Dear listeners,
Welcome back! This week, Ken and I have a discussion of Harvard’s lawsuit fighting the Trump Administration’s effort to punish the university for failing to submit to what amounted to a demand to place the university in a kind of federal receivership.
Harvard’s getting a lot of applause for standing up to the president, but it’s not obvious they had any other choice — the demands they faced were a lot more extensive and unworkable than those made to Columbia a few weeks ago (or to the many law firms that have been folding under administration pressure.) Indeed, some administration officials tried to tell Harvard’s incredulous leaders that they should not have publicly protested the federal demand letter, since the demands in the letter were obviously overreaching and clearly weren’t going to represent the administration’s ultimate position — despite their appearance in black and white on official letterhead.
As Ken and I discuss, Harvard1 has strong arguments that the administration’s actions against them are unlawful, and they’re likely to get a sympathetic ear from federal courts, especially in Boston, and especially since judicial patience with the Trump Administration seems to be quickly wearing thin. Where Harvard have more difficulty is with future actions: the National Institutes of Health may well be forced to pay out the already-awarded grants that Trump wants to claw back, but what will happen as Harvard applies for new grants in the future?
Regarding the wearing-thin of that judicial patience, the Supreme Court this weekend issued a middle-of-the-night rebuke to the Trump administration, ordering a halt to Alien Enemies Act removals from the Northern District of Texas before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals could even rule on the matter — greatly surprising observers across the political spectrum and greatly annoying Justice Samuel Alito, who dissented from the order along with Clarence Thomas, but not the court’s other four conservatives. Alito argued that the court normally gives the federal government a presumption of regularity, but a majority of his colleagues appear to think this administration is no longer due that presumption.
The subtext of this order is that the court’s other conservatives have noticed the administration’s nose-thumbing over the orders in the Abrego Garcia case and aren’t pleased about it. Meanwhile, Judge Paula Xinis is trying to figure out what to do about the administration’s defiance of her orders regarding Klimar Abrego Garcia, and Judge James Boasberg wants to move toward contempt proceedings in the J.G.G. case, though a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has forced him to hold off, for now.
In other cases, Trump is trying to use his position as president to get out of paying the larger of the two judgments E. Jean Carroll won against him, though his effort may fail for either interesting constitutional reasons or boring procedural ones. The AP is learning that the relief it obtained in theory from Trump’s retribution means little in practice. And Nadine Menendez will soon be relieved of the need to take her Mercedes C-Class to the dealership for servicing.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
Click here for a transcript of this episode.
Which Ken and I attended, did you know that?
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