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How Many Lawyers Actually Looked At Trump’s Executive Order Before It Was Signed?

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Brian Snyder / Reuters

WASHINGTON — After President Trump on Friday signed a sweeping immigration executive order, federal employees, lawyers, and many others scrambled overnight and into the weekend to understand what exactly parts of it meant.

As a new president with only part of his cabinet confirmed — notably, not his attorney general or secretary of state nominees — Trump did so without significant parts of his legal and policy infrastructure in place.

And aside from arguments that Trump’s immigration order is unconstitutional, critics have charged that the text is poorly worded and confusing, raising questions about the extent to which lawyers who understand US immigration law and policy and constitutional law scrutinized it before Trump signed it.

“One of the reasons there’s so much chaos going on right now, in fact, is that nobody really knows what the order means on important points,” Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, wrote on the blog Lawfare.

The fact that five federal judges so far have temporarily blocked enforcement of pieces of the order suggests that it’s on shaky legal footing, said Harold Koh, a professor at Yale Law School who served as the legal adviser to the State Department from 2009 to 2013.

“When you have garbage in, you get garbage out,” Koh said, referring to reports that the order may not have gone through robust interagency legal vetting.

A senior Justice Department official told BuzzFeed News on Sunday that the White House did seek a review by the Office of Legal Counsel “for form and legality” of the executive orders that Trump has signed so far. The Office of Legal Counsel historically has done a “form and legality” review for all executive orders, and also answers specific legal questions posed by the White House and federal agencies.

The DOJ official would not say if the Office of Legal Counsel found that Trump’s immigration order was lawful on its face, a narrow question that isn’t the same as whether DOJ lawyers believe an order could survive a court challenge. Even if the Office of Legal Counsel did find that the order was unlawful or otherwise problematic, that wouldn’t stop Trump from signing it. Its findings are binding on agencies, but not the president.

A senior administration official told reporters on Sunday evening that the Office of Legal Counsel approved Trump’s executive orders. Trump hasn’t announced a nominee to run the office, but in the meantime it’s being led on an interim basis by Curtis Gannon, who was brought in by the new administration as the principal deputy assistant attorney general. Gannon, a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, had worked in the US solicitor general’s office since 2007.

The broad order signed Friday takes a number of actions: The order halted the entire US refugee program for 120 days; ended it indefinitely as to Syrian refugees; and blocked travelers to the United States from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen for 90 days. It caused immediate confusion as foreign-born travelers, including those with permission to come to the United States, were held at US airports, spurring protests nationwide.

In the recent past, when major immigration actions were signed, there’s been a fair amount of legal process in the lead up to the actual signature.

In November 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration, including programs that would defer deportation for potentially millions of undocumented immigrants. The legal vetting that those programs went through before they were rolled out spanned multiple federal agencies over the course of many weeks, according to former Obama administration officials involved.

The White House asked the Office of Legal Counsel for a formal opinion about several questions of law related to the proposed immigration actions, which included a program known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA, and the expansion of an earlier program for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The legal counsel’s office wrote a 33-page memorandum, which was made public. The office concluded that DAPA was lawful for parents of US citizens or lawful permanent residents, but not for the parents of individuals who benefited from DACA. A federal judge in Texas halted the 2014 executive actions pending a court challenge.

There is no such public memo explaining legal findings about Trump’s immigration order — though that isn’t necessarily unusual. The Office of Legal Counsel doesn’t always release its conclusions to the public, especially if they aren’t formal written opinions.

That the administration was in its first week doesn’t mean it didn’t have time to ask for a formal legal opinion; on Jan. 20, the office published a legal opinion that the Trump administration asked for about whether Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner could work in the White House without violating anti-nepotism laws. (Kushner could, the office concluded.)

Trump isn’t the first president to sign controversial, legally significant executive orders in his first days in office. Two days after Obama was sworn in, he signed a series of orders to close the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to prohibit the Central Intelligence Agency from using torture or other harsh interrogation techniques.

The legal vetting for those executive orders in the weeks before Obama’s inauguration was “massive and extensive,” Koh said. Koh wasn’t at the State Department yet, but said he was one of a number of legal experts consulted during the transition period about what Obama wanted to do.

The Obama administration submitted his early executive orders for review by the Office of Legal Counsel, according to former officials familiar with that process. The office didn’t publish any written opinions at the time.

The Trump administration hasn’t publicly described the type of legal review the immigration order went through before Trump signed it. The White House did not return a request for comment on Sunday evening. A senior administration official told reporters on Sunday that the “top drafters” were “the top immigration experts from Capitol Hill.” According to news reports, career employees at the Justice Department, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security said they were not consulted.

Rudy Giuliani, an adviser to Trump and former prosecutor, said in an interview with Fox News on Jan. 28 that Trump had asked him to find a way to “legally” develop an immigration policy in line with Trump’s calls during the campaign for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. Giuliani didn’t specify when the discussion with Trump took place, but said he brought in former federal judge Michael Mukasey, along with at least two members of Congress, to help with the effort. He said they focused on “danger” to the United States instead of religion.

Giuliani and Mukasey were not immediately available for comment on Sunday.

Besides the Office of Legal Counsel, other lawyers across the federal government are typically brought in to provide input on significant executive actions, according to a former senior DOJ official during the Obama administration.

Lawyers from the White House and agencies with a stake in the action, including the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department, were involved in crafting the immigration executive actions in 2014, according to a former senior Department of Homeland Security official involved in the legal review. He said that officials consulted not just with political appointees but also career government lawyers and agency employees with institutional knowledge.

“Here, the rush to get it out seems to have essentially avoided lawyers altogether,” Koh said.


Trump Ordered An Expedited Dakota Access Pipeline Review, But Feds Don't Know How Long It Will Take

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The protest camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Terray Sylvester / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The US Army Corps of Engineers doesn't know how long it will take to "expedite" its review of the Dakota Access pipeline following President Trump's executive actions last week on the topic, a lawyer from the US Department of Justice told a federal judge on Monday.

Pressed by the judge to at least provide a timeframe for when the Army Corps would know how long the review will take, the lawyer said he didn't know that either. Officials were "actively working on" responding to Trump's recent directive to speed up the review, he said.

That answer didn't satisfy the judge. US District Judge James Boasberg, who sits in the District of Columbia, ordered the government come back to court in a week, on Feb. 6, to provide an update on its schedule.

Litigation over the pipeline has been pending since July, when the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued the Army Corps of Engineers to block federal approval of the pipeline. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe later joined the court challenge.

Trump on Jan. 24 signed a presidential memorandum ordering agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers, "to expedite reviews and approvals for the remaining portions" of the pipeline. It was a departure from the Obama administration, which halted construction in December amid protests and called for an environmental review of the project.

Boasberg said on Monday that he wanted a concrete timeframe from the government to avoid a situation in which he issued a ruling, only to have the government announce a decision on the pipeline that could make his decision a non-issue. That happened last year: Boasberg denied the tribes' request to halt construction, and then the White House announced that it was stopping the pipeline from going forward.

To write another opinion and then have the government change course again "would be hardly an efficient use of resources," Boasberg said.

The company building the pipeline is also eager to find out how long the new review will take. Dakota Access LLC's attorney, David Debold, told Boasberg on Monday that they supported having the court set a deadline for the government to report on its timeline. There is "nothing like an order from a judge" to spur action, he said.

Lawyers for the pipeline also will have to come back to court next week. They are to tell the judge then what would happen if the Army Corps approves the easement needed to continue construction. A lawyer for the Standing Rock tribe told Boasberg they were worried that construction would pick up immediately once the Army Corps granted the easement, before the tribe had time to seek a court order stopping it.

Boasberg told Dakota Access LLC to tell the court by Feb. 6, when the next hearing is scheduled, how long it would take from the granting to the easement until oil was flowing through the pipeline.

Boasberg told Dakota Access LLC to give a full construction timeline to the court by the hearing, laying out the process from the granting of the easement until oil wold be flowing through the pipeline. He said he thought it was in everyone's interest to be prepared once the Army Corps made a decision.

Boasberg set the hearing for Monday, as opposed to Friday, which is what the pipeline's lawyer requested.

"A lot happens over the weekend these days," Boasberg said.

Trump Fires Acting Attorney General After She Orders Justice Lawyers Not To Defend Travel Ban

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AP Photo/J. David Ake

WASHINGTON — "Sally Yates has been relieved," White House press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted on Monday night, hours after Yates, the acting attorney general, had ordered department lawyers not to defend President Trump's refugee and travel executive order in court.

In a statement, the White House announced that Dana Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia since 2015, to serve as Acting Attorney General. According to the White House, Boente was sworn in at 9 p.m.

A few hours later, Boente rescinded Yates' letter.

The statement, from the office of the press secretary, asserts that Yates "betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States."

In a letter sent to department lawyers hours earlier, Yates had written, "[F]or as long as I am the Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order," detailing that she is "not convinced" that defending the order met with her responsibilities as head of the Justice Department "to always seek justice and stand for what is right."

The striking moves came in the wake of five district court rulings over the weekend halting enforcement of parts of the order and the evening before the Senate Judiciary Committee is due to vote on Trump's nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Acting Attorney General Dana Boente

Acting Attorney General Dana Boente

Via justice.gov

Boente was confirmed in December 2015 as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia — a jurisdiction that covers the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, Norfolk, and Richmond — a job he had previously held from 2008 to 2009 and in an acting capacity from 2013 until his confirmation. From 2012 to 2013, he served as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

An additional lawsuit against the executive order was filed by the Council on American–Islamic Relations, with another announced by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Yates took over as acting attorney general upon former Attorney General Loretta Lynch's departure from the job. She previously had been confirmed by the Senate as deputy attorney general in 2015.

One question that had been raised prior to Boente's appointment was the question of whether anyone other than Yates would be eligible under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to sign foreign surveillance warrants. Under the law, however, the "Acting Attorney General" is specifically noted as being authorized to do so, and the White House confirmed such in a pool report.

Although a succession order signed by President Obama before leaving office would have meant that Zachary Fardon — as the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois — would have been the next Senate-confirmed individual in the line of succession, it appears Trump took advantage of another provision of the current executive order — which allows the president, "to the extent permitted by law, to depart from this order in designating an acting Attorney General" — in selecting Boente.

A little more than an hour after the first report on the news from CNN, Trump did respond, on Twitter, declaring that Democrats' delaying confirmation of Trump's cabinet picks means, "Now have an Obama A.G."

However, this statement then followed about 90 minutes later:

However, this statement then followed about 90 minutes later:

Yates had worked for the Justice Department for nearly 30 years, according to her Justice Department biography, beginning as a federal prosecutor in Georgia. When nominated for the deputy attorney general post in 2015, Republican Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal backed Yates' nomination, writing:

I am particularly fond of the bipartisan support Sally has garnered over the years. Sally was hired in the United States Attorney's Office during the Reagan Administration and promoted within that office during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. She handled the high-level prosecutions of the Atlanta Olympics bomber and a former Mayor of Atlanta. Sally had shown an ability to handle sensitive matters in a way that maintains the appropriate objectivity that is required of a federal prosecutor.

Like Yates, Boente has spent his career at the Justice Department. And also similar to Yates, he was an Obama appointee in his most recent position at DOJ. During his tenure as US attorney, the office in Virginia pursued the corruption case against former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, winning a conviction that was ultimately overturned by the US Supreme Court.

Former Obama Justice Department individuals, prior to Trump's firing, had weighed in to back Yates' move.

Others found Yates' statement — reprinted in full, below — lacking.

Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel for a period in the George W. Bush administration, criticized Yates' statement, noting that she never states she had concluded that Trump's order is unconstitutional or that there were no reasonable arguments to advance in its defense — the usual standard the Justice Department uses when deciding whether to defend a law or executive action.

Read the message from Acting Attorney General Sally Yates:

Read the message from Acting Attorney General Sally Yates:

This is a developing story. Please check back at BuzzFeed News for further developments.

Wall Street Journal Editor: Stop Calling The Travel Ban Countries “Majority Muslim”

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Pool / Getty Images

Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerry Baker has instructed editors to stop referring to the countries targeted in President Trump’s travel and refugee executive order as “seven majority Muslim countries” in news coverage, a move that has irked some reporters in the paper’s Washington bureau.

“It's very loaded. The reason they've been chosen is not because they're majority Muslim but because they're on the list of countries Obama identified as countries of concern,” Baker wrote to top editors in an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The seven countries are Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

During his campaign, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” until US officials could “figure out what is going on.” The administration has maintained that the executive order is “not a Muslim ban,” but rather an effort to prevent the entry of “radical Islamic terrorists.”

“Would be less loaded to say ‘seven countries the US has designated as being states that pose significant or elevated risks of terrorism,’” Baker wrote in the email.

“We shouldn't be swallowing the administration's talking points uncritically. I get the point he was making but that's not the way to do it,” a Journal reporter said.

Following the publication of this story, a Dow Jones spokesperson emailed the following statement:

This email was part of a larger conversation discussing late breaking developments as a story was being edited on deadline. In this same email chain, Gerard Baker also pushed to include, and prominently feature, quotes from more critics of Trump's policy. Since the news broke on Friday, the Journal has accurately and thoroughly reported on the policy and will continue to do so.

Revising language and updating stories is part of breaking news. In keeping with its long tradition of fair reporting, the Journal will continue to prominently note that the suspension applies to Muslim majority nations as well as presenting the Trump administration's rationale for the action.

Baker also sent the following memo to news staff:

Given some media reports concerning some editing-related emails I sent last night, let me make a few points about our continuing coverage of President Trump's executive order on travel to the U.S.

There is no ban on the phrase "Muslim-majority country. " But we should always be careful that this term is not offered as the only description of the countries covered under the ban.

What we should do, in keeping with our long history of fair and thorough reporting, is prominently present the fact the immigration suspension applies to seven Muslim-majority countries along with the administration's rationale: an effort to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S.

We have examined and will continue to examine robustly the provenance, implications and wisdom of this executive order. We have covered and will cover the Trump administration aggressively. In addition to making some changes in last night's story, I also asked, as I often do, for the same article to include more voices of the critics of this policy.

Our published examples of our robust reporting on Trump are too numerous to detail. There is no conflict between that aggressiveness and reporting in the fair and complete manner that has been our hallmark.

Baker’s note was in response to a WSJ story posted late Monday about the White House’s firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she ordered Justice Department lawyers to not defend the executive order in court.

An updated version of the story includes the following paragraph: “The administration has said the travel ban doesn’t represent a religious test, noting there are dozens of Muslim countries that aren’t affected. Critics have denounced it as targeting Islam because the seven countries — Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen — have majority populations of Muslims. The administration notes that the seven countries were initially identified by the Obama administration as posing significant security risks.”

Note: This reporter, Steven Perlberg, most recently worked for the Wall Street Journal before joining BuzzFeed News.

Missouri Executes Man For The 1998 Murders Of A Family

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Missouri Department of Corrections via AP

Mark Christeson was executed in Missouri on Tuesday for a 1998 triple murder. Christeson, 37, was sentenced to die for killing Susan Brouk; her 12-year-old daughter, Adrian; and her 9-year-old son, Kyle.

In February 1998, Christeson and his 17-year-old accomplice, Jesse Carter, broke into Susan Brouk's home where she lived with her two young children. During the home invasion, the two bound her children, and Christeson raped Brouk at gunpoint, according to court documents. After being recognized by one of the children, Christeson told Carter, "we got to get rid of them."

They forced Brouk and her children into Brouk's car along with items they stole from her house and drove to a pond. According to court records, Christeson stood on Brouk and slit her throat. He cut 9-year-old Kyle's throat twice and drowned him in the pond. Christenson then suffocated 12-year-old Adrian to death and threw Brouk — who was still alive — into the pond along with her dead children.

Christeson's lawyers had appealed to the US Supreme Court on Monday to stop his execution on the grounds that his trial lawyers missed the one-year deadline for filing a federal court appeal — a standard procedure to grant death row inmates a post-conviction review of their death sentence.

The Supreme Court denied the request, although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that she would have granted the stay. Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens denied Christeson's request for clemency as well.

The attorneys also argued that Christeson had an IQ of 74 and that his "severe cognitive disabilities" may have prevented him from understanding his legal rights and relying entirely on his attorneys.

This argument was also the focus of Christeson's 2014 appeal to the Supreme Court which halted his execution hours before he was set to die, the Associated Press reported.

In its response to Christeson's Supreme Court appeal, Missouri said that his trial attorneys' miscalculation of the filing deadline was "not sufficient" to warrant a stay of execution.

The state last executed an inmate in May 2016, which was its only execution last year.

Trump Makes His Supreme Court Pick: Neil Gorsuch

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Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening in the East Room of the White House.

"An extraordinary resume — as good as it gets," Trump said of his nominee, noting there was no opposition to his nomination in the Senate when he was approved for his current job as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Saying he had promised a transparent process for filling the Supreme Court vacancy, presenting a list of 21 potential nominees during the campaign, Trump declared, “Millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me for president.

“I am a man of my word, I will do what I say — something that the American people have been asking for from Washington for a very, very long time,” he continued. “Today, I am keeping another promise to the American people by nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch of the United States Supreme Court [sic] to be of the United States Supreme Court.”

Gorsuch, 49, traveled to DC from Denver, where the Tenth Circuit sits. Although less high-profile than some of the other 20 names on Trump's 21-person list of potential Supreme Court nominees, Gorsuch had been one of the names conservatives have said would be a great pick.

Saying the president had entrusted him with "a most solemn assignment," Gorsuch said, "Standing here, in a house of history and acutely aware of my own imperfections, I pledge, if I am confirmed, I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the Constitution and laws of this great country."

Gorsuch is perhaps best known for siding — strongly — with Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor in the challenges brought by for-profit and nonprofit entities, respectively, to the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act.

"The towering judges that have served in this particular seat of the Supreme Court, including Antonin Scalia and Robert Jackson, are much in my mind at this moment," Gorsuch said, with Scalia's wife, Maureen, in attendance at the White House ceremony. Calling Scalia a "lion," Gorsuch noted how well Scalia was thought of among his high court colleagues, and adding, "Like them, I miss him."

Via whitehouse.gov

Gorsuch originally came to Washington, DC, as a child when his mother, Ann Gorsuch Burford, was named to head the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan. After Harvard Law School, Gorsuch clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the DC Circuit and then-retired Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy. After a decade in private practice, Gorsuch briefly worked in the Justice Department before being nominated to his current seat on the 10th Circuit.

Gorsuch's wife, Louise, was with him and at his side at Tuesday night's ceremony. He added that his daughters were watching the announcement on TV.

Notably, Gorsuch highlighted a portion of his judicial philosophy — one that dovetails closely with the man whose seat he would take if confirmed — in his brief remarks.

"I respect ... that in our legal order, it is for Congress, and not the courts, to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people's representatives," Gorsuch said. Echoing comments often made by Scalia, he added, "A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is likely a bad judge— stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands."

In addition to his positions on religious liberty, Gorsuch also has written a book and done significant other writing on the topic of assisted suicide. In addition, he has laid out important views on law in more arcane, but nonetheless key, areas involving administrative law — a crucial issue as Trump's administration begins taking significant executive actions — and the so-called "Dormant Commerce Clause," which limits state actions hurting out-of-state commerce.

The nomination is coming 50 weeks after Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly, leaving the court for almost a year with only eight members. Although President Obama soon thereafter nominated Judge Merrick Garland — the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit — to fill the vacancy, Senate Republicans refused to consider the nomination, saying the matter would be left to the winner of November’s election.

The result was a somewhat lower-profile court over the past year that took fewer cases and also reached a series of 4–4 tie votes — split decisions that left lower court decisions in place but did not create a national precedent.

Now, however, in the midst of a nationwide debate over Trump’s refugee and travel ban executive order and 24 hours after he fired the acting attorney general for directing Justice Department attorneys not to defend the executive order, Trump presented his nominee for the Supreme Court to the nation.

Later — and unsurprisingly — the president checked in on Twitter.

The runner-up, Hardiman, 51, has sat on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for just less than a decade. Prior to that, he served on a federal trial court for nearly four years. Described recently by SCOTUSblog's Amy Howe as a "dark horse" possibility for Trump's nomination initially, he had become one of the clear front-runners in recent weeks.

Hardiman has laid out a solid conservative record on the Second Amendment that would fit with the significant attention Trump gave to gun rights during any campaign discussion of the high court. Hardiman does not have the background of many of his would-be colleagues on the high court — although he also previously spent time in DC at Georgetown Law School and as a young lawyer. As the Washington Post detailed in a profile of the judge, "He was the first in his family to graduate from college, did not attend an Ivy League law school and helped pay for his education by driving a taxi." He does, however, serve on the 3rd Circuit with the president's sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry.

Trump also had considered Judge William Pryor from the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit for the current vacancy, although his chances of getting the nomination appeared to diminish in recent weeks.

LINK: Gorsuch Would Join The Supreme Court’s Millionaires’ Club If He’s Confirmed

LINK: Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Determined That A Badly Botched Execution Was An ‘Innocent Misadventure’

LINK: Gorsuch Might Play Key Role In Cellphone Privacy Issues If Confirmed To The Supreme Court

LINK: Gorsuch Considered The Criminal Case Of An Undocumented Immigrant In His First Opinion


States And Advocacy Groups Fearing Trump Changes Make Quick Moves To Join Obama-Era Cases

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Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Within 24 hours of President Trump's executive order on immigration taking effect on Friday, legal challenges were filed in federal courts nationwide, and opponents promised more to come against that order and other parts of Trump's agenda.

But a separate, quieter legal fight against the White House's agenda was already underway. In the days after Trump's inauguration, Democratic state attorneys general, members of Congress, and civil rights groups went to court asking judges for permission to intervene in pending cases to defend positions they fear the new administration will step away from.

The cases at issue to date touch on the environment, sex discrimination, for-profit colleges, and consumer protection. The would-be intervenors argue that the Justice Department and agency lawyers may now no longer represent their interests, pointing to Trump's pledges to roll back federal regulations and undo the Obama administration's policies.

If their efforts are successful, it means that those cases wouldn't end if the Justice Department or other agency involved decides to withdraw, switch sides, or otherwise adjust their position.

Andrew Bradt, an expert on civil case procedure at UC Berkeley School of Law, said he couldn't recall a previous presidential transition period that so quickly saw so much action in court. As the Trump administration has swiftly moved on its policy agenda, opponents have had to act fast, he said.

"We’re not dealing in a world where various interest groups have had time to strategize a litigation approach. Rather, we have a bit of a free for all. And when there’s a free for all, that’s when intervention makes sense, because courts want to make sure that all of the relevant parties have a seat at the table," Bradt said.

The intervention requests filed to date are largely preemptive. The Justice Department and other agency lawyers involved haven't made any announcements about whether they plan to change their litigation posture. But the lawyers seeking to intervene argue that Trump and his advisers have said and done enough to convince them that they needed to step in right away.

"There is a real concern about whether the new administration is going to continue to defend regulations and other laws that were passed during the Obama administration ... Where there are legal challenges to these rules, they are entitled to a zealous defense," said Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. The center is representing two Democratic lawmakers seeking to intervene in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, which was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform package.

There is precedent for other parties stepping in to defend litigation when the White House and Justice Department change course. In one especially high-profile example, House Republicans said they would defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court after the Obama administration announced it would no longer do so. The US Supreme Court struck down the law in June 2013.

To intervene, parties have to show that they have a concrete interest in the outcome of the case that the existing litigants wouldn't adequately represent.

Requests to intervene tied to the new administration have been filed in at least four federal court cases since Trump took office. In two of the cases, lawyers for the government had asked judges to push back deadlines to give them time to coordinate with the new administration. In the other two cases, the government hasn't filed anything acknowledging the change in administration.

CONSUMER PROTECTION: Three groups have separately asked to intervene in the Consumer Financial Protection Board case, which is being litigated in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. A three-judge panel ruled in October that the board's single-director structure was unconstitutional. On Nov. 18, the board — represented by its own in-house lawyers, not the Justice Department — asked a full sitting of the court to rehear the case. The Justice Department filed a brief in support. The court has yet to decide if it will grant that request.

On Jan. 23, state attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia asked to intervene. They wrote that "there is reason to believe that the new administration will not maintain its defense of the CFPB." It was possible, they said, that Trump would replace the director appointed by Obama, Richard Cordray, and replace him with "a person with a different policy agenda." Days later, two Democratic members of Congress — Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Maxine Waters — filed a request to intervene in the CFPB case, as did a group of public interest organizations and other entities with a connection to the board.

The Consumer Financial Protection Board and the Justice Department haven't responded to the intervention requests, but the companies that brought the original challenge oppose it. They filed papers on Jan. 27 arguing the court should deny the intervention request because it was filed after the deadline and the states failed to show that they had a direct interest in the outcome of the case.

ENVIRONMENT: In another case in the DC Circuit, involving a challenge to new greenhouse gas emissions standards for large trucks and other medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, a group of eight state attorneys general filed papers on Jan. 23 asking to intervene.

The motion didn't explicitly reference the Trump administration, but the states wrote that although their interests at the moment appeared to align with those of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "that has not always been the case in the past and may not always be the case in the future."

EDUCATION: On Jan. 24, five states and the District of Columbia asked to intervene in a case before the US District Court for the District of Columbia involving a major accreditor of for-profit schools, Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. The company is challenging the US Department of Education's decision to no longer recognize it.

In a statement, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said that her office had intervened in the emissions case, the for-profit schools case, and the Consumer Financial Protection Board case to protect against "rollbacks by the Trump administration."

CIVIL RIGHTS: In the Sixth Circuit, which sits in Cincinnati, the American Civil Liberties Union on Jan. 26 filed a request to intervene in a sex discrimination case that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought against a funeral home. The ACLU, representing the transgender woman at the heart of the case, wrote in its motion that given the change in administration, their client "was reasonably concerned that the EEOC may no longer adequately represent her interests going forward."

One pre-inauguration attempt to intervene in a pending case was rejected. In December, two individuals who said they benefitted from the Affordable Care Act asked to intervene in a challenge brought by congressional Republicans to how a piece of the health care law was funded. A federal district judge ruled in favor of Republicans in May 2016, but put her ruling on hold pending an appeal. The Justice Department took the case to the DC Circuit.

A three-judge panel denied the intervention request on Jan. 12 in a one-paragraph order, writing that the would-be intervenors had "not demonstrated that they are entitled to intervene in this case." The court cited a 1994 case that laid out the standard for intervening, but didn't specify which factors weren't satisfied.

A lawyer familiar with the case told BuzzFeed News that it was possible the DC Circuit felt the request was premature, but that the challengers could make another attempt to join the case if "circumstances change." Trump has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and signed an executive order on Jan. 20 ordering the executive branch to "minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the" law in the meantime.

Gorsuch Would Join The Supreme Court Millionaires' Club If He's Confirmed

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Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for the US Supreme Court, would join the high court’s millionaires' club if he’s confirmed. A review of his latest financial disclosure report shows an extensive set of financial holdings.

But Gorsuch would differ from some of his new colleagues in that he doesn’t own stock in any individual companies. Corporate holdings have forced justices to recuse from cases in the past. In January, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. withdrew from a case he heard arguments in in December after realizing he owned stock in a company involved.

Gorsuch, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit since 2006, will have to continue filing financial disclosures if he’s confirmed, but he won’t have to follow other rules that apply to lower court judges.

For instance, the justices don’t have to separately report privately-funded seminars they attend that are specifically geared towards judges — events that judicial watchdogs contend are problematic because they give interest groups an opportunity to present information to judges on issues that could come up in litigation. (The change, if the past is any guide, likely won’t make a big difference for Gorsuch, who did not report attending any privately funded seminars since at least 2014.)

More broadly, however, the justices are not bound to follow the Code of Conduct for US Judges, a set of ethics rules that build on federal laws addressing conflicts of interest on the bench. The justices have said that they adhere to the rules, but they aren’t required to do so.

Gabe Roth, head of the court watchdog group Fix the Court, said in a recent report about ethics rules and the Supreme Court that “whoever President Trump nominates to fill the high court vacancy will have more responsibility yet less accountability.”

According to the latest financial disclosure report that Gorsuch filed in August, which covers his finances in 2015, he has few financial entanglements that could create conflicts of interest with cases if he’s confirmed. He teaches at the University of Colorado Law School, earning an annual salary of $26,000; federal judges are allowed to teach and earn income for doing so, subject to certain amount restrictions.

Gorsuch’s reported financial assets in 2015 were worth at least $3.3 million. The actual number could be much higher, since judges report the value of their financial holdings in ranges. Those assets included a brokerage account, retirement fund, IRA account, and a money management account that held a number of municipal bonds.

Gorsuch said he didn’t accept any gifts in 2015, and had no financial liabilities. A member of the bar in Colorado since 1994, he has no history of disciplinary action.

Gorsuch took just two trips in 2015 where his host paid for his travel expenses. He went to Renaissance Weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a retreat that takes a place a few times a year for “innovators” in various fields across the political spectrum, including the law, according to its website. He also traveled to London to participate in a legal exchange through the American College of Trial Lawyers, a professional organization.

His disclosure reports in recent years show that he rarely took the type of paid-for travel that would require reporting. In 2012 and 2013, he attended the annual convention of the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers group.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat Gorsuch would fill, was a frequent traveler, reporting numerous trips where his expenses were paid for by outside groups each year. He died while visiting a ranch owned by John Poindexter, according to news reports at the time, who also owns the manufacturing company J.B. Poindexter & Co. Months before Scalia’s trip, the Supreme Court considered but ultimately declined to hear a case that involved J.B. Poindexter.

Scalia’s stay at the ranch highlighted gaps in the financial disclosure rules, since although rooms at the ranch sell for several hundred dollars a night, the federal Ethics in Government Act doesn’t require public officials to report “personal hospitality” from the owner of a property.


Congressman Says Trump Could Be Impeached If He Overstepped Authority On Travel Ban

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Mike Segar / Reuters

Rep. Joaquin Castro warned Tuesday that if the White House has ordered the US Customs and Border Protection Agency to ignore judicial stays against the controversial refugee travel ban, Congress must begin the process of formally censuring — and potentially impeaching — President Donald Trump.

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, the Texas Democrat also joined other Democrats including Senate Assistant Minority Leader Dick Durbin in calling for Congress to “investigate whether President Trump intentionally exceeded his constitutional authority.” They argue that if he has, Congress must take steps to censure or ultimately impeach Trump, warning the country risks essentially becoming a “military junta.”

CBP spokesperson Gillian Christensen denied the agency was directed to ignore court orders halting enforcement of the executive order.

“CBP officers are not detaining anyone. Green card holders who arrive in the U.S. have to go through secondary screening but that process is working smoothly and relatively quickly," Christensen said. "Furthermore, visa holders who would be affected by the executive order are being denied boarding at their point of departure so they are not even making it into the U.S.”

Christensen also pointed to a Monday statement by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in which he insisted “since the court orders related to the executive order were issued over the weekend, CBP immediately began taking immediately began taking steps to be in compliance. We are and will remain in compliance with judicial orders.”

Despite those assurances, questions remain. Throughout the weekend immigration attorneys accused CBP agents at airports of attempting to deport people, refusing them access to clients, or generally ignoring all or portions of the various court orders halting the executive order.

Combined with an administration that has difficulty with the truth, Democrats remain skeptical. If the White House has indeed directed CBP to ignore the rulings, “there should be a resolution of censure. And if he does it again, there should be articles of impeachment,” Castro said.

Castro said he is increasingly concerned with Trump’s consolidation of power within the White House. “There’s no longer any checks and balances,” Castro said, adding that if Trump is indeed flouting court orders, “you’re basically living in a military junta.”

Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Determined That A Badly Botched Execution Was An ‘Innocent Misadventure’

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Carolyn Kaster / AP

Judge Neil Gorsuch has been front and center as Oklahoma’s death penalty process has been repeatedly called into question in recent years, hearing key cases at the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit over the state’s handling of executions — and siding with the government.

Just a few months ago, Gorsuch — now President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court — ruled against the estate of a man who was executed in one of the worst botched lethal injections in US history. Gorsuch and two other judges ruled that it was an “innocent misadventure” or an “isolated mishap,” but not cruel and unusual punishment.

In that case, Clayton Lockett’s estate sued the state of Oklahoma for constitutional violations in his 43-minute execution. Lockett was given a controversial sedative called midazolam, then two drugs that cause immense pain: a paralytic and a drug to stop the heart.

After he was injected with the drugs, Lockett raised himself on the gurney and said, “Shit is fucking with me.” Executioners had thought he was already dead.

Members of the state’s execution team examined his IV, which was set up near his groin and covered by a blanket. When they moved the blanket, they discovered the IV had infiltrated, creating swelling between the size of a golf ball and tennis ball. The drugs weren’t going into his veins like they were supposed to.

The prison warden called it a “bloody mess.” The state attempted to call off the execution 30 minutes in, but Lockett died anyway 10 minutes later.

“Everyone acknowledges that Lockett suffered during his execution,” Judge Gregory Phillips wrote in a ruling against his estate, which Gorsuch signed onto.

“Here, the Amended Complaint describes exactly the sort of ‘innocent misadventure’ or ‘isolated mishap’ that” a prior Supreme Court case “excuses from the definition of cruel and unusual punishment,” the court wrote. “Thus, Lockett’s suffering did not run afoul of the Eighth Amendment.”

The judges ruled that Oklahoma was not “deliberately indifferent” in the execution.

“Simply put, the Eighth Amendment does not require ‘the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions.’”

After Lockett’s botched execution, Oklahoma was allowed to try again in another execution. The state used the wrong drug on an inmate, and his last words were that his body felt like it was on fire.

Months later, the state nearly made the same mistake again — a step that led a grand jury to begin investigating the state’s mistakes. This past year, the grand jury concluded that most corrections employees “profoundly misunderstood” what they were supposed to be doing during the lethal injection. “Although some [executioners] … were able to intelligently testify regarding the Protocol, the majority simply could not,” the report found.

The state’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt, said that some executioners were “careless, cavalier and in some circumstances dismissive of established procedures that were intended to guard against the very mistakes that occurred.” (Pruitt is now Trump’s nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency.)

Years before these mistakes happened, Gorsuch was one of the judges who upheld the use of midazolam as an execution sedative, as well as Oklahoma’s execution procedures.

The inmates “have failed to establish that the use of midazolam in their executions, either because of its inherent characteristics or its possible negligent administration, creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain,” Judge Mary Briscoe wrote in an opinion that Gorsuch joined.

At that time, the drug midazolam had already been used in other botched executions, including a nearly two-hour execution in Arizona.

Oklahoma’s expert, Dr. Lee Evans, did not cite scholarly research, but instead relied on the website Drugs.com which carries the disclaimer that it is “not intended for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.”

The inmates’ attorneys alleged Evans made several mistakes in his testimony.

“Although plaintiffs point to what they perceive as a number of errors in Dr. Evans’ testimony,” the 10th Circuit judges wrote, “we conclude these errors were not sufficiently serious to render unreliable Dr. Evans’ testimony regarding the likely effect of a 500 milligram dose of midazolam, or to persuade us that the district court’s decision to admit Dr. Evans’ testimony amounted to an abuse of discretion.”

The US Supreme Court agreed in 2015.

Since then, there have been several problematic executions in which the drug has been used. In one Alabama execution, the inmate had his eye open throughout the lethal injection. In another, the inmate heaved and coughed and clenched his fists.

Tom Steyer Moves Beyond Climate

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Steyer in 2013.

Isaac Brekken / Getty Images

Tom Steyer wants to be the guy to take on Donald Trump — and not just on climate.

The billionaire will expand the focus of his environmental political advocacy group, NextGen Climate Action, to fund initiatives and candidates with an eye to issues well beyond the realm of climate change, Steyer said in an interview on Tuesday.

The 59-year-old Steyer, a San Francisco hedge fund manager and possible contender for next year’s California governor’s race, said he made the decision to broaden his reach in response to Trump and to a legislative agenda he described as “deplorable” and “a barrage against the basic fabric of American society.”

The exact contours of NextGen’s transition, Steyer said, will be determined by what he hears in response to a video he released Tuesday to solicit ideas from activists like the millions who attended marches over inauguration weekend. “We want to know what matters most to you, and what should be done,” he says in the clip.

An aide described Steyer’s goal as “crowdsourcing the resistance.” After some time, the aide said, Steyer plans to unveil his plans for a reimagined NextGen.

Speaking by phone from California, Steyer outlined possible changes that could make NextGen a group with diverse aims: organizing a network of nationwide activists, registering voters, forming alliances with other liberal groups — while still investing millions in progressive candidates, as Steyer did in 2014 and 2016.

“The point of that video is to say look, we should be listening,” said Steyer, who attended marches after Trump’s inauguration in Oakland and San Francisco. “This isn’t just a talk-down speaking exercise. This is a bottom-up listening exercise.”

Asked if he has concerns about widening beyond climate — particularly when so few leaders in the party make it their top political priority — Steyer said that under the new Trump administration, progressives cannot consider causes in isolation.

“All of these issues are merging. There is a concerted attack from the administration and their allies against what we think of as basic American rights. It’s a barrage, honestly. It’s been a barrage against Americans and American rights."

“It would be a mistake to try to silo issues,” he said. “The response has to be much broader.”

The video released by Steyer on Tuesday.

Via youtube.com

The move comes amid a larger debate among Democrats over whether to pick battles strategically under Trump, or to "oppose everything" he puts forward — a posture advocated by much of the party's base. Steyer suggested that he falls in the latter category. “The way that Trump wins is not because we’re going to agree with him — we’re not," he said. "It’s when we acquiesce to him. That’s how we lose.”

NextGen's initiatives in the last election already signaled a possible move beyond climate. Over 2015 and 2016, aides said, Steyer's group led a multimillion-dollar effort to register 1 million voters and organize on 370 college campuses.

“Our mission statement has always included promoting prosperity,” Steyer said. “We’ve always felt that to separate climate — and to not put it in the context of American jobs, American wages, and American health — was a mistake.”

Steyer gave more than $87 million to liberal causes during the 2016 election, making him the largest individual contributor — Democrat or Republican — to fund federal candidates, parties, super PACs, and so-called 527 organizations.

He has said since there’s “no limit” to what he’s willing to spend to fight Trump.

Though he is the party’s single biggest donor, Steyer’s efforts to elevate candidates who embrace his views on climate have yet to yield sweeping victories. In 2014, a year of Democratic losses across the map, four of NextGen’s nine candidates failed. And in 2016, three of seven NextGen-backed candidates fell short to Republicans.

Steyer is still considering a bid to replace Jerry Brown as governor in 2018.

It was two years ago this month that Barbara Boxer announced her retirement from the U.S. Senate, setting off three days of intense deliberation among ambitious California Democrats over who would vie for the seat in 2016 and who would wait for a governor’s race in 2018. Steyer considered running, asking his team to commission polling and assess his viability, but bowed out of the competition. (The former state attorney general, Sen. Kamala Harris, now occupies Boxer’s seat.)

In recent interviews, Steyer has suggested that Trump's victory altered his calculations on the governor's race. On Tuesday, he indicated that while “circumstances have changed,” electoral politics is still on his mind.

"There is a very broad-based attack on fundamental American rights," he said. "Anything I decide to do personally has got to be made in that context. And it will be."

Nancy Pelosi Says Democrats "Have A Responsibility" To Find "Common Ground" With Trump

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Pool / Getty Images

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi signaled openness Tuesday to working with President Trump on parts of his policy agenda, marking a break with activists and progressives hoping for top-to-bottom opposition from the party.

During a CNN town hall broadcast live from Washington on Tuesday night, Pelosi suggested Democrats might be able to cooperate with Trump on two initiatives in particular: infrastructure investment and legislation aimed at child care costs.

"If we can build infrastructure — our roads, our bridges, our broadband, our water systems, etc., high speed rail, mass transit — let's find a way to do that together. We can find ways to work family-and-work balance, as he said in the campaign was a priority, let's do that," Pelosi said.

The veteran California congresswoman recalled working with the last Republican president, George W. Bush, on various initiatives such as HIV/AIDS and poverty even as she vociferously opposed him on the Iraq war and Social Security policy.

"We respect that he's the president," she said. "We want to work together."

During his campaign, in one of a handful of policy announcements, Trump identified child care as families' "single largest expense" and an area where "very little policy work has been done." He proposed tax deductions for child care costs, diverging from the tax credit-style plans proposed by Democrats and some Republicans.

In a phone call with Trump after the election, Pelosi discussed the issue with the president, the New York Times reported. (Trump, according to the Times, handed the phone to his daughter Ivanka Trump, who may champion the issue herself.)

Trump also came into office promising a massive infrastructure bill. The other top-ranking Democrat in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, has also identified the effort as an opportunity to collaborate, saying that Democrats should look to collaborate when their "values" align with Trump's.

“We're not going to oppose things just because Trump's name is on it,” Schumer told the TODAY show in an interview on the morning of the inauguration.

Following Trump's first week in office — a tumultuous seven days that brought a sweep of executive orders including a controversial ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries — those who make up the Democratic Party's base have demanded a far less conciliatory approach.

Pelosi's televised event began shortly after Trump revealed Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court. The announcement set off a debate among Democrats over whether the party should attempt to block Gorsuch, as Republicans did with former president Barack Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.

Earlier on Tuesday evening, protesters assembled near Schumer's home in Brooklyn to demand a firm line against the president's appointees and legislative agenda.

The prominent Democratic operative David Brock described the new divide in the party as between those who want to "oppose everything" and those willing to pick battles — replacing Democrats' "ideological factionalism of the past," as he put it.

Throughout the CNN town hall, Pelosi was largely critical of Trump, denouncing his refugee and travel ban, his plan to build a wall across the southern border, and his rhetoric. She also described his Supreme Court decision as a "hostile appointment."

Addressing the question of whether Democrats should work with Trump more broadly, however, Pelosi said, "Where we can engage, we certainly will. We have that responsibility to the American people, to find our common ground."

Still, forecasting the next big fight ahead, she added: "Where we will draw the line is if he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act."

Republicans Have Pushed Two Trump Nominees Through Committee After A Democratic Boycott

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Rep. Tom Price.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Democrats boycotted a committee vote on two of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees for a second day on Wednesday morning, in an attempt to delay the nominations of Rep. Tom Price and Steven Mnuchin. But Republicans, fed up after two days of sitting in a half-empty hearing room, moved to change committee rules and passed both nominations on their own, sending them to the Senate floor for a final vote.

Senate Finance Committee Orrin Hatch’s move to bypass a full committee vote including members of both parties is unusual, though he argued Wednesday that Tuesday’s boycott was unusual as well.

“We took some unprecedented actions today due to the unprecedented obstruction on the part of our colleagues,” Hatch said. “As I noted earlier, the Senate Finance Committee has traditionally been able to function in even the most divisive political environments. That all changed yesterday.”

Democrats object to both Price’s nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Services and Mnuchin’s nomination for Secretary of the Treasury, but with just 51 votes now needed to pass them on the floor of the Senate (where Republicans control 52 votes), both are likely to pass anyway.

Still, Democrats boycotted both hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to slow down the nominations, hoping to get at least two Republicans to change their minds on Price and Mnuchin.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the leading Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has lead the charge, raising questions about whether Price used legislation to benefit financially from his shares in healthcare companies and whether Mnuchin lied in written testimony to senators about the foreclosure practices conducted by a mortgage lender when he was CEO.

Hatch’s move to push the nominees through committee comes after Senate Democrats on the committee wrote a letter to Hatch Wednesday morning, asking for Price and Mnuchin to answers those questions.

“Finance Republicans just broke their own rules to jam Pres. Trump’s nominees for HHS & Treasury through despite concerning new information,” Sen. Maria Cantwell said in a tweet after the vote.

Hatch said Wednesday that part of his justification for moving forward with both nominees is the need for the Trump administration to have both a Treasury Secretary and a HHS Secretary in place, as the party works to repeal and replace Obamacare. “[This is] the longest transition period without a confirmed treasury secretary in our nation’s history,” Hatch said.

The Senate will vote on final confirmation for secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson Wednesday afternoon. Votes on Price and Mnuchin could come later this week.

LINK: Senate Democrats Boycott Key Committee Votes On Trump Nominees

Trump World — Including Steve Bannon — Is Already Looking At The 2018 Midterms

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Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Well before President Trump’s inauguration, his top adviser Steve Bannon met with a few top-tier donors — the kind of donors capable of writing million-dollar checks.

The message, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversations, was that Bannon wants to use the 2018 midterm elections as the arena to test the political clout of Trump’s populist message.

“The days of [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell picking Republican nominees in Senate races are over,” sources familiar with the meetings said Bannon told donors. He also mentioned the US Chamber of Commerce as declining in influence, according to one of those sources.

Bannon did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. After publication, a source close to Bannon told BuzzFeed News said he did not say that.

The former chairman of far-right news website Breitbart was light on specifics and didn't say which 2018 Senate races he had in mind, according to the sources familiar with the conversations. But he encouraged donors to starting giving to the outside entity created by Trump allies that was still taking shape at the time.

The group, a nonprofit called America First, officially launched this week.

America First will focus on issue advocacy, but could eventually direct fire on congressional Republicans who defy Trump’s agenda. The group will be run by Brad Parscale — who is close with Jared Kushner and served as digital director during the campaign — and strategists Nick Ayers, Rick Gates, and Marty Obst. Others from the campaign, David Bossie and Katrina Pierson, will also be part of the group.

“President Trump campaigned on a bold but basic concept: America First,” the group’s leaders said in a joint statement. “This is a concept the American people both understand and support, but few in the media recognize and many politicians beholden to special interests will oppose. We will provide the counterbalance.”

As Trump takes office, associates and former aides have put together a constellation of outside groups — mostly with the express agenda of advancing the policy aims of a president who has swiftly indicated he will try to do what he promised to do. That could put more traditional Republicans — and donors, especially those who sat out the 2016 election — in a tense spot.

Several of those donors are now looking for places to put their money to show they're on the Trump train, albeit belatedly. But not everyone’s convinced that the America First group is the way to go. They were more excited when they thought Kellyanne Conway was going to be running the group, for one thing. And even inside the Trump administration, there’s some skepticism about the likely effectiveness of the group. (A similar effort by Obama aides — Organizing for America — never delivered much politically.) Already, GOP mega-donors Bob and Rebekah Mercer are considering cutting ties with America First, Politico recently reported.

Other Trump-affiliated groups are also ramping up for 2018 and competing for dollars with America First and other GOP groups. Great America Alliance, a nonprofit, and Great America PAC, a super PAC that spent nearly $27 million on behalf of Trump in 2016, will back Trump’s agenda and candidates who back those policy priorities. On the same day that America First launched, the group announced it was bringing on Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. The former New York mayor helped the super PAC with fundraising last year.

Aaron Manaigo, an adviser to Great America Alliance, said efforts were already underway to put resources into ensuring the confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, and issue advocacy. A high-level official who has worked with the group said that effort would primarily focus on the 10 Democratic senators facing re-election in states where Trump won. The group will “absolutely” target Republicans if any prove unsupportive of the president’s agenda, the official said, but also acknowledged Republicans will “get a lot more leeway.”

“The idea is to only go there if we really had to,” he added.

There’s also the understanding inside and outside the White House that a single Trump tweet about a policy or a congressional race could make the work of these groups irrelevant.

The Great America groups have no plans to get involved in candidate recruitment for now, and will focus primarily on Senate races, not House races. That could change if Trump decides to personally put his finger on the scale in any race. “If he does, we’ll follow his lead,” the official said, but cautioned: “I wouldn’t say that we expect him to get down into this.”

The unpredictability of Trump, and his orbit, has left operatives and candidates in a state of uncertainty, able only to guess at what might await them in a primary.

The stakes could be highest, say Republicans watching this unfold, for Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who was one of the most vocal critics of Trump during the campaign. In a closed-door meeting between Trump and GOP senators last year, Flake reportedly confronted the now-president about his divisive rhetoric. Trump in turn threatened Flake and told him he would lose his re-election. He wasn’t up that year.

But he is up in 2018. Conservative outside groups, who have backed Flake in the past, are growing increasingly concerned about him, especially since he had only $594,000 in his campaign coffers as of his most recent report at the end of September, a pittance for a candidate who could face a serious primary and general. Although he is in good standing with those based on his voting record, outside groups are still deciding if they want to go all-in on him in a primary and potentially go up against Trump or just sit it out.

“Flake needs to help himself first,” said a top official of a major conservative group, saying the senator needs to pick up his fundraising and try to keep a lower profile on issues he disagrees with Trump on.

People “aren’t right now real happy with Sen. Flake,” said Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, who briefly weighed a primary run against Flake before ruling it out 24 hours later. “I think you ought to be starting to work in concert with the nominee. He obviously touched a nerve within the country; that’s a little more than our two senators have been part of, and I think that they need to jump on board and start helping out instead of creating a problem,” Gosar told BuzzFeed News.

Sens. Tim Kaine and Jeff Flake on Capitol Hill in 2015.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Flake already has one primary challenger: Former state senator Kelli Ward, who unsuccessfully primaried Sen. John McCain last year, announced her intentions to take on Flake in October.

A close Trump ally, Arizona state treasurer Jeff DeWit, is still mulling a challenge. Days after Trump’s win, Breitbart touted a poll that showed DeWit leading Flake and suggesting that Flake could “pay a price for his opposition to Trump.” DeWit has hinted he’s spoken with Trump about a challenge, but hasn’t made a decision. Not all Trump allies are convinced DeWit is the right candidate, however, and a source said although it might be hard to convince Trump of that, there’s a quiet effort to push DeWit away from the Senate bid. Politico recently reported DeWit is considering a job within the administration.

And here’s where the particularly difficult calculus starts: Backing DeWit would put these Trump-allied groups at odds with Republican institutions like the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican Party arm charged with electing Republicans to the Senate. The NRSC has vociferously defended incumbent senators against primary challengers for the past two cycles, and will continue to do so this cycle. That means everything from organization to significant amounts of money.

Some Republican campaign veterans wonder just how much power those in Trump’s orbit will be able to exert. Trump’s campaign may have broken the conventional mold, but there is skepticism that such a model is transferrable — especially in down-ballot races where name recognition reigns supreme, and many of the “establishment”-style candidates of yore have already been ousted in the last decade of tea party–inspired primaries.

“Just because somebody has Trump’s support, doesn’t mean they’re Trump,” said one Republican strategist.

Ward in Arizona, for instance, has already cast herself as the Trump-like candidate in 2018, as she did against McCain last summer. But she struggled with fundraising — even with a large cash infusion from the Mercers.

Another Trump ally, conservative media star Laura Ingraham, recently said she was considering challenging Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine. Ingraham’s closeness to Trump and Kaine’s spot on the Democratic presidential ticket last year could make the Virginia race ripe for involvement from Trump allies. “Intuitively, she’s been part of the outsider theme” that helped propel Trump to victory, said Virginia GOP Rep. Dave Brat, a close ally of Ingraham’s, though he professed no insider knowledge of whether Trump-world might get involved. But, he said, “I would think that the themes line up pretty well.”

But Virginia’s a tough state for Trump acolytes. The state’s elections tend to be decided by the affluent northern part of the state, and a number of other prominent Republicans have been talked about as possible candidates in that race, including Carly Fiorina and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. Ingraham has a large megaphone with her radio show, but she does not have the connections to the state that other candidates do.

If Trump and his allies decide to play in primaries, they could have more success making a mark in House races, smaller markets where the monetary support and name recognition that could come with Trump’s tacit support could go a long way. Trump’s initial foray into an internal Republican conflict was on an even smaller scale: the Ohio GOP chairman’s race, a contest decided by the 66 members of the Ohio GOP central committee.

“If you’re looking at state GOP chairs, then I think our expectation would be that they’re probably going to start looking at House races too at some point,” said Club for Growth communications director Doug Sachtleben. “Nothing’s a surprise right now.”

Conventional wisdom runs that the president is unlikely to get involved in something so small as a House or Senate primary. On the other hand, who really knows anything?

“I’d be surprised and disappointed if Donald Trump is wasting his time meddling in state of Ohio leadership politics,” state Sen. David Goodman, a member of the Ohio GOP state central committee who backed Trump’s preferred candidate in the race, told BuzzFeed News on Dec. 30.

Six days later, Trump was making personal calls to lobby for his pick. She’s now the chair of the Ohio Republican Party.

Congress Is Also Very Stressed About How Intense All This Trump News Is

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Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — If you’re working to keep up with what’s happening every day, you are not alone.

“At midnight I’m checking all the stories, and I’m doing the same at 6 a.m. so I can make sure I’m up to speed with what may or may not happen,” said North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows.

Welcome to the new normal in Washington, D.C., where in less than two weeks, Trump signed a sweeping executive order that barred refugees; implementation difficulties and protests ensued; he fired the acting attorney general, after she refused to defend it; the White House press secretary said the president believed voter fraud cost him the popular vote; the president announced his intention to investigate said voter fraud; the White House, president, much of the press, spent days talking about inauguration crowd size; and about 16 other things.

So it is, with a mix of “excitement and nervousness,” as one House GOP staffer put it, the Republican conference greets the deluge.

Hill Republicans have been walking around elated at the opportunity this election afforded them: In control of both houses of Congress and the presidency, they look certain to be able to pass the agenda they have only been able to talk about for the past eight years. But the only certainty of the first 13 days of Donald Trump’s presidency has been the utter lack of certainty.

“What a mess,” griped a second House Republican staffer earlier this week, as the dust continued to settle in the wake of the rocky roll out of the travel ban — replete with protests, outside members’ D.C. offices, and in their home districts. Republicans on the Hill are just trying to keep up.

The immigration order, in particular, caught a number of members flat-footed. Republicans were slow to release statements, with few saying anything publicly before Sunday. “Predictably, every Republican in Congress was immediately asked about it, and they didn’t have basic information to understand the policy let alone go advocate for it,” said Alex Conant, a Republican consultant and the former communications director for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “So it’s hard to be a surrogate without talking points. It’s hard to have a well thought out position without knowing basic facts.”

Trump’s policy-making as president is coming as fast and furious as his tweets. Policy prescriptions are far less easy to ignore than a tweet, and that has left Hill Republicans trying to figure out how to respond appropriately.

“We by no means want to start by commenting on everything he does,” said a third House GOP staffer, of how they were dealing with this. Republicans, he said, “don’t know whether one day he’s going to be the savior of the Republican Party and the next day bring the Dark Ages back.”

There are continued efforts at normalcy. At a press conference Tuesday, the top House Republicans spoke calmly and seriously about repealing Obamacare and passing the Congressional Review Act. It was as though there was nothing else happening — until the speeches ended and the questions from reporters began.

Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Stivers, who chairs the House Republican campaign arm, brushed off the turbulence. “I’ve been in the military 32 years, and there’s always distractions; you just need to focus on your mission,” he told BuzzFeed News.

The upside, say some Republicans, is that with the attention focused elsewhere, they can focus on the unglamorous work like writing bills. That is especially true for House Republicans, who have some time on their hands as they wait for the Senate to work its way through cabinet confirmations and, now, a Supreme Court nomination fight, before they can focus their attention on things like Obamacare repeal and tax policy.

"I actually think that the leaders in both houses are doing a very good job focusing on moving important big ticket items, not chasing the story of the day but putting one foot in front of the other to make it progress,” said Michael Steel, who served as press secretary for former House Speaker John Boehner.

The question is just how long this tumult will last. Does it wind down as the new administration gets its sea legs? Or is this simply how Trump does things?

“We are not bracing for [this to be] how it is,” said the third House GOP staffer. The first House GOP staffer took a different view. This, he said, is the “new normal, and it’s only going to get crazier once Congress gets into deep legislative mode. Buckle up.”

South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford, who was on the other side of this equation when he was governor, said he did not believe this was “a sustainable normal.”

“I think that there’s a value and a necessity with regards to predictability. It allows forces to align for you and against you, and, therefore, the normal give and take of politics to work. If you don’t have that, then there’s chaos because people don’t have a sense of what’s coming next. If they don’t, they get anxious,” he told BuzzFeed News.

One House GOP aide pointed out that things have rarely been so subdued on that side of the Capitol, which has drawn attention for all manner of Republican infighting and unanticipated drama over the past several years. Now, compared to the White House, the House looks almost sedate.

“When,” asked the aide, “was the last time House Republicans weren't the biggest shit show in town?”

Sarah Mimms contributed to this report.


With An Eye To 2020, Third Parties Score A Rare Win In Their Long Fight To Join Debates

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Afp / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Third party candidates have been trying to get onto the stage at presidential debates for decades, with little success. Since 1988, Ross Perot has been the only one allowed to join a debate, in 1992, and that was only at the request of Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush's campaigns.

Past attempts to challenge debate participation rules in court have failed. But a coalition of third parties and election reform advocates scored their first major court win on Wednesday evening, when a federal judge in Washington, DC, found that the Federal Election Commission failed to show that it seriously considered the latest round of complaints about the process.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan described the FEC’s filings in the case as "threadbare." There was no evidence in the record, she wrote, "that the FEC considered the relevant factors or took a hard look at the evidence." She ordered the FEC to go back and explain how it reviewed complaints alleging election law violations by the Commission on Presidential Debates. She also ordered a new review of a challenge to the participation criteria.

The timing of the ruling is significant. Civil lawsuits can last years, especially if there's an appeal. More than three years out from the next presidential debates in 2020, there's time for this case — filed in August 2015 — to play out in court before the next campaign season.

Chutkan's decision "marked the first time the FEC and [Commission on Presidential Debates] have been successfully challenged over debate rules. This is an enormously important ruling. It could pave the way for a new kind of election in 2020," Alexandra Shapiro, a lawyer for the challengers, said in an email to BuzzFeed News.

An FEC spokesperson declined to comment.

Since 2000, the Commission on Presidential Debates, a non-governmental entity, has determined that in order to participate in one of the presidential debates, a candidate must have support from at least 15 percent of voters, according to national polls. FEC regulations require debate "staging organizations" such as the Commission on Presidential Debates to be nonpartisan.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in response to the 2012 election, has two parts. The first part involves the FEC's dismissal of two administrative complaints claiming the debate commission and its directors violated election laws by engaging in partisan activity in support of the Democratic and Republican parties. The Green Party, Libertarian Party, and other challengers presented evidence that commission directors contributed to candidates and made statements supporting particular parties.

The second part of the case involves a request by Level the Playing Field — a group that advocates for election reforms — that the FEC revise its rules to block the the commission from using a polling threshold to decide participation in presidential and vice-presidential debates. The FEC declined the request. The challengers presented analysis from experts about the hundreds of millions of dollars a candidate would have to spend to meet the 15 percent polling target, and argued that the rule was not an objective criteria. Instead, they said, it was specifically designed to keep out candidates not affiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties.

Chutkan wrote that the FEC failed to show that it properly considered all of the evidence and arguments presented by the challengers. On the polling threshold issue, she wrote that her "task is made all the more difficult by the fact that the evidence unaddressed — or outright ignored — by the FEC is quite substantial." The judge also said she was "concerned about the agency's cursory treatment" of the rule change petition.

"The FEC appears to have stuck its head in the sand and ignored the evidence that its lack of rulemaking and lack of enforcement may be undermining the stated purpose of its regulations and the [Federal Election Campaign Act]. This is not the reasoned decision-making that is required of all agencies," Chutkan wrote.

A separate lawsuit challenging the presidential debate system is before the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. In that case, third parties and former candidates claimed the debate commission colluded with the Democratic and Republican parties in violation of US antitrust laws. A federal judge in Washington, DC, had dismissed the case in August, but the challengers appealed.

Read the decision:

Here's The Justice Department Memo On Trump's Refugee And Travel Immigration Ban

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The US Department of Justice on Thursday released a copy of the legal memo prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel about President Trump's executive order on immigration. The acting head of the office, Curtis Gannon, wrote that the order was approved for "form and legality."

The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) traditionally reviews all executive orders for "form and legality." It's a narrow review that doesn't address the legal strengths or weaknesses of a particular executive action, and doesn't touch on whether Justice Department lawyers believe an order could withstand a constitutional challenge in court.

Multiple legal challenges to the immigration order have been filed in federal courts nationwide since it took effect on Jan. 27. Several judges have entered orders temporarily blocking enforcement of parts of the order as the cases go forward.

In a statement, a DOJ spokesman said: "The Office of Legal Counsel’s form-and-legality paperwork includes a short description of some of the provisions of the proposed executive order and memorializes the conclusion that the proposed order is approved with respect to form and legality. As is generally the case under the Office’s longstanding practice, however, it does not identify or contain substantive analysis of issues that were evaluated in the course of the review.”

The memo is dated Jan. 27, the same day that Trump signed the order.

Steven Bradbury, who served as a top official in the Office of Legal Counsel, including as acting head, from 2004 to 2009, told BuzzFeed News that the office's memo about the immigration order was "typical." The fact that the memo was short and didn't explain the office's analysis did not mean it was "slapdash," he said.

"It's consistent with the usual process," Bradbury said. "OLC reviews the order to determine that it's consistent with the relevant legal authorities of the president and also to determine that the form of the order is consistent with the appropriate form of a presidential directive to accomplish what the order is purporting to do," he said.

OLC rarely prepares formal written legal opinions, but will do so in response to a request by the White House or another executive agency. On Jan. 20, the office released an opinion in response to a question from the Trump administration about whether Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner could work in the White House without violating anti-nepotism laws. (He could, the office held.)

Although the Office of Legal Counsel signed off on the memo for "form and legality," then–acting US Attorney General Sally Yates wrote in a Jan. 30 letter to department lawyers that she was "not convinced that the executive order is lawful." Yates ordered DOJ attorneys not to defend the order in court.

Within hours, Trump fired Yates — a decades-long veteran of the Justice Department and the former deputy attorney general under the Obama administration — and replaced her with Dana Boente, the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, also a longtime DOJ lawyer nominated to his latest position by Obama. Boente rescinded what he described as Yates's "guidance" and directed lawyers "to do our sworn duty and to defend the lawful orders of our president."

After the OLC memo was released on Thursday, former acting US solicitor general Neal Katyal weighed in on Twitter, expressing surprise at the brevity of the memo.

Gannon was appointed by Trump to serve as the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel and immediately became the acting head in the absence of a Senate-confirmed nominee. Gannon had previously worked in the US solicitor general's office starting in 2007, and clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Washington, DC, lawyer Steven Engel is Trump's nominee to lead the division. Trump announced on Jan. 31 that he was nominating Engel to serve as an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, but didn't specify which division. The official nomination listing with Congress specified that Engel was nominated for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Engel is a partner at the law firm Dechert LLP and previously served as the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush.

Here's The White House Memo Used To "Clarify" That Green Card Holders Are Not Covered By Trump's Ban

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Yuri Gripas / Reuters

WASHINGTON — After several days of confusion and conflicting answers, White House counsel Donald McGahn provided "authoritative guidance" on Wednesday that lawful permanent residents are not covered by the travel ban contained in President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order.

The temporary ban on immigrant and nonimmigrant travel for those from seven majority-Muslim countries was imposed as part of the executive order, and questions were immediately raised about whether lawful permanent residents — green card holders — from those countries would be affected.

Although the Department of Homeland Security initially said they were not covered under the order, the White House overruled that decision. On Jan. 29, however, DHS Sec. John Kelly issued a statement that all lawful permanent resident status would be a "dispositive factor" in determining whether to grant waivers allowing travel, absent "significant derogatory information" about the person "indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare."

McGahn's memo, written three days later, goes further, clarifying that green card holders do not need waivers because the provisions of the executive order "do not apply to such individuals."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced the clarification on Wednesday, but the White House did not make public a copy of the clarification and did not respond to request for more information about Spicer's statement. McGahn's brief memo was, however, filed as an exhibit on Thursday in ongoing litigation in Massachusetts over the president's executive order.

In that case, a judge over the weekend issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the government from deporting or detaining those affected by the order, in addition to taking additional actions relating to the Boston area and the named plaintiffs in the case.

Since then, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to add new plaintiffs — including the group Oxfam America — in advance of a hearing scheduled for Friday on whether the judge should extend the TRO. Additionally, Massachusetts has sought to intervene in the case — a request US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton granted on Thursday.

Later Thursday, the Justice Department opposed the request to continue the TRO, arguing that the original plaintiffs are no longer being detained and that Oxfam — which argued that it often brings people from the affected countries to the US — "does not explain why those individuals cannot
participate in meetings by telephone or videoconferencing."

Democrats Want Trump To Promise Not To Mess With Jobs Numbers

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President Donald Trump makes remarks as he holds a listening session with American Labor leaders at the White House.

Ron Sachs / Pool via CNP

Seventeen members of Congress, all Democrats, sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday evening seeking “a commitment that your administration will not undermine or interfere with” the US Department of Labor’s longstanding tradition of calculating and publishing a monthly unemployment rate.

The letter, signed by Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, a Virginia Democrat and the ranking member on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, represents yet another skirmish between Democrats and the president over economic data and the way it is presented by the government.

Scott Smith / AP

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in the past, Trump and his treasury secretary nominee, Steven Mnuchin, have questioned the way the unemployment rate is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, arguing that it does not fairly capture the economic reality of the labor force.

The letter also noted that the president’s press secretary reportedly refused to cite the official unemployment rate recently and that Trump himself during the campaign mused that the unemployment rate could be as high as 42%.

“When the [Bureau of Labor Statistics] independent analysis of the nation’s labor market is mocked, politicized, and baselessly attacked, it not only delegitimizes the BLS’s critically important work. It also erodes the public’s trust,” the members wrote.

According to the Labor Department’s most recent report, released last month, the unemployment rate is 4.7%.

Other signatories of the letter included Raul Grijalva, of Arizona, Susan Davis of California and Marcia Fudge of Ohio.

Read a copy of the letter here:

Federal Judge Stops Enforcement Of Trump Refugee And Travel Ban Nationwide

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Staff / Reuters

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington issued the furthest reaching order yet against President Trump's refugee and travel ban executive order, granting a nationwide order halting enforcement of both visa and refugee provisions of the order.

"The court concludes that the circumstances that brought it here today are such that we must intervene to fulfill the judiciary’s constitutional role in our tri-part government," US District Judge James Robart said at the end of Friday's hearing. "Therefore, the court concludes that entry of the above-described [temporary restraining order] is necessary, and the State’s motion is hereby granted."

In a written order that followed a few hours later, Robart wrote, "This TRO is granted on a nationwide basis and prohibits enforcement of Sections 3©, 5(a), 5(b), 5©, and 5(e) of the Executive Order." Section 3 of the order lays out the ban on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries; section 5 lays out the temporary shutdown of the refugee program and the indefinite shutdown of the Syrian refugee program.

"The decision shuts down the executive order immediately," Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a news conference outside the courthouse after Robart issued the ruling in the lawsuit, brought by Ferguson on behalf of the state.

"No one is above the law — not even the President," Ferguson said.

On Saturday, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security announced that they had officially stopped complying with the Executive Order.

Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that Robart's ruling was "another stinging rejection of President Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban."

Trump, however, called the decision "big trouble" and said it would be overturned.

"When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot, come in and out, especially for reasons of safety and security - big trouble!" he posted on Twitter. "Interesting that certain Middle-Eastern countries agree with the ban. They know if certain people are allowed in it's death and destruction!

"The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!"

"What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?" he tweeted later on Saturday afternoon.

The White House announced it would seek to end the injunction as soon as possible so the executive order could continue to be enforced.

"At the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this outrageous order and defend the executive order of the President, which we believe is lawful and appropriate," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement. "The president’s order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people."

Eleven minutes after sending out the initial statement, the White House updated the statement to remove the word "outrageous."

Robart, nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, also ordered the parties to propose a briefing schedule on the preliminary injunction request by 5 p.m. Monday.

"The Department looks forward to reviewing the court's written order and will determine next steps," Justice Department spokesperson Nicole Navas told BuzzFeed News prior to the issuance of Robart's order.

LINK: Video of the court's Friday argument in Washington v. Trump was posted by the court on Friday night.

MASSACHUSETTS: The ruling came shortly after a federal judge in Massachusetts provided the Trump administration with its first win in the many challenges to the president's executive order temporarily halting the refugee program and stopping immigration by people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton issued the order declining to renew the temporary restraining order previously issued by another judge in the federal court in Massachusetts who heard the challenge to Trump's ban this past weekend.

The ruling in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts was the second order of the day on the issue — one week after President Trump signed the measure.

VIRGINIA: The first order of the day came when, earlier Friday, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia extended an order providing access to lawyers and preventing the deportation of lawful permanent residents from Dulles International Airport.

Additionally, Brinkema ordered the federal government to provide Virginia — who successfully sought to intervene in the case — with a list of all people who have been denied entry or deported since the executive order was signed who had a residence in Virginia and lawful permanent residence status or a valid immigrant, student, or work visa. The list must be turned over by Feb. 9.

In the course of the hearing, the Justice Department also put a number on the number of visas affected by the temporary ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority nations: 100,000. The number would represent approximately 1% of all visas issued by the US in a given year.

The State Department, however, pushed back on that claim, saying the number is only 60,000.

Brinkema, who noted that she handled cases relating to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said in court Friday that she had never seen a public outpouring like the one she has seen in response to the executive order.

"This order touched something in the United States that I have never seen before," she said.

The president has broad discretion to act on immigration matters, Brinkema noted, but "it's not unfettered." Not all of the thought that should have gone into the executive order did, she added.

During the hearing, Brinkema also held that Virginia could intervene in the case, over the objection of the Justice Department. The move means the lawsuit could continue even if the Justice Department resolves the claims brought by the individual plaintiffs who initially brought the case.

Although Virginia had questioned whether the attempt to settle claims with the named plaintiffs was an attempt to keep Virginia from joining the lawsuit, Erez Reuveni, a senior litigation counsel in the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Justice Department, pushed back against that, saying, "We will meet Virginia in court, I have no doubt about that," and later adding, "We are not trying to run and hide."

In court on Friday, Reuveni said about 100,000 visas had been revoked in the wake of the president's issuance of the executive order; an earlier State Department memo said that they had been "provisionally revoked."

In a statement later Friday, Will Cocks, the spokesperson for the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs reiterated the "provisional" revocation — and disputed the Justice Department's number.

"Fewer than 60,000 individuals’ visas were provisionally revoked to comply with the Executive Order. We recognize that those individuals are temporarily inconvenienced while we conduct our review under the Executive Order," Cocks said in a statement. "To put that number in context, we issued over 11 million immigrant and non-immigrant visas in fiscal year 2015. As always, national security is our top priority when issuing visas."

A State Department official followed up, noting that the number was based on the number of valid visas issued to applicants on record as being a national of one of the seven countries. The provisional revocation, the official continued, means that the State Department has invalidated a visa for use to travel to the United States and apply for entry, but remains free to restore the visa's validity later without the person needing to submit a new visa application. The revocation does not, however, have any impact on the legal status of those already in the United States, the official said.

Near the end of the Friday morning hearing, Brinkema said it was a "real problem" when people were vetted by the US government and authorized to come to the United States, only to have that authorization revoked without fact-finding and hard evidence that there was a need to do so.

"It has obviously thrown hundreds of thousands of people into states of discomfort," she said.

In response to Virginia's request that federal officials show that they were following Brinkema's initial order, the judge said that she was troubled by accusations regarding denial of counsel but would hold off for now on taking any action on the request.

In a later order from the court, Brinkema denied the request, formally a motion for an order to show cause.

Read the order in the Washington case:

Read the order in the Massachusetts case:

Read the order in the Virginia case:

Read the order in the Virginia case:


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