BREAKING: Judge CHUTKAN has *denied* Trump's motion to dismiss his criminal charges based on a claim of "presidential immunity. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_p…
"Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens." ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_p…
Trump's charges in the Washington D.C. case do not violate the First Amendment because "it is well established that the First Amendment does not protect speech that is used as an instrument of a crime," Chutkan rules.
NEWS: The constitution does *not* preclude Trump from being prosecuted for trying to subvert the 2020 election, Judge Chutkan rules. In fact, the charges he's facing are precisely the kind George Washington warned of, she says.
Chutkan has now developed something of a habit of telling Donald Trump he is not a king, as she did in her ruling granting the Jan. 6 committee access to his White House records from NARA. politico.com/news/2023/12/0…
This ruling is certain to be appealed and all but certain to reach the Supreme Court. It's the most difficult test of Jack SMith's D.C. indictment and will likely determine whether Trump faces trial at all ahead of the 2024 election.
Chutkan twice cited the hours-old appeals court decision finding Trump can be sued for claims that his Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse incited violence at the Capitol.
MORE: Chutkan’s relatively swift ruling on this extremely tricky constitutional question is aligned with special counsel Smith’s plea that she act on the immunity question quickly — since it’s one of the few issues Trump can appeal pretrial.
Judge Kea Riggs, a Trump-appointed judge from Arizona, has ordered ICE provide a bond hearing a man in the United States for 25 years with no criminal record, who is the father of two US citizen kids, one of whom needs a heart transplant. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
We also have what appears to be the first and only ruling so far on the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy in the Northern District of West Virginia. John Bailey, a George W. Bush appointed judge, ordered the release of a man from Georgia. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
'UNIMAGINABLE CRUELTY': Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointeee from NY, absolutely thrashes DHS' treatment of a man who came to the US. at age 9 and deemed an abuse/neglect victim, has no criminal record and became a college grad.
NEW: Four federal judges have formed a firewall against ICE in West Virginia — and say they’ll punish state and federal officials if they continue detaining people in ways the court has ruled illegal and unconstitutional.
For weeks, Judges Joseph Goodwin (Clinton), Robert Chambers (Clinton), Thomas Johnston (GWB) and Irene Berger (Obama) have been ordering the release of dozens of detainees ICE and its WV partners have picked up since Jan 1. But they’re not stopping there
They are calling out violations of court orders, sloppy paperwork in detention cases, the destruction of families, the erosion of civil liberties and a climate of fear wrought by masked agents operating on WV’s roadways. Contempt is next, they say. politico.com/news/2026/03/0…
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has struck down President Trump's tariff authority, saying his claim of emergency authority to issue sweeping tariffs to America's trading partners was unlawful. supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…
Roberts, writing for the majority, says Trump's claim of an emergency to issue unbounded tariffs on whoever he feels like flies in the face of decades of law and practice. supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…
Gorsuch, in his concurrence, worries that granting a president sweeping new powers based on vague delegations from Congress would risk "permanent accretion of power in the hands of one man." supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…
NEW: Judges are asking increasingly pointed questions about why ICE is detaining pregnant/nursing mothers — and whether a 2021 policy sharply restricting the practice remains in force.
They’ve ordered many released, warning of threats to safety/health.
The admin has told different judges different things re the policy. But outgoing spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin did defend the treatment of pregnant women in their custody and added “being in detention is a choice.” Self-deportation, she said, is another.
ICE's policy to sharply limit detention of pregnant/nursing mothers was adopted in 2021. It says ICE shouldn't detain pregnant/nursing mothers unless there are "exceptional circumstances." What are exceptional circumstances? Threats to life or national security. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…
Some people do Friday Zillow. We do Friday habeas. Here are some cases of people who have been detained by ICE and ordered released by judges who said the detention was illegal. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Mexican man with no criminal history and six US citizen kids.
BREAKING: The Trump administraiton has committed a mass violation of ICE detainees' constitutional rights in MN, effectively blocking their acess to attorneys in the Whipple building, a judge ruled tonight.
NEW: A federal judge excoriated the Trump administration for claiming it lacked the resources to give ICE detainees constitutionally required access to lawyers — despite surging law enforcement to detain them in the first place.
The rebuke came as the administration also dropped criminal charges against two men it claimed had attacked an ICE officer, who fired a gun in the fracas. “Newly discovered evidence” conflicted with the original headline-grabbing account, DOJ said. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…