Roger Parloff Profile picture
Senior editor, Lawfare. Journalist. Ex-Fortune staff. Published in ProPublica, NYT, New York, New Yorker, Yahoo Finance, Air Mail, etc. rparloff on BlueSky.
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Mar 19 11 tweets 4 min read
Some notes on Judge Chutkan’s temporary restraining order yesterday in 3 cases spurred by the Trump Adm’s hunt for criminality in Congress’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund—a hunt that has already led to a top federal prosecutor's resignation in protest. ...
1/11 Image The programs stem from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which appropriated $27b for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Under it, EPA awarded grants to nonprofits to partner with the private sector to finance 1000s of clean tech projects nationwide. ...
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Mar 3 6 tweets 3 min read
There’s a hearing before Judge AB Jackson right now regarding the dismantling of CFPB. I can’t monitor it because of phone line problems, but wanted to describe the extraordinary exchange of declarations that’s occurred in that case in the last 2 days. A short thread. ... 1/6 ... Yesterday, the day before the hearing, CFPB’s COO filed an affidavit admitting that, early on, he referred to the impending “closure of the agency” & its being in “wind-down mode.” But he claimed everything later changed on 2/7, when Vought was appointed acting chief... /2 Image
Mar 1 4 tweets 2 min read
Judge Alsup has issued his written TRO, directing that OPM’s terminations of probationary employees across govt be stopped & rescinded. “No statute—anywhere, ever—has granted OPM the authority to direct termination of employees in other agencies.” ...
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storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image Though acting OPM director Ezell claimed agencies made independent decisions, Judge Alsup found a "mountain of evidence" to the contrary, from DOD, the VA, USDA, IRS, NSF, & others. ...
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Feb 15 10 tweets 3 min read
Yesterday, in declining to enter a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring DOGE from accessing data systems at the Dept of Labor, CFPB, & HHS, Judge Bates actually delivered a blow to DOGE—though it may only be felt in other cases. A thread. ...

1/10storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Different suits challenge DOGE on different grounds. The suits challenging its access to data systems in Treasury, Labor, CFPB, & HHS focus on the Privacy Act. The claim is that DOGE is rooting around in our ultra-sensitive data without our permission. ...
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Feb 10 4 tweets 2 min read
Trump Adm brings emergency motion to dissolve NY judge's TRO re DOGE; claims it bars TreasSec from access [based on comma ambituity]; threatens mandamus to appeals court arguing no executive action can be insulated from political appointees. ...
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storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… ... Judge Vargas (the judge now assigned to the case, not the emergency motions judge who entered TRO) has ordered parties to confer to see if they can narrow issues. If not, plaintiff state AGs respond by tonight at 5pm, with govt reply by 11pm tonight. ...
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Feb 9 15 tweets 5 min read
The challenge that all the DOGE-related lawsuits face is that DOGE has a formalistic structure that’s designed to look benign, but which appears to be a charade. Proving it’s a charade in court in a compressed time-frame will be hard. A thread: ...
1/14 As originally described in Nov. in the WSJ, DOGE was about saving trillions of dollars through vast “regulatory recissions, administrative reductions, & cost savings.” ...
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Feb 8 11 tweets 4 min read
Here is Judge Paul Engelmayer’s remarkable TRO barring (in effect) DOGE from accessing Treasury’s payment system & ordering (in effect) any DOGE person who has had access to destroy anything already copied. A short thread ...

/1 documentcloud.org/documents/2551…Image This is broader than the “consent order” entered Thurs. by Judge Kollar-Kotelly in DC. Latter allowed 2 DOGE “special govt employees” (SGEs) to keep working but not send data out of Treas. This one bars access to SGEs & orders them to destroy anything already copied ...
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Feb 6 4 tweets 1 min read
At today’s hearing in the FBI agents’ suits to enjoin the govt from disclosing the names of agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, Judge Cobb’s most interesting comments related to her desire to know more about the survey that DOJ made agents fill out. ...
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At future hearings, she said, she wants to know: “What's [the survey] for? Nothing on its face has anything to do with misconduct. What's being investigated?” (Quotes approximate.) What she’s getting at is that retaliation is the *only* explanation. ...
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Feb 5 47 tweets 9 min read
At 3:00pm ET Judge Kollar-Kotelly will hold a hearing on whether to issue a TRO barring Treasury from giving DOGE access to its payment systems & ordering Treasury to claw back info already disclosed. Hoping to follow by telephone. You can too. See below ...
/1 Image ... Plaintiffs are a retiree group and 2 unions (SEIU & AFGE) who argue that Treas Sec Bessent is violating Privacy Act of 1974 & the Internal Revenue Code by letting DOGE “root” through their records. They say Bessent has also violated the Adm Procedure Act ...
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Feb 5 4 tweets 2 min read
Yesterday, in the FBI Agents Assn (FBI-AA) suit v. DOJ, Chief Judge Boasberg made one key preliminary ruling, but punted on another. He let the agents sue pseudonymously, because public exposure of their identities would risk subjecting them to physical harm. ...
1/4 Image ... That’s crucial since a key goal of the suit is to keep DOJ from exposing the names of agents, which might subject them to vigilantism. But the FBI-AA also wanted to keep the identities of the plaintiffs secret *even from the DOJ*. ...
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Jan 25 6 tweets 3 min read
Do the 14 Trump commutations leave intact the supervised release portion of their terms, as Judge Mehta thought. (Mehta ordered Rhodes & 7 others to stay out of DC yesterday.) I’ll explain the ambiguities, but I suspect it doesn’t and Judge Mehta erred ...
/1 Image Typically, it seems, commutations—whether by Trump or Biden—commute a sentence to “time served” but specify that other conditions, like “supervised release,” remain “intact.” See below. They are, like most pardons, formal docs, with a seal & a signature. ...
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Jan 23 4 tweets 2 min read
Alexis Loeb, former dep chief of the J6 Capitol Siege Section to @Lawfare: “The pardons are a blow to the victims—the officers who faced down a crowd ... attacking them, many with all sorts of make-shift ... & traditional weapons ...”

1/4 ... “Officers who were just trying to ... protect Congress & the peaceful transfer of power. ... [A]lso the officers who testified ... in trial after trial after trial, ... reliv[ing] minute by minute what that day was like for them. ...”

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Jan 22 8 tweets 3 min read
Multiple USDC judges aver that Trump pardons “won’t change the truth,” as Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly writes. “What occurred is preserved ... Those records are immutable & represent the truth, no matter how the events of J6 are described by those charged or their allies.”
1/6 Image ... "The heroism of each officer who responded cannot be altered or ignored. ... Grossly outnumbered, [they] acted valiantly to protect the Members ... their staff, the VP, his family, [&] the Capitol—our symbol of liberty & democratic rule around the world.” ...
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Jan 20 17 tweets 7 min read
The govt is seeking 20 yrs imprisonment for Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Samsel (red box), who was the 1st to breach the restricted perimeter & then assisted in the 1st violent assault on Jan. 6, toppling the 1st bike-rack barriers, unleashing the riot. Some notes: ...
1/17 Image At about 12:53pm on J6, Samsel (red circle) & 4 codefendants lifted two linked bike-rack barriers & pushed them over at the Peace Circle, despite five USCP officers defending.
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Jan 18 7 tweets 3 min read
Hard to convey how frivolous Trump’s suit sounds. (It’s both a $10b suit, filed in Amarillo, TX, & an FCC complaint.) Trump calls one of Harris’ answers “a word salad.” CBS included it in a Face-the-Nation clip, but not the 60 Minutes segment. ...
1/6 Image ... Face-the-Nation covered 1 topic; 60 Minutes covered many topics. Imagine if Harris sued Fox every time it excised a meandering Trump riff. Editors try to convey candidates’ positions on as many issues as concisely as possible, cutting wheat from chaff. ...
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Jan 14 8 tweets 2 min read
Judge Cannon’s order today usurps AG Garland’s power to decide whether & how the “public interest” requires making a special counsel report public. She does so by imagining an inconceivable sequence of four events that I’ll list here ...
1/7 Image ... First, the real world: Once Trump is inaugurated, the case against Nauta/DeO will go away. Most likely Trump’s DOJ will just withdraw the current appeal of Cannon’s dismissal of the cases. Alternatively, Trump could pardon them. One way or another, they’re over. ...
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Jan 12 5 tweets 2 min read
IMHO, the chance of Jack Smith’s Vol II report, on US v Trump-SDFla, ever seeing the light of day is fading. The 11th Cir is showing no urgency about govt’s emergency motion to stop Judge Cannon; hasn’t even set a date for Nauta/DeO to respond. ...
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... Cannon may yet also try to kill Vol I, about US v Trump-DC, but that’s harder, given that Nauta/De OIiveira have no standing to challenge it & that that case played out in DC where binding DC Cir precedent backs legitimacy of Jack Smith’s appointment. ...
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Jan 8 5 tweets 2 min read
The govt brief to the 11th Cir, opposing the Trump codefendants’ attempt to suppress Jack Smith’s Final Report, is convincing. Hard to see 11th Circuit intervening, except to vacate Cannon’s order & specify that, for now, she has no further role. ...
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documentcloud.org/documents/2548…Image As you’ve read, AG Garland, at Smith’s suggestion, will *not* be releasing Vol II (about the classified docs case) until the Nauta/De Oliveira case is over. He plans to publicly release Vol I (election case) and, importantly, ...
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Jan 7 9 tweets 4 min read
There are some intriguing things in Trump's & his codefs' aggressive & menacing efforts to block AG Garland from releasing Jack Smith's 2-vol report. Here's Nauta/DeOliveira's attys' motion in SDFla + 12-page Trump attys' letter to AG Garland. ...
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bit.ly/4gYkh4xImage ... Trump seems particularly concerned about “baseless attacks on ... anticipated members of ... Trump’s incoming administration” and a “tirade” in the report discussing how Musk’s X responded to the probe ...
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Dec 18, 2024 8 tweets 4 min read
Here's what's known about the jury misconduct claim in People v Trump:
On 12/3 Trump attys wrote prosecutors alleging “grave juror misconduct” showing that “this case was not anywhere near fair & impartial.” Heavily redacted 7-page letter here:
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1/8 bit.ly/4izTPPTImage ... Blanche asked for a redacted letter to be made public & that it be weighed in support of Trump’s pending motion to dismiss. But due to time constraints & privacy issues, he asked that it *not* be explored through “invasive fact-finding.” ...
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Dec 17, 2024 8 tweets 3 min read
In People v Trump yesterday, while Justice Merchan denied one of Trump’s motions, he revealed that there’s a new issue—an allegation of juror misconduct. Trump filed a nonpublic (& nonsworn) letter on that on 12/2. Nonpublic response & reply were filed 12/5 & 12/9 ...
1/8 Image ... Justice Merchan wants redacted versions of those letters made public, but also wants Trump to make sworn accusations, as NY law requires. Not clear to me if Trump has to make sworn accusations first before letters can be made public. ...
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