerged as the only institutions with the power and the will to check Trump’s onslaught.

In some cases, judges are voicing distress and even visceral fury as they stand in Trump’s way.

Trump points at Chief Justice John Roberts at his inauguration ceremony. Trump is hopeful that the Supreme Court will side with him on matters of executive power.

“It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” said U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Seattle-based appointee of Ronald Reagan, as he blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship policy. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore.”

Though Coughenour spoke most forcefully, he hasn’t been alone. He, Nichols, Engelmayer and at least six other federal judges appointed by presidents of both parties have disrupted major portions of Trump’s first-month agenda.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan, a Joe Biden appointee in Washington, D.C., and U.S. District Judge John McConnell, a Barack Obama appointee in Rhode Island, blocked Trump’s effort to implement a blanket freeze on billions of dollars in federal spending.
U.S. District Judge George O’ Toole, a Bill Clinton appointee in Massachusetts, halted a government-wide program encouraging thousands of federal workers to resign.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee in Washington, D.C., coaxed an agreement to block Treasury officials from sharing details of the government’s massive payment system — accessed by allies of Musk — with anyone outside the department.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee in Washington, D.C., blocked the implementation of Trump’s order to transfer transgender women inmates to men’s prisons.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Maryland-based Biden appointee, joined Coughenour in blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship order.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee in Washington, D.C., barred the Trump administration from disclosing the names of FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases — without at least a two-day warning for the agents to come back to court.

Coughenour’s stunning assessment of a sitting president was also a stark contrast to the GOP-led Congress’ gentle compliance with Trump’s efforts to dramatically expand the powers of his office. Moves that have rattled the federal workforce and raised fears of a sweeping retribution campaign against officials deemed disloyal to Trump — particularly in the FBI and Justice Department — have been largely met with shrugs from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Those congressional Republicans appear content to let Trump — backed by Musk, his roving “wood chipper” — steamroll the federal bureaucracy, purge independent watchdogs and dismantle federal agencies without much pushback. Democrats, mired in the minority for the first time since 2018, have proven largely toothless in response, leaving their base frustrated.

That has left the courts, which have been flooded by lawsuits from unions, nonprofits, state governments and other organizations affected by the White House’s torrent of policy moves, as the lone check on Trump.

It’s possible that all of these early decisions will be short-lived. Trump is hopeful that the Supreme Court he helped tip sharply to the right will side with him on matters of executive power. In one landmark case, the court has already done just that: Last year, the court announced a sweeping doctrine of presidential immunity that helped Trump stave off federal criminal charges for subverting the 2020 election.

None of the cases his orders have triggered has yet reached the appellate courts, let alone the Supreme Court. But as Trump’s Justice Department begins to file appeals challenging the growing list of injunctions, the cases could begin reaching the justices in the coming weeks.

For now, the initial decisions to slow down the onslaught are having widespread effects, forcing federal agencies to disclose more details about their opaque plans for the workforce, establishing guidelines for the handling of sensitive government data that Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has been gobbling up and raising sharp questions about Trump’s effort to impound swaths of government spending authorized by Congress.

The legal counterattack doesn’t appear likely to end anytime soon. New lawsuits were filed Thursday and Friday, some taking on DOGE and others taking on Trump’s orders restricting medical care for transgender people and immigration tactics.

Congress

Jack Smith invited to testify before Senate next month

Published

44 minutes ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought criminal charges against President Donald Trump, has been invited to testify Sept. 22 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to an invitation from Chair Chuck Grassley reviewed by Blue Light News.

Smith previously testified before the House Judiciary Committee in January, but Grassley (R-Iowa) and his team have been probing Smith and his investigations for months.

Grassley recently revealed that Smith obtained text messages that 44 members of Congress sent to White House officials during the waning months of Trump’s first term leading up to and around the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Grassley’s texts were among those accessed by Smith’s team, along with Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

“In the process of a deeply flawed, weaponized investigation, Jack Smith subpoenaed phone toll records from a dozen senators, scooped up text messages from over 40 members of Congress, and subpoenaed the private communications and financial records of hundreds of other Republican entities and individuals,” Grassley said in a statement.

“He needs to answer directly to Congress for his actions,” Grassley added. “Smith has requested to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and our committee looks forward to hearing from him as part of Congress’ investigation into Arctic Frost and his time as Special Counsel. Smith must be honest and forthcoming in his answers, because the American people deserve nothing less than full transparency and accountability.”

Lawyers for Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During the January hearing, Republicans focused on technicalities of how Smith investigated the probe into Trump’s election interference, such as whether he properly signed his oath of office and whether he was sufficiently versed on the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause that protects members of Congress from criminal investigation for their lawmaking actions.

Congress

Chuck Edwards recommended for censure by House Ethics Committee

Published

1 hour ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Ethics Committee recommended Monday that lawmakers censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for engaging in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers” — cataloguing multiple episodes of sexual harassment by the married lawmaker.

Censure is the most severe punishment the panel can recommend short of expulsion, requiring targeted members to submit to a public shaming on the floor. The bipartisan panel said it plans to bring a privileged resolution to a vote once the House returns to session later this month.

A spokesperson for Edwards, 65, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a 15-page rebuttal, lawyers for Edwards said that the Ethics Committee “failed to demonstrate that either of the two staffers expressed discomfort to Representative Edwards regarding his conduct with them.” They also rejected the need for censure, noting that it has been used “sparingly in this context and directed only at matters of severe sexual misconduct.”

The panel itself released a trove of evidence including emails, text messages and photographs showing how Edwards had insinuated himself into intimate aspects of their lives.

Edwards, the committee found, made comments on the appearance of two young female staffers in his congressional office, telling them they looked “pretty” or “breathtaking” and made a comment on one staffer’s weight. He also lavished the young women with gifts, including purses valued at more than $1,000, as well as guns, shoes, flowers and one-on-one dinners.

Text messages from one of the women showed Edwards at one point sent her more than 20 containers of ice cream because, he said, she needed “a lot of cheering up!”

Sexual harassment is prohibited by House rules and federal law, and the committee found that Edwards violated “the spirit of the House’s prohibitions on sexual harassment and unwanted advances, as well as the requirement to act in a manner that reflects credibly upon the House.”

The report found Edwards brought one of the staffers to a holiday event at the White House, gave her flowers and texted her how he was “so excited about tonight” and that he pressured her to continue the night with him after the event. Edwards told the committee he accompanied that staffer to her home in Virginia because he “felt uncomfortable dumping a young lady on the street.”

Edwards also talked to that staffer and others about going to strip clubs in Washington, the report says.

The panel concluded that Edwards did not engage in sexual activity with either of the women, nor did he explicitly proposition them or other staff members for sex. Edwards, who is facing a competitive race for reelection in his western North Carolina district, cooperated with the probe, the committee said.

In one instance, the panel found, Edwards skipped House votes one night to decorate the second staffer’s Christmas tree. He also went out drinking and gambling with her. On another occasion, he recited a poem at her going-away party in his office and cried during that incident, making his staff noticeably uncomfortable.

When the second staffer left his office, Edwards helped her move back to North Carolina and sent her a handwritten letter in which he described her as “the most amazing woman” and that she had “written a complex chapter in my heart that I will never stop reading.”

Edwards told the committee that letter was not romantic.

“It was only to imply that we had a relationship on so many different levels — on a congressional level, on a professional level, on a friendship level, on a helping-one-another-out-with-our-chores-and-responsibility level,” he said.

Congress

Cornyn, Tillis confirm they will vote for Blanche

Published

5 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has a clear path to the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing his nomination to the permanent job after two GOP holdouts confirmed Monday they would vote for him.

The statement from Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) comes after the late-night announcement Sunday of a Justice Department agreement to clarify a controversial May settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS.

A successful Judiciary vote Tuesday would set Blanche up for confirmation on the Senate floor later this week, before the chamber breaks for August recess.

“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement.

The senators suggested their agreement with Blanche also satisfies the concerns of several other Republican senators off the Judiciary Committee who have raised concerns about the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created in the original settlement, as well as provisions immunizing Trump and his family from some tax audits.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share,” Cornyn and Tillis said.

Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are among the other Republicans who have expressed concerns about the payout fund. Blanche recently visited Alaska and announced a flurry of settlements benefiting Alaska as he courts Murkowski’s vote.