Trump 2.0 in the courts

 From Democracy Docket newsletter 5/29:

Last week, the Supreme Court brazenly rewarded Trump for breaking the law by firing independent federal board members without cause. The ruling indicates that the justices are set to overturn or weaken a precedent that protected independent agencies from presidential control for almost a century. [Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., which prevents presidents from arbitrarily firing members of multi-member commissions or boards like the NLRB and MSPB.]

[...]

A federal judge in D.C. greenlit lawsuits against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), finding that plaintiffs plausibly argued that Musk’s position violates the Appointments Clause and that Trump’s creation of DOGE was done without statutory or constitutional basis.

Closing the barn door after the horse has gone.*

NPR and three public radio stations in Colorado sued Trump over an executive order that attempts to bar the use of congressionally appropriated funds for NPR and PBS, calling the order “textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination.”

Also, as the impeachment over refusing to release money appropriated by Congress to Ukraine, seems like the same thing.

From All Rise newsletter:

The U.S. Court of International Trade found Trump's tariffs to be unlawful.

Donald Trump’s tariffs were always illegal.

That was the unanimous determination from a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday afternoon.

“The challenged tariff orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined,” declared Judges Gary S. Katzmann, Timothy M. Reif, and Jane A. Restani, writing in a single voice.

The judges were appointed by presidents across the political spectrum: Trump appointed Reif, one of the members of the panel. Restani is a Ronald Reagan appointee, and Katzmann is a Barack Obama appointee.

[...]

Trump was the first and only president to have claimed the unilateral power to impose tariffs, asserting that power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977.

The legislation does not contain the word “tariff,” and the three-judge panel determined the law never intended to grant him such “unbounded” authority.

[...]

Trump claimed that international gangs and cartels justified his tariffs, but the court noted that the “mere incantation of ‘national emergency’ cannot, of course, sound the death-knell of the Constitution.”

[...]

The Trump administration quickly filed a notice of appeal of the ruling, which is set to take effect in 10 days under the terms of the judgment. The full opinion can be read here.

Wall Street reportedly had become so primed to expect Trump to back down from his tariffs that traders coined a mocking acronym to describe the retreat: “TACO,” short for Trump Always Chickens Out.

[...]

Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s detention was likely unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled today, but for now, Khalil will remain in immigration detention pending further information about the government’s claims that there were omissions in his green card applications.

* 

UPDATE 05:46 pm:  For the love of Pete.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  I never even heard of that.

Wikipedia:

Specifically, it has exclusive appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal cases involving patents, trademark registrations, government contracts, veterans' benefits, public safety officers' benefits, federal employees' benefits, and various other types of cases. The Federal Circuit has no jurisdiction over any criminal, bankruptcy, immigration, or U.S. state law cases. It is headquartered at the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building in Washington, D.C.