HAPPENING NOW: Judge Boasberg has taken the bench as he weighs whether to vacate his restraining order on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg comes in hot: Wants to know why the lawyer who originally argued the case didn't show up to hearing Monday. He says the filings since have used "the kind of intemperate and disrespectful language I’m not used to hearing from the United States."

BREAKING: A federal judge in Maryland has just barred DOGE from accessing Social Security systems, saying the group is on a "fishing expedition" that jeopardizes people's personal data.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… NEW: Judge Hollander ruled that DOGE was granted unusual access to non-anonymized social security data and could not identify any basis for that degree of access.

She wants access limited, installed software removed and data taken out of SSA destroyed.

politico.com/news/2025/03/2…

NEWS: An Indian national teaching at Georgetown was arrested by immigration authorities in Rosslyn, Va. Monday.

His lawyers say he's being targeted for his pro-Palestinian views. His U.S. citizen wife's father was a Hamas adviser.

w/ @joshgerstein

politico.com/news/2025/03/1… Badar Khan Suri has not been charged with any crime, but his lawyer says DHS whisked him to detention Monday night. He's since been trasnferred to a facility in Louisiana. His lawyer compares Suri's plight to Mahmoud Khalil.

politico.com/news/2025/03/1…

HMMM: So the administration reveals in a new court filing (ordered by Judge Bates) that Amy Gleason was actually hired by HHS as an "expert/consultant" on March 4, just a few days after the White House identified her as the administrator of DOGE. MORE: In an earlier filing, without identifying Gleason by name, HHS identified her as being "detailed" to HHS in February (around time she was IDed as DOGE administrator) They indicate she will remain a DOGE/USDS employee while also working at HHS. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

HAPPENING NOW: A judge is sounding off on the Trump administration over effort to mass fire probationary employees, says decision not to submit OPM director Chad Ezell to questioning hide the truth about it.

"That’s a sham," he says, suggesting he might order mass rehiring. Judge Alsup says he's feeling "misled by the U.S. government" over a representation that fired employees had recourse via MSPB, but now notes that President Trump fired the special counsel and attempted to remove a board member of MSPB, depriving it of quorum.

HAPPENING NOW: Judge Reyes has kicked off a crucial hearing President Trump's effort to ban transgender people from serving in the military. She is beginning by pressing DOJ lawyer on the changes in military policy toward transgender people beginning in 2017. REYES now wondering how the government intends to define people who "exhibit symptoms of gender dysphoria," which could include all sorts of things -- like depression. "This seems like it opens up the entire scope to basically anything."

DOJ says there is no guidance on this yet

JUST IN: A trove of emails posted tonight in court reveal the utter chaos unleashed at the CFPB after Acting Director Russ Vought ordered a total work stoppage on Feb. 10. Mass cancelation of contracts soon followed. documentcloud.org/documents/2555…
The order set off panic and confusion among staff with legally required responsibilities -- they warned that complaints were being ignored despite laws requiring them to advance and records were at risk of deletion depsite legal obligations to retain them .

NEW: The Justice Department has spent the last week arguing that Donald Trump’s pardon for Jan. 6 defendants covers totally unrelated crimes — from possessing guns to grenades to classified info.

Four federal courts are pushing back.

politico.com/news/2025/03/0… The courts are particularly curious about DOJ’s abrupt reversal. In mid-February, prosecutors forcefully rejected the notion that Trump’s pardon covered non-J6 crimes. Within days, they reversed course.

politico.com/news/2025/03/0…

🧵CUTTING ROOM FLOOR from the return of prominent J6 defendants to the Capitol, shortly before Enrique Tarrio’s arrest on a simple assault charge.

It started at the base of the west front The group included: Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, who had been sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy

BREAKING: USCP is arresting Enrique Tarrio for swiping his hand at a counterprotester who got in his face. Tarrio had just left a press conference at the Capitol with dozens of pardoned Jan. 6 defendants announcing plans to sue DOJ. He was exchanging info with a photographer when the incident occurred.

JUST IN: Another medical horror story in a court affidavit from a USAID employee stationed overseas. Says his pregnant wife was not medevac-ed for emergency health care because of directives from Washington. Took intervention of a U.S. senator to reverse — but was too late.
The employee, identified only as Terry Doe, says he’s been in touch with 25 other pregnant foreign service officers who are fearful their care will be cut off if the agency closes down completely on March 8.

WOW: Judge Reyes just absolutely tore into the lawyers for the fired IGs, saying they waited 21 days to file suit and then demanded emergency same-day relief.

She forced them to withdraw their TRO motion and threatened them with sanctions. Reyes was livid that the lawyers for the IGs compared their case to the recently decided case of fired ethics watchdog Hampton Dellinger. She pointed out why those cases are nothing alike and wondered why the IGs would even try to compare them.

HAPPENING NOW: Judge Chutkan is holding a hearing on state AGs' effort to stop Elon Musk and DOGE's entire government operation.

Lawyer for NM says Musk is a "literal wrecking ball"

Chutkan is skeptical of urgency of an immediate restraining order. Chutkan is not buying the demand for extraordinary emergency relief. The states might have a case, she says, but not necessarily for an immediate restraiing order.

The states say Musk likes to work the weekend so he might cause harm this weeknd. Chutkan says that's not enough.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING (again): The Justice Department asked a court to urgently “dissolve” or “modify/clarify” the sweeping order that blocks Musk allies — and political leadership in Treasury from accessing the government’s massive payment system. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… x.com/kyledcheney/st… The order describes Judge Engelmayer’s original block as an “impermissible” incursion on the Executive Branch and an “anti-constitutional” move that damages Treasury leadership’s ability to do its job.

BREAKING: Judge Nichols has issued his written order formalizing his decision to block the Trump administration from putting 2,200 USAID workers on leave tonight.

He also orders the reinstatement of 500 workers previously put on leave. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2551… Nichols also has blocked the expedited "repatriation" of 1,400 foreign service officers ordered as part of the dismantling of USAID. politico.com/news/2025/02/0…

HAPPENING NOW: Lawyers for the government say at end of day 2,200 USAID employees will be placed on paid leave.

-500 already on leave

-600 employees will be kept on. Lawyers for USAID workers say this essentially means employees will, within hours, be cut off from government systems, including or people in "war-ravaged" areas who rely on security updates. It will also imperil partner organizations who depend on those workers.

In court just now, the states are introducing @PressSec tweet saying the funding freeze is still active as evidence that their lawsuit should continue. Judge MCCONNELL says that prior to the withdrawal of OMB's spending freeze memo, he was inclined to issue a temporary restraining order given the lack of clarity/potential for harm. Now he thinks there may need to be case-by-case legal actions as funding is blocked.

NEW: Judge CHUTKAN is now weighing in on Trump's mass dismissal of Jan. 6 cases, saying it "cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake."
politico.com/news/2025/01/2… Chutkan's comments closely followed Judge Beryl HOWELL, who lit into Trump's dismissals for stoking a "revisionist myth" about what happened on Jan. 6 and the criminal cases that followed. politico.com/news/2025/01/2…

HAPPENING NOW: Judge Howell is lighting into Giuliani for violating an order — that he voluntarily entered into — against further defaming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Moments before the hearing began, Giuliani attacked Howell as "bloodthirsty." He keeps trying to speak over her Giuliani is attacking Howell even as the hearing is underway.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has *DENIED* Donald Trump's bid to stay his criminal sentence in NY.

5-4 decision The thrust: Trump can deal with his complaints about trial evidence / immunity in the regular appeals process, rather than on an emergency basis.

And the burden on the transition should be minimal, they say, because the judge plans to impose a limited sentence.

BREAKING: Cannon has blocked DOJ from releasing Smith’s report until further court proceedings
MORE: Cannon's order came wthout addressing questions about her jurisdiction (the case is pending before the 11th circuit, not her court) and in advance of a promised filing from Smith's office later tonight.

DOJ had also assured her the report wouldn't come before Jan. 10.