There are a few things non-lawyers need to understand. The first is that this nonsense will not stand. There are many reasons why, but the most important reason is that these emergency temporary restraining orders (and the injunctions that will likely follow) are legally meritless. Once a serious court gets a look at them, they will end up on the ash heap of judicial history.
The next thing to understand is that after this fight, Donald Trump will be more secure in his ability to be president than he has ever been. This kind of nationwide injunction will go extinct like the dinosaurs, passenger pigeons, and alternative pronouns in government correspondence. Why? The most obvious reason is that the orders are legally ridiculous, but the other key reason is that Chief Justice John Roberts is fully aware of the danger to his institution that this phenomenon poses.
We’re going to win this fight. We just have to fight smart.
Let’s back up a little. Doesn’t it seem like these orders are crazy? Your gut is correct – they are crazy. They are also obnoxious, as they are the result of blatant judge shopping. Have you noticed that just about every one of these judges is an Obama or Biden appointee? That’s not an accident. They didn’t just get lucky in the judge lottery. It’s no coincidence that one of the judges is a big donor of Democrat freak Sheldon Whitehouse – he’s not black, so they might have met at Sheldon’s beach club. The leftists find a venue where they know they will have a sympathetic ear who doesn’t care about the law. Next, they file a nonsense pleading and get the handpicked judge to sign their proposed order – yes, lawyers often draft orders and give them to the judge to sign. Right at the threshold, these cases are the result of cynical gamesmanship. But it gets worse.
I was an active lawyer for 30 years, including in the federal courts. I’ve never gotten an emergency temporary restraining order. I don’t know anyone who’s gotten an emergency temporary restraining order. The rules for getting emergency temporary restraining orders are so onerous, and the judges so reluctant to grant them, that it’s an exception to the exceptions-level kind of thing. But it’s easy when you’re a Democrat suing Donald Trump! For litigants who are not suing Donald Trump, there is a whole list of things you have to show just to get a regular restraining order, much less one issued at 1 AM on a Saturday morning when the opposing party hasn’t even had the opportunity to respond. Among those showings is “irreparable harm.” In one order, the anti-Trump plaintiffs claimed that the “irreparable harm” was that they weren’t going to be able to read a government website about some DEI nonsense and, therefore, their patients were going to die. That’s simply crazy. Yet, the judge nodded and signed.
Another requirement is standing. You must have suffered or be about to suffer an injury that would allow you to sue. Many of the suing groups can’t show any kind of individualized injury. The judges don’t even care.
Nor do they care about the consequences of their usurpations of executive power. You have judges saying that cabinet officers can’t have computer access to what’s going on in their own department. Well, that seemed a little too insane, but the revised order said that the secretary can have access, but the secretary’s people cannot, as if the secretary is going to sit down at a terminal and personally do data entry and deletions for the entire department. This is craziness. The judicial branch cannot micromanage the executive branch. But that’s what these orders purport to do.
The next thing to understand is that after this fight, Donald Trump will be more secure in his ability to be president than he has ever been. This kind of nationwide injunction will go extinct like the dinosaurs, passenger pigeons, and alternative pronouns in government correspondence. Why? The most obvious reason is that the orders are legally ridiculous, but the other key reason is that Chief Justice John Roberts is fully aware of the danger to his institution that this phenomenon poses.
We’re going to win this fight. We just have to fight smart.
Let’s back up a little. Doesn’t it seem like these orders are crazy? Your gut is correct – they are crazy. They are also obnoxious, as they are the result of blatant judge shopping. Have you noticed that just about every one of these judges is an Obama or Biden appointee? That’s not an accident. They didn’t just get lucky in the judge lottery. It’s no coincidence that one of the judges is a big donor of Democrat freak Sheldon Whitehouse – he’s not black, so they might have met at Sheldon’s beach club. The leftists find a venue where they know they will have a sympathetic ear who doesn’t care about the law. Next, they file a nonsense pleading and get the handpicked judge to sign their proposed order – yes, lawyers often draft orders and give them to the judge to sign. Right at the threshold, these cases are the result of cynical gamesmanship. But it gets worse.
I was an active lawyer for 30 years, including in the federal courts. I’ve never gotten an emergency temporary restraining order. I don’t know anyone who’s gotten an emergency temporary restraining order. The rules for getting emergency temporary restraining orders are so onerous, and the judges so reluctant to grant them, that it’s an exception to the exceptions-level kind of thing. But it’s easy when you’re a Democrat suing Donald Trump! For litigants who are not suing Donald Trump, there is a whole list of things you have to show just to get a regular restraining order, much less one issued at 1 AM on a Saturday morning when the opposing party hasn’t even had the opportunity to respond. Among those showings is “irreparable harm.” In one order, the anti-Trump plaintiffs claimed that the “irreparable harm” was that they weren’t going to be able to read a government website about some DEI nonsense and, therefore, their patients were going to die. That’s simply crazy. Yet, the judge nodded and signed.
Another requirement is standing. You must have suffered or be about to suffer an injury that would allow you to sue. Many of the suing groups can’t show any kind of individualized injury. The judges don’t even care.
Nor do they care about the consequences of their usurpations of executive power. You have judges saying that cabinet officers can’t have computer access to what’s going on in their own department. Well, that seemed a little too insane, but the revised order said that the secretary can have access, but the secretary’s people cannot, as if the secretary is going to sit down at a terminal and personally do data entry and deletions for the entire department. This is craziness. The judicial branch cannot micromanage the executive branch. But that’s what these orders purport to do.
