AI-Generated Image. Â The Just Security website just published my article entitled “Nondelegation and Major Questions Doctrines Can Constrain Power Grabs by Presidents of Both Parties.” Here is an excerpt: On May 28, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) issued a unanimous ruling against President Donald Trump’s massive “Liberation Day” tariffs, in a case […]
Hours after the U.S. bombed several sites in Iran, President Donald Trump called the operation a “spectacular military success.” Whether or not that turns out to be true, the attack looks rather different as a legal matter. Trump appears to have significantly overstepped his authority, as the attack was not authorized by Congress and was […]
Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order against President Donald Trump’s unilateral deployment of the California National Guard, saying that decision was illegal and unconstitutional. That same day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit imposed an administrative stay on U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer’s order, and […]
US Department of Transportation Yesterday, in a lawsuit brought by twenty state courts, federal District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. ruled the Trump Administration violated the Constitution when it tried to deny federal transportation grants to states that refuse to help federal authorities detain and deport supposed illegal migrants. The court ruled the Department […]
Federal courts have no role whatsoever in assessing President Donald Trump’s decision to take control of the California National Guard, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate argued at a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Tuesday. Two Trump-appointed members of the three-judge panel, Mark Bennett and Eric Miller, seemed appropriately […]
Alvaro Bedoya, former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), formally resigned on Monday after he and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the other Democrat-appointed commissioner, were fired by President Donald Trump in March. Bedoya and Slaughter have challenged the president in court, with Slaughter arguing that the firings violated “the plain language of a statute and […]
(NA) In my previous post on Trump’s massive new travel ban, I noted that the Supreme Court’s badly flawed ruling in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) probably precludes challenges based on discriminatory intent. But I also noted there is an alternative path to striking down the new travel ban: nondelegation doctrine. That path remains open because […]
In yesterday’s Aviel v. Gor, D.C. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, joined by Judge Nina Pillard, held that the President likely lacked the power to fire the CEO of the Inter-American Foundation, though he had the statutory authority to fire the Foundation’s Board of Directors: This case involves a dispute over whether plaintiff Sara Aviel is […]
When the federal government decided to prosecute mountain runner Michelino Sunseri for using an unapproved trail while setting a record for ascending and descending Grand Teton in September 2024, it seemed like a good example of a problem that President Donald Trump decried in an executive order last month: “overcriminalization in federal regulations.” The National […]
President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on April 2 instituting tariffs on a wide range of countries. ( Andrew Leyden/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)  Stanford law professor, leading conservative constitutional law scholar, and former federal judge Michael McConnell has an excellent New York Times op ed on the cases challenging Trump’s tariffs, and their significance. An excerpt: Are President […]
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