The Dictatorship

What’s exposed by the Justice Department’s reversal on Trump’s campaign against law firms

Published

1 month ago

March 6, 2026

Tues. 5, 2026, 7:49 PM EST

ByMary McCord

The Department of Justice both embarrassed and exposed itself this week in its handling of the appeals of federal court orders striking down presidential executive orders against four high-profile law firms.

First, the department embarrassed itself by reversing course and moving Tuesday morning to withdraw motions it had filed Monday evening to dismiss its appeals. Four different judges had held that the executive orders violated the First Amendment because they retaliated against the law firms for representing people and causes President Donald Trump dislikes.

Second, the department exposed itself as a purely political actor because every lawyer in the department knows that the federal court rulings were correct and that the executive orders are indefensible.

The department exposed itself as a purely political actor because every lawyer in the department knows that the federal court rulings were correct and that the executive orders are indefensible.

The administration’s efforts and the resulting judicial orders are worthy of careful review. The president began blacklisting law firms last March — using executive orders to, among other things, direct federal departments and agencies to prevent the firms’ lawyers from entering federal government buildings and engaging with federal employees; to revoke their lawyers’ security clearances; and to cancel contracts with companies that do business with the firms. Four law firms subject to the orders filed suit.

Four judges appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents swiftly issued temporary restraining orders barring the provisions that made it nearly impossible for the firms to continue to represent clients that had business with the federal government, threatening their very existence. Two of those emergency orders were issued within hours of the law firms seeking them; the other two within a day. The cases all proceeded quickly to final judgment with the same result: All judges concluded that the orders violated the First Amendment rights of the law firms.

(Shamefully, other law firms that wanted to avoid being blacklisted entered into agreements with the administration to provide hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of pro bono work to causes favored by the president, raising ethical issues for the lawyers at those firms and the appearance of pay-to-play.)

The judges who ruled in the law firms’ favor didn’t mince words. Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, wrotequoting a recent Supreme Court case: “[R]etaliating against firms for the views embodied in their legal work — and thereby seeking to muzzle them going forward — violates the First Amendment’s central command that government may not ‘use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.’” He also warned, “More subtle but perhaps more pernicious is the message the order sends to the lawyers whose unalloyed advocacy protects against governmental viewpoint becoming government-imposed orthodoxy. This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers.”

Judge Beryl Howella Barack Obama appointee, put it even more succinctlyborrowing from Shakespeare: “In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers,’” the executive order “takes the approach of ‘Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,’ sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.”

Judges, like all lawyers, know why this is so important. As Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, put it“The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting.” Without lawyers to advocate for people and causes a president disfavors, even obviously unlawful executive actions could go unchallenged.

With the court decisions stacked so overwhelmingly against the government, one could wonder why the department appealed the lower court rulings in the first place.

With the court decisions stacked so overwhelmingly against the government, one could wonder why the department appealed the lower court rulings in the first place. But it isn’t unusual for the Department of Justice to file a notice of appeal of an adverse ruling even while it is still considering whether to go forward. Decisions like these, at least when I was in the department, were not made by line-level attorneys. The decision to appeal, especially in high-profile cases, would be made by the solicitor general. Today that’s John Sauer, a former personal attorney to President Trump.

Sauer is a seasoned advocate. He famously won Trump v. United Statesthe 2024 case in which the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity from criminal prosecution for exercising “core constitutional powers” — including directing the Department of Justice to launch “sham” investigations into election fraud — and at least “presumptive” immunity for other official acts.

Whoever made the decision to dismiss the appeals, you can bet that in this administration it would have been considered at the highest levels. That means it likely would have been blessed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — another former personal attorney to Trump — and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who represented Trump in his first impeachment trial. Although the Justice Department has, under their leadership, become a tool for enforcing the president’s political whims, Blanche, Bondi and Sauer are all experienced enough to know that appealing the district court decisions was a sure loser.

Until the recent tariff decisionthe Trump administration has had a winning record at the Supreme Court, and Justice Department leadership presumably preferred to keep it that way. With no hope of winning in the D.C. Circuit — which would have been the next stop for the four cases — and no reason to want to seek review in the Supreme Court and risk losing there, the smart move was to cut their losses and dismiss the appeals. Another reason to think department leadership recognized this: They had already made the decision last spring not to ask the Supreme Court to stay the district courts’ temporary injunctions, something they have done in so many other cases.

They knew then, as we all know now, that the blacklisting orders were textbook First Amendment retaliation.

So what happened to cause this legal about-face? Was it the headlines calling out the decision to dismiss the appeal? A call from the president or fear of a call from the president? Whatever the specific motivation, there is no reason to think that Justice Department leadership saw the legal merits of the cases change overnight. Instead, the department has embarrassed and exposed itself yet again.

Mary McCord

Mary B. McCord is an MS Now legal and national security contributor, and co-host of the MS Now podcast “Main Justice.”She is executive director of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. She previously served as the acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice and was an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia for nearly 20 years.

The Dictatorship

White House addresses criticism Trump is AWOL during missing airman search

Published

18 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

White House addresses criticism Trump is AWOL during missing airman search

Apr. 4, 2026, 7:48 PM EDT

The White House is pushing back against mounting criticism that President Donald Trump has not formally addressed the search for a missing American airman in Iran after the country shot down its first U.S. warplane since the raging conflict began.

The president has not made any public speeches or appearances regarding the search-and-rescue operation. His last public address was on Wednesday, when he gave a primetime speech in which he attempted to make a case for his war to the nation.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung sought to quell questions from reporters and speculation swirling on social media by issuing a statement on X late Saturday afternoon. “There has never been a President who has worked harder for the American people than President Trump. On this Easter weekend, he has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office. God Bless him,” Cheung said.

Questions about Trump’s whereabouts came to a boil on Saturday as one freelance photographer who covers the White House sought to put a rest to a rash of guesswork — untethered to any evidence.

An hour later, Cheung issued his statement noting that Trump spent Saturday working at the White House.

MS NOW spotted a Marine sentry standing guard outside the West Wing a couple of times on Saturday, suggesting the president was working inside. Notably, Trump did not visit his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, outside Washington on Saturday as he usually does when he stays at the White House on weekends.

In an interview with NBC on FridayTrump said the downing of the U.S. F-15E fighter jet over Iran would not affect ongoing negotiations with the country. When asked by The Independent what he’d do if the pilot is harmed or captured by Iranians, Trump replied: “Well, I can’t comment on it because — we hope that’s not going to happen.”

But on Saturday, he issued a fresh threat to Iran on his 10-day deadline, which expires Monday, for the country to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The president also posted about a “massive strike in Tehran” which allegedly killed “many of Iran’s Military Leaders,” though Trump did not provide additional details on the strike he cited. The White House did not respond to MS NOW’s inquiry on when the strike happened and whether any new military leaders were killed.

Emily Hung is an associate White House producer for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Trump’s latest island real estate venture: Alcatraz

Published

18 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Apr. 4, 2026, 5:34 PM EDT

Like many Americans, President Donald Trump has become fixated on Alcatraz, the notorious, frequently fog-shrouded California island fortress in the San Francisco Bay.

But for Trump, the defunct prison is more than a pop-culture, literary and cinematic phenomenon reminiscent of an era when the federal government dealt with gangsters so dangerous they were jailed on a remote, maximum-security island. It’s an opportunity to build “a state-of-the-art secure prison facility.”

And the president wants to use at least $152 million worth of taxpayer dollars to turn the dilapidated facility — shuttered in 1963 because its remoteness made it too expensive to operate — into a functional federal prison.

The White House sent Congress an outline of Trump’s spending priorities for the upcoming fiscal year on Friday. In it was a $5 billion request for the Bureau of Prisons to renovate the country’s “crumbling detention facilities.” More than $150 million of that would be directed toward upholding “the president’s commitment to rebuild Alcatraz.”

The money would cover the first year of project costs, the White House said. But that number pales in comparison to the projected cost of fully restoring Alcatraz, which has not housed a prisoner since the early 1960s.

In its heyday, operations at Alcatraz cost three times more than the average federal prison, according to a 1959 report published by the General Services Administration that assessed the long-term viability of keeping the prison open. Jailing one inmate on the island cost $10 per day, compared to $3 in other prisons.

The prison was closed in the early 1960s because its remoteness and proximity to salt water corrosion ultimately made it too expensive to sustain. Everything from water to food and fuel had to be sent to the island by boat. The logistical challenges of holding inmates on the island long term won’t just disappear, critics argue.

California’s politicians have balked at Trump’s proposal, arguing it would erase an important part of American history and cut into San Francisco’s already struggling local economy. Alcatraz generates about $60 million in tourism revenue every year, according to the National Park Service, which operates the public museum on the island.

“Rebuilding Alcatraz into a modern prison is a stupid notion that would be nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars and an insult to the intelligence of the American people,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and California Democrat whose district encompasses swaths of San Francisco, said in a statement on X.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, dismissed the notion as unserious when Trump first began flirting with the idea last spring.

“If the federal government has billions of dollars to spend in San Francisco, we could use that funding to keep our streets safe and clean and help our economy recover,” Lurie wrote in a post on X after Trump deployed a delegation of federal officials — which included his now former Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall — to size up the prison last July.

After the visit, Bondi teased the idea of using a renovated Alcatraz to imprison “illegal aliens.” And Trump suggested Alcatraz could serve as a model to counter former President Joe Biden’s border policies.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons said last year it would issue a “leave no stone unturned” directive to “determine whether the iconic Alcatraz can, once again, serve as a fortress of law and order.” Congress would need to approve Trump’s request for funding the Alcatraz project.

Alcatraz was designated a National Historic Landmark in the 1980s, giving it legally protected status. It’s unclear how the White House would circumvent that designation to open a federal prison. The White House declined to comment to MS NOW’s request about its plan to navigate Alcatraz’s legal protections, referring questions to the Office of Management and Budget.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has focused on what he calls “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” which has included revamping the Smithsonian Institution and national parks in his image — including a planned 250-foot arch along the Potomac River — while demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for his new ballroom.

As those plans become legally imperiled, his Alcatraz proposal also stands to face a battle.

“Alcatraz is a historic museum that belongs to the public,” Pelosi said. “San Franciscans will not stand for Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop.”

Emily Hung contributed to this report.

Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.

The Dictatorship

Critics scold Trump for staying mum on search for missing U.S. airman in Iran

Published

18 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Apr. 4, 2026, 4:58 PM EDT

As the U.S. military searched Saturday for the missing crew member of an American F15-E fighter jet downed over Iran, critics slammed President Donald Trump for not speaking more forcefully about finding the airman and for overstating his war’s accomplishments.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who appeared on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” Saturday, decried Trump’s speech to the nation earlier this week in which she said he “bloviated and bragged about the destruction of Iran’s ability to compete in this war,” which she said “seemed like he was just going to incite such an attack on our military.”

“So I pray for the safe return of the other pilot of the F-15, and I pray for a swift end to this war,” Dean said.

With the U.S. military in a race against time to locate the missing American aviator, the president has said very little about the search.

“Number one, we haven’t obliterated Iran’s capability,” Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, appearing on the same MS NOW show, said, referring to Trump’s claim on March 16 that the U.S. had “literally obliterated” Iranian threats. “That’s, that’s ridiculous to say.”

He said the Trump administration should be “pulling out all stops” to find the missing airman. Instead, Hertling noted, Trump has tepidly said “he hopes we’re going to find the other crew member and he’s not going to comment on what we’re going to do if we don’t.”

“You move mountains to try and find that individual, get them back to safety,” he said.

Shortly after the military plane went down Friday, Trump touted the idea of seizing Iranian oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. But he had yet to publicly condemn the attack. And on Saturday, the president remained mum on the missing service member, saying in a Truth Social post early reminding Iran of his imposed deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz: “Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”

Later Saturday afternoon, Trump posted a one-minute video allegedly of a “massive strike in Tehran,” which he said killed “many of Iran’s Military Leaders.” The timing of the strike and the source of the video were not known. MS NOW reached out to the White House for clarification and additional information about the president’s post.

Iran’s successful targeting of the U.S. aircraft suggests a different wartime reality than the one Trump conveyed in his address to the nation on Wednesday: Iran still has the military capacity to strike U.S. service members and target critical infrastructure deep within its American-allied Gulf Arab neighbors.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Saturday on MS NOW’s “Velshi” that Trump’s approach to the war overall is “problematic.”

“We’ve got an airman behind enemy lines trying to survive and trying to be rescued. And we should all think about him,” Smith said. “We should also think about the 13 service members who have been killed and the hundreds who have been wounded. So yes, that search is front of mind right now on the war in Iran.”

Bryan Stern, a U.S. military intelligence veteran who operates Grey Bull Rescue, a nonprofit organization that runs high-risk rescue missions in active war zones, said in an interview with MS NOW that “the life expectancy of a downed pilot behind enemy lines decreases exponentially every few hours.” And he said the Iranian regime Iran is “incentivized” to keep the U.S. service member alive for leverage in negotiations with the U.S. and Israel.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Trump ally, said after speaking with the president Saturday morning, “I am completely convinced that he will use overwhelming military force against the regime if they continue to impede the Strait of Hormuz and refuse a diplomatic solution to achieve our military objectives.” Graham did not mention the missing U.S. airman.

Trump claimed in his address that the “enemy suffered” clear and “devastating large-scale losses” in a matter of weeks. But less than three days after his prime-time speech, Tehran downed a two-seat fighter jet and struck at least two other American aircraft, including a Blackhawk helicopter involved in search efforts, injuring several of its crew members.

One crew member of the two-person F15-E jet was rescued by U.S. forces Friday. The second airman who is missing has been declared “DUSTWUN,” or “Duty Status, Whereabouts Unknown.”

Iran reportedly has offered a sizable reward to anyone who locates the missing U.S. military service member. The lone U.S. pilot of an A-10 Warthog attack jet that went down in Iran was rescued.

Trump declined to say what actions U.S. forces may take if the missing F-15E crew member is captured or harmed by the Iranians because “we hope that’s not going to happen,” he said in a phone interview with The Independent shortly after the jet went down Friday.

Emily Hung contributed to this report.