Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. We left off last week with open compliance questions in the deportation flights litigation, Paul Weiss caving to Donald Trump's order targeting the law firm, and Elon Musk's continued quest to dominate American life while backed by Trump's Justice Department. All three stories — encapsulating the power consolidation of Trump 2.0 — advanced this week, with the government seeking the Supreme Court's help on deportations, firms that aren't Paul Weiss fighting back and Musk trying to sway an important election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.
Did Trump officials violate court orders to halt certain deportations this month? U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is still examining the issue. The government invoked the "state secrets" privilege this week to try to avoid giving Washington, D.C.'s chief federal trial judge more information, while insisting it didn't violate his temporary restraining orders. Lawyers representing alleged (but unproven) Venezuelan gang members who Trump wants summarily removed under the wartime Alien Enemies Act have until Monday to respond to the compliance and state secrets claims. So we'll have to wait until next week to see what the judge says about the government's conduct.
The compliance issue is separate from the underlying question of whether Boasberg's orders are legally valid. A divided appeals court panel in D.C. bolstered the orders this week by rejecting the Trump DOJ's bid to upend them. The DOJ then lodged an urgent Supreme Court appeal on Friday, voicing its latest frustration with lower court judges thwarting the president's agenda.
April is set to be a big month for the justices deciding emergency litigation — not only on deportations but also on birthright citizenship, federal worker firings and education grants targeted by the administration's anti-"DEI" push.
Meanwhile, Trump's push to punish law firms he doesn't like met resistance this week, following Paul Weiss' historic capitulation. While another big firm (Skadden Arps) struck a deal with the administration before facing a similar executive order, two firms facing revenge orders — WilmerHale and Jenner & Block — filed lawsuits against the attempts to crush their businesses based on their affiliations with lawyers who investigated Trump. The two firms are joining the fight already waged by Perkins Coie, which previously won a temporary pause of the president's bid to cripple its business. Litigation continues in the Perkins Coie case in front of U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who slammed the DOJ's motion to force her recusal this week. The D.C.-based judge called the government's claim "rife with innuendo" but not "com[ing] close to meeting the standard for disqualification."
Turning away from Washington, the future of Wisconsin's top court is in play for a seat that'll go to a conservative or a liberal jurist. Musk has taken interest in Tuesday's race, backing conservative Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford. The tech billionaire said that he would give a talk Sunday in the state, with entrance limited to voters, and that he'd give away two million-dollar checks "in appreciation for you taking the time to vote." Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said he intended to take legal action to halt the payouts, whose legality was quickly questioned by a prominent election law expert. We'll be tracking any legal fallout from Musk's election payments as well as the results of the race itself.
Turning back to Washington, in nonemergency high court action, the justices split 7-2 to approve Biden-era regulation of so-called ghost gun kits for making untraceable weapons. They also heard arguments in important appeals involving racial gerrymandering and other issues ahead of next week's hearings, which will include one over a law intended to help terrorism victims sue Palestinian groups. The term's final arguments are set for late April, followed by the traditional end-of-term wait for opinions that typically wraps up by July. There might be fewer "blockbuster" cases this term — one of the bigger rulings we're awaiting affects transgender rights — but the Trump 2.0 emergency litigation referenced above will also be keeping the court busy, and the results of that litigation could be just as important as the outcome of the regularly scheduled cases.
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