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5 days ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
Last week, two different federal courts slapped injunctions on Trump’s tariffs on countries across the globe. It’s not the first time Trump has lost in court, but these two rulings against the president may be the most consequential yet.
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1 week ago | 
wsj.com | Jed Rubenfeld
District judges shouldn’t be able to make policy in cases that require them to announce new law. Nationwide injunctions came before the Supreme Court in an emergency oral argument this month. The justices are clearly concerned about the practice, in which a lone federal trial judge can block a government policy even if other judges have upheld it. But the government failed to offer a satisfactory solution. There is, however, a clean and simple fix that the court itself could effectuate.
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1 week ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
National Public Radio is suing the Trump administration for cutting off its federal funds, which, according to NPR’s complaint, is a “blatant,” “textbook” First Amendment violation. But NPR seems to have forgotten some free speech basics.
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2 weeks ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
The Trump administration fired another bunker-busting bomb at Harvard on Thursday, prohibiting the school from enrolling international students. The move set off a panic among the more than 6,500 students already at Harvard who do not hold American citizenship. This is only the latest move in the president’s war on the oldest and wealthiest university in the country.
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3 weeks ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
What the Constitution Actually Says About Qatar’s Jet Gift to TrumpThe Emoluments Clause doesn’t stop the president from getting a new ‘palace in the sky,’ as long as Congress goes along with it. I hate terror-supporting Middle Eastern countries as much as the next guy, but if we’re asking what the law says about the gift of a “palace in the sky” from Qatar, what the president should do and what he is legally allowed to do are not the same thing.
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1 month ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
No, the President Has Not Defied a Supreme Court RulingThe exaggerations on both sides are spectacular. The truth? There’s less to the case than meets the eye.
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1 month ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
The Legal Trick Being Used to Trip Up TrumpJudges are issuing orders that block government policies from taking effect anywhere in the country. Jed Rubenfeld explains what to do about them. It’s been a relatively good week for President Donald Trump when it comes to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled more or less in his favor on three different challenges, including upholding on jurisdictional grounds his deportations of migrants to El Salvador.
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2 months ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
The Trump tariff tsunami has sparked not only a market sell-off but—and this won’t shock you—lawsuits. A group called the New Civil Liberties Alliance filed suit in Florida last week to try and stop Trump’s broad and far-reaching tariffs, arguing that he lacks the constitutional authority to levy them. Other conservative groups, in addition to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are also reportedly mulling legal challenges. So, are President Donald Trump’s tariffs legal?
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2 months ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
Over the past month, the White House has issued five executive orders targeting big white-shoe law firms associated with prominent anti-Trump lawyers. It’s not surprising that Trump would do such a thing. What’s strange is that the language of his orders maximizes their own likely unconstitutionality. The most recent order, issued on March 27, singles out the D.C.-based firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, which employs more than 1,100 lawyers.
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2 months ago | 
thefp.com | Jed Rubenfeld
A few days ago, President Trump invoked the 226-year-old Alien Enemies Act and flew hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador in the dead of night. In doing so, he arguably ignored a district court order and caused liberal talking heads to explode all over the country. Legal “experts,” The New York Timesreported, say it’s a “constitutional crisis.”But wait. Over a thousand American legal academics had already declared a “constitutional crisis” last month.
