A month after SCOTUS ordered govt to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, parties filed briefs last night over “state secrets” & “deliberative process” privileges. On 5/7 Secy Rubio filed sealed declaration claiming that any “agreement” with Bukele is a “state secret.” ...
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... Abrego Garcia says Rubio’s declaration is “vague & boilerplate” and belied by public statements galore by Rubio, Bukele & others. (State secret can be invoked when compelling evidence would “expose military secrets” compromising “national security.”) ...
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Will courts ever declare that Trump is unlawfully dismantling Congressionally created agencies? Or will they just treat his actions as if they were ordinary cuts & trims—albeit on an unusually large scale? Will courts ever see the forest for the trees? Thread ... 1/11 In 2 remarkable recent orders, judges saw the forest. In one, on Friday, Judge Ilston of SF issued a broad temporary restraining order freezing efforts to dismantle 21 federal agencies. In the other, on 4/22, Judge Lamberth of DC saved, for the moment, Voice of America ...
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Let me unpack this. Judge James Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas is refusing to permit Venezuelans detained there to bring a class action challenging the lawfulness of Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation or to ensure minimum due process measures. ...
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https://twitter.com/rparloff/status/1921028386866037109

... While Hendrix concedes that there are some common, class-wide issues—like: Is invoking the AEA even lawful here?—he says individual issues prevail & each incarcerated alien should proceed individually. He also denies class treatment as a matter of “discretion.” ...
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The govt is asking Judge Gallagher in Baltimore to vacate an order she entered on 4/23 requiring DHS to “facilitate” return of a 2d man in El Salvador's CECOT prison, known as Cristian. (Not Abrego Garcia) Govt has filed under seal an “indicative asylum decision” ...
1/5 ... Under Judge Gallagher’s earlier orders (4/23 and 4/30), the govt was supposed to tell Judge Gallagher what steps they’ve taken to facilitate Cristian’s return at a status conference tomorrow (5/6/25). ...
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A note on Judge Howell’s ruling striking down the Perkins Coie exec order. Key point is in 1st sentence: “No American President has ever before issued exec. orders like the [this] one.” Trump apologists can change the subject or stay silent, but can’t deny she’s right. ...
1/10 Without a blue tic, I can’t even fit all the constitutional violations into one tweet. I count 9: (1) free speech (1st Am); (2) free association (1st Am); (3) right to petition govt (1st Am); (4) right against compelled disclosure of confidential associations (1st Am);...
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In 35-page ruling, DColo judge grants class-wide (statewide) TRO against removing Venezuelans under Alien Enemy Act. Plaintiffs likely to win on argument that ACT DOES NOT APPLY. "Invasion," "predatory incursion," "foreign nation or govt" all absent here. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
She also finds that DOJ's current 24 hr notice is insufficient. Must provide at least 21 days notice.
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Some notes on this morning’s remarkable emergency stay order granted by SCOTUS, stopping Trump Adm from summarily removing Venezuelans under his Alien Enemies Act proclamation. SCOTUS acted while the NDTexas & 5th Circuit courts dragged their feet.
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https://x.com/AnnaBower/status/1913514506329755977

.@ACLU had gotten wind that Venezuelans detained at Bluebonnet facility in Anson, TX, were being herded onto buses or planes. Tho there’s a restraining order in SDTexas (El Valle facility) stopping govt from doing this, there’s none yet in NDTexas, where Bluebonnet is. ...
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I'm at the US Courthouse in Greenbelt, Md, where I'm going to try to live-blog the Abrego Garcia hearing at 4pm for @lawfare . Colleague @AnnaBower will also be here, and will be live-blogging on another platform. Afterward, we'll discuss live here:
/1lawfaremedia.org/article/lawfar… If you find these threads and our longer work informative, please consider becoming a material supporter here:

/2givebutter.com/journalism/

A few notes on where JGG v Noem, the original Alien Enemies Act case, stands. First, I'll just salute the @ACLU lawyers who may’ve saved 5 lives. If not for ACLU, the 5 named plaintiffs would be languishing in CECOT, where @PamBondi tried to send them without due process. ...
1/9 In fact, @USAEdMartin , you should redirect your “1512 Project” to target the DOJ attys responsible for sending 137 people to CECOT without due process. All 9 justices agreed on that (not just 6). For your convenience, I’m listing the most culpable below:
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Prof @jacklgoldsmith got a lot of media when he asked for more transparency about how the DOJ’s “60-day rule” applied to a filing in US v Trump. Why no airtime now when he warns of the “disastrous” acts of @AGPamBondi & @USAEdMartin? Thread ...
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executivefunctions.substack.com/p/the-senate-a… Bondi, Goldsmith shows, has “aggressively” politicized her office “despite pledges to the contrary”; perpetrated “weaponization on a scale never before imagined”; & defended Trump’s “plainly lawless extortionate” attacks on law firms & other “lawless actions” ...
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The govt’s admission, in the Abrego Garcia case in Md, that it mistakenly removed him to El Salvador despite protective status, may reverberate in the Alien Enemies Act case, where plaintiffs allege that many with open asylum cases were wrongfully removed. ...
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Plaintiffs have alleged, for instance, that Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist was wrongfully removed. He’d fled Venezuela due to persecution & entered the US with a CBP One app appointment, his lawyer says. ...
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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 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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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

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… 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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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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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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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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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… 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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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. ...
1/4 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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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 ... 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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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 ... 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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