President Donald Trump during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Jan. 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
54 Nationwide Injunctions Issued Against Admin Since Trump Took Office: DOJ
Federal judges across the country have issued 54 nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, according to the Justice Department (DOJ).
“Fifty-four nationwide injunctions have been issued against the Trump Administration since January 20, 2017,” the DOJ told The Epoch Times, citing department estimates. This is more than double the number of nationwide injunctions the previous administration had faced during its entire eight years. The proliferating practice of federal judges ruling beyond the scope of a particular case, in some orders known as nationwide injunctions, has been a longstanding cause for concern for the administration and several top members of the judiciary.
Comparatively, an average of 1.5 such injunctions was issued per year against the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Meanwhile, the administration of President Barack Obama faced 20 nationwide injunctions—or an average of 2.5 per year—during its eight years, according to Attorney General William Barr.
The White House has repeatedly criticized the unprecedented use of court orders by unelected federal judges to impose their policy preferences across the nation. Last year, Trump decried the impact of “judicial activism” on the nation’s security, society, and economy.
“When judges write policy instead of applying the law, they impose sweeping changes on millions of Americans without the benefit of legislative debate, public rulemaking, or the consent of the governed,” Trump said in a November speech. “As a result, these highly political rulings inflict painful damage on our security, society, and economy, imposed on workable businesses, workers, families, and law enforcement.”
David Reischer, attorney and CEO of LegalAdvice.com, said he believes nationwide injunctions are inconsistent with constitutional limits on judicial power and allow politicians to avoid working together to come up with solutions to national issues.
“Nationwide injunctions relieve the politicians of making compromise on important matters and only serves to delay final resolution where final determinations are most desperately needed,” Reischer told The Epoch Times in an email. “As such, nationwide injunctions only serve to ‘gum up the works’ and prevent solutions of important social issues.”
Many of the nationwide injunctions issued have targeted crucial immigration policies in dispute, preventing their application across the nation while the cases proceed through the courts. This was seen most recently in a case where a federal district court ruling blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its new interpretation of its “public charge” rule—a regulation that restricted new immigrants from receiving green cards if the individual is deemed likely to become primarily dependent on the government for assistance such as food stamps or Medicaid. The rule will consider a person a public charge if they receive at least one government benefit for more than 12 months in any 36–month block.
The rule was challenged by several states and immigration groups, leading to injunctions that prevented the rule from going into effect on Oct. 15, 2019. Two federal appeals courts—the 4th Circuit and the 9th Circuit—lifted similar injunctions in December 2019. But the 2nd Circuit has refused to set aside a pair of injunctions issued by a New York District Court, prompting the Trump administration to file an emergency request (pdf) to the Supreme Court earlier in January to lift those blocks.
The Supreme Court reversed the 2nd Circuit’s decision in late January, allowing the Trump administration to enforce the rule while the appeals are pending.
As part of the order in the “public charge” case, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a rebuke in a concurring opinion, saying that the court at some point needs to “confront” the “real problem” of nationwide injunctions. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously issued his own rebuke of the practice in the 2018 travel ban case, joined in that opinion.
“Today, the Court (rightly) grants a stay, allowing the government to pursue (for now) its policy everywhere save Illinois,” Gorsuch wrote (pdf). “But, in light of all that’s come before, it would be delusional to think that one stay today suffices to remedy the problem.”
He says such orders raise “serious questions about the scope of courts’ equitable powers under Article III” of the Constitution. Judges have made “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions” because this practice forces parties to “rush from one preliminary injunction hearing” instead of “spending their time methodically developing arguments and evidence in cases limited to the parties at hand.”
Thomas issued a similar critique in 2018 in the landmark case, Trump v. Hawaii, which upheld Trump’s Presidential Proclamation 9645. The proclamation allowed the administration to enforce the refusal of entry into the United States of travelers from multiple “high-risk” Islamic countries.
Thomas said these injunctions are “beginning to take a toll on the federal court system” because they prevent “legal questions from percolating through the federal courts,” encourage “forum shopping,” and make “every case a national emergency for the courts and the Executive Branch.”
A VERY STABLE GENIUS
THE BOOK
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.
Trump: New York AG
‘Deliberately Mischaracterizing’ $2 Million Settlement ‘For Political Purposes’
BULLSHIT! TRUMP AND HIS PARASITE
CHILDREN
HAVE SCREWED EVERY CONTRACTOR AND
PERSON
THEY’VE DONE BUSINESS WITH FROM DAY ONE!
Eric Trump on paying contractors: We pay ‘people when they do
great jobs’
Opinion: Trump’s
emoluments transgressions don’t stop with the Doral fiasco
ANN COULTER
“Truthfully, It Is Tough To Ignore Some Of The Gross
Immoral Behavior By The President” WASHINGTON POST
Trump's sister quits as a federal judge 10
days into formal probe of her possible role in massive family tax scam that
could have ended in her impeachment
Morning Joe: Trump Is ‘Owned by Putin,’ Head of ‘Criminal
Organization’
A VERY STABLE GENIUS
“This taut and terrifying
book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic
tenure in office to date.” - Dwight Garner, The
New York Times
Read
an excerpt:
‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals
‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals
THE BOOK
Washington
Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig
and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, both Pulitzer Prize winners,
provide the definitive insider narrative of Donald Trump’s unique presidency
with shocking new reporting and insight into its implications.
“I
alone can fix it.” So went Donald J. Trump’s march to the presidency on July
21, 2016, when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland,
promising to restore what he described as a fallen nation. Yet over the
subsequent years, as he has undertaken the actual work of the commander in
chief, it has been hard to see beyond the daily chaos of scandal,
investigation, and constant bluster. It would be all too easy to mistake
Trump’s first term for one of pure and uninhibited chaos, but there were
patterns to his behavior and that of his associates. The universal value of the
Trump administration is loyalty - not to the country, but to the president
himself - and Trump’s North Star has been the perpetuation of his own power,
even when it meant imperiling our shaky and mistrustful democracy.
Leonnig
and Rucker, with deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, D.C., tell
of rages and frenzies but also moments of courage and perseverance. Relying on
scores of exclusive new interviews with some of the most senior members of the
Trump administration and other firsthand witnesses, the authors reveal the
forty-fifth president up close, taking readers inside Robert Mueller’s Russia
investigation as well as the president’s own haphazard but ultimately
successful legal defense. Here for the first time certain officials who have
felt honor-bound not to publicly criticize a sitting president or to divulge
what they witnessed in a position of trust tell the truth for the benefit of
history.
This
peerless and gripping narrative reveals President Trump at his most unvarnished
and exposes how decision making in his administration has been driven by a
reflexive logic of self-preservation and self-aggrandizement - but a logic
nonetheless. This is the story of how an unparalleled president has scrambled
to survive and tested the strength of America’s democracy and its common heart
as a nation.
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.
This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” --- Karen
McQuillan
President
Donald Trump speaks to the press before departing the White House in Washington
on Nov. 8, 2019. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump: New York AG
‘Deliberately Mischaracterizing’ $2 Million Settlement ‘For Political Purposes’
Share
President Donald Trump accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of
“deliberately mischaracterizing” the details of a $2 million settlement reached
on Thursday.
New York Judge Saliann Scarpulla ruled that Trump must pay $2 million as part of a settlement he, the Trump Foundation, and James’s
office reached in a lawsuit alleging Trump misused his charitable foundation
during the 2016 campaign.
Scarpulla said
Trump let his campaign hold a foundation fundraiser in January 2016 and used it
“to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign.”
The foundation
received $2.8 million from the fundraiser and the money “did ultimately reach
their intended destinations, i.e., charitable organizations supporting
veterans,” Scarpulla ruled.
Instead of
the entire $2.8 million that James’s office pushed for, Scarpulla ordered
Trump to pay $2 million. She also declined a statutory penalty of $5.2 million
that James’s office wanted the president to pay.
James
celebrated the ruling on Wednesday.
“We’ve secured
a court order forcing President Trump to pay $2M in damages after admitting to
illegally using the Trump Foundation to help him intervene in the 2016
presidential election and further his own political interests. No one is above
the law,” she said in a statement.
In another
statement, she wrote, “The court’s decision, together with the settlements we
negotiated, are a major victory in our efforts to protect charitable assets and
hold accountable those who would abuse charities for personal gain. My office
will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the law—not a
businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the President of the
United States.”
Scarborough then launched
into his own conspiracy theory:
But I think we all will be absolutely fascinated when we finally
figure out what Vladimir Putin has on Donald Trump and why Donald Trump has surrendered the Middle East,
helped ISIS, helped Iran, helped Russia, helped Turkey, helped all of our
enemies and betrayed all of our allies. You know, a lot of people think that it’s – he has
compromising pictures or something happened in a hotel in Russia years ago. No.
It goes back to money. It’s always about money.
GET THIS BOOK!
Peter Schweizer, author
of “Secret Empires: How the
American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,”
BULLSHIT! TRUMP AND HIS PARASITE
CHILDREN
HAVE SCREWED EVERY CONTRACTOR AND
PERSON
THEY’VE DONE BUSINESS WITH FROM DAY ONE!
Eric Trump on paying contractors: We pay ‘people when they do
great jobs’
The Trump
Organization has been criticized for stiffing contractors. Contractors have
filed hundreds of
complaints, which date back to the 1980s, alleging that the real estate company
did not pay them.
“We
believe in paying people when they do great jobs. And we get people paid
incredibly quickly. And we pay contractors,” said Eric Trump, executive vice
president of The Trump Organization at Yahoo Finance’s All Market
Summit, adding that the organization only refuses to pay contractors
who fail to complete a job.
“Yeah,
well, they [the unpaid contractors] didn't finish a job. And they didn't do a
good job. And they flaked out. And they were two months behind schedule. And so
you had to let go of them. And you had to bring somebody else in to do the job
that they otherwise would have. And it's called the real world,” he said,
referring to the allegations. “People like to take cheap shots at us.”
Opinion: Trump’s
emoluments transgressions don’t stop with the Doral fiasco
By NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN
When the White House announced that Donald Trump
would host the 2020 Group of Seven meeting at his Doral golf resort in Florida
— an in-your-face bit
of self-dealing and a blatant violation of the Constitution’s foreign
emoluments clause — Republicans and Democrats howled. Reporters had only just
begun to tally the ways awarding himself a government contract could enrich
Trump and the Trump Organization when the president backed down, but not before
he publicly decried the “phony” emoluments clause.
The Doral reversal dimmed the spotlight on
emoluments, but that should not lead us to drop the focus on the rest of
Trump’s self-dealing and conflicts of interest. For strategic reasons, the
House of Representatives may not include emoluments transgressions among
potential impeachment charges. Nonetheless, the number of Trump’s violations
are staggering, and growing by the day.
There are two separate emoluments sections in
the Constitution; neither are phony, and
both reflect the deep concern the Framers had about possible corruption in the
highest offices in the land.
“Emoluments” are anything of value. The first
constitutional clause, forbidding any officer of the United States from taking
“any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever” from a foreign
government, is in Article I. It has no loopholes; the Framers feared that a
rich foreign government could influence or sway American policy by giving
something of value to a policy-maker. It is not limited to the president or
vice president, but to all holding an office of trust in the U.S. government.
The second emoluments clause is in Article II and
is limited to the president. It reads, “The President shall, at stated Times,
receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor
diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall
not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or
any of them.” Here, the fear was that Congress could shake down the
president by withholding his salary or bribe him by increasing it, and that a
president could use the leverage of his office with states or the federal
government to enrich himself.
We have never had occasion in our history to be
deeply concerned about violations of these constitutional clauses. Most
previous presidents have scrupulously adhered to them in spirit and letter.
Jimmy Carter, to pick one example, put his peanut farm in a blind trust to
avoid any appearance of conflict or attempt to profit via his office.
Trump, whose chief of staff on Sunday said the
president still thought of himself as an innkeeper, has kept ownership of all
his properties and has lied about not participating in their operations. He
pushed officials at the General Services Administration to allow him to keep
his federal lease for his Washington hotel while pressuring the District of
Columbia to lower his property taxes. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, holding an
office in his administration, has taken valuable trademarks, including,
staggeringly, one on voting machines, from China. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, holding an office of trust in the administration, has promoted Trump
and Kushner properties and solicited loans from foreign governments.
In other words, the president is unique in his
corruption in American history. The watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has regularly compiled a tally of
Trump’s conflicts of interest and violations of the emoluments clauses. The
latest numbers are stark: 1,493 trips to Trump properties by government
officials, usually spending taxpayer money that will enrich the president; 292
promotions of Trump properties by White House officials; 63 foreign trademarks
awarded to Trump brands, mostly from China and Brazil, while he has been
president.
The president himself had made 387 trips to his
properties, 240 of them to play golf. He regularly does semi-official
infomercials for his properties, and he’s told couples considering staging a
wedding reception at Mar-a-Lago in Florida or the Trump country club in
Bedminster, N.H., that, if they do, he might be available for a photo op. He
famously doubled the initiation
fee at
Mar-a-Lago, to $200,000, when he became president, enabling foreign figures
(and others) to gain entrée to the president for a price his businesses
collect.
The message has been received: Foreign
governments, including Romania, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, moved events from
other venues to Trump properties, and foreign countries or other
foreign-connected entities have held 13 events at his properties, surely
enriching him along the way. (He claims profits from foreigners are repaid to
the Treasury; without his tax records, this can’t be checked). One hundred and
twenty-one foreign officials from 71 foreign governments have visited his
properties; lobbyists of all stripes have scheduled events there. Trump has
openly talked about his ventures in places like Saudi Arabia and Turkey even as
he has bent American foreign policy in ways that benefit those countries’
autocrats.
The president likes to pretend that there is no
such thing as a conflict of interest, that his actions are ”perfect” and
“innocent.” But we should not let his lies obscure what are ongoing, direct and
outrageous abuses of the Constitution for financial gain by the president and
his cronies. The House impeachment hearings are concentrating on other abuses
of power, but there is no doubt our Framers would see the emoluments violations
as a long series of impeachable and unconscionable offenses.
Norman
J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His
latest book, with Thomas E. Mann and E.J. Dionne Jr., is “One Nation After
Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate and the
Not-Yet-Deported.”
Eric Trump’s defense echoes his father’s status quo response.
During the
2016 presidential debate,
President Donald Trump said something very similar. “Maybe he didn’t do a good
job and I was unsatisfied with his work,” he said in response to nonpayment
accusations.
Eric Trump
also noted to Yahoo Finance that The Trump Organization has developed
institutional knowledge about getting the best deals with contractors. “In New
York, we know what contractors are going to be incredible, what contractors are
going to — I won't use a word, but — take advantage of you,” he said. “And, you
know, you have that institutional knowledge. You know your way around. You know
the language. You know the laws. You know how things are built. You know what
kind of foundations work in the ground.”
ANN COULTER
TRUMP’S PARASITIC FAMILY
Jared’s BFF, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman (MBS), and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Muhammad bin Zayed (MBZ),
refer to Jared as “the clown prince.” Bone-cutter MBS assured those around him
that he had Jared “in my pocket.”
Following meetings at the White House and also with the Kushners over
their 666 Fifth Avenue property, former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin
Jassim reported back to the emir that “the people atop the new administration
were heavily motivated by personal financial interest.”
“Truthfully, It Is Tough To Ignore Some Of The Gross
Immoral Behavior By The President” WASHINGTON POST
Trump's sister quits as a federal judge 10
days into formal probe of her possible role in massive family tax scam that
could have ended in her impeachment
· Trump's older sister resigned as an appellate court judge shortly
after a probe opened into her involvement in a family tax scheme
·
· 10 days ago an investigation into whether Maryanne Trump Barry violated
judicial conduct rules launched
· The case was closed after Barry resigned because retired judges are not
subject to the rules
·
Barry had not heard a case in two years after transitioning to inactive shortly after Trump's inauguration
Barry had not heard a case in two years after transitioning to inactive shortly after Trump's inauguration
· the Trump siblings were probed after an investigation found they were
involved in a tax scheme related to the transfer of their father's real estate
empire
President Donald Trump’s older sister
Maryanne Trump Barry, 82, retired as a federal judge just days after an
investigation opened into her possible role in family tax fraud scheme.
Barry was a federal appellate judge in the third district, which
includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and the investigation could
have led to her impeachment.
She had not presided over a case in more than two years, but was still
listed as an inactive senior judge in the third district – usually the step
taken before full retirement.
Barry did not give any reasons for her retirement.
The probe into the Trumps was first opened last fall, after a New York
Times investigation found the Trump siblings engaged in tax schemes in the
1990s, including fraud, that increased their inherited wealth.
+4
Maryanne Trump Barry resigned as a federal appellate judge 10 days into
an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules
An investigation into the Trump siblings opened after the New York Times
reported that they transferred their father's real estate assets improperly in
the 1990s
PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES DONALD TRUMP: Pathological liar,
swindler, con man, huckster, golfing cheat, charity foundation fraudster, tax
evader, adulterer, porn whore chaser and servant of the Saudis dictators
THE TRUMP FAMILY FOUNDATION SLUSH FUND…. Will they see jail?
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!.... We know where they live!
“Underwood is a Democrat and is seeking millions of dollars in
penalties. She wants Trump and his eldest children barred from running other
charities.”
WHO IS
FINANCING ALL THE TRUMP AND SON-IN-LAW’S REFINANCING SCAMS???
FOLLOW THE
MONEY!
"I
doubt that Trump understands -- or cares about -- what message he's sending.
Wealthy Saudis, including members of the extended royal family, have been his
patrons for years, buying his distressed properties when he needed money. In
the early 1990s, a Saudi prince purchased Trump's flashy yacht so that the
then-struggling businessman could come up with cash to stave off personal
bankruptcy, and later, the prince bought a share of the Plaza Hotel, one of
Trump's many business deals gone bad. Trump also sold an entire floor of his
landmark Trump Tower condominium to the Saudi government in 2001."
“The Wahhabis
finance thousands of madrassahs
throughout the
world where young boys are
brainwashed
into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers
for the
petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of
the Persian
Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
I recommend that Ignatius read Raymond Ibrahim's outstanding
book Sword and Scimitar, which
contains accounts of dynastic succession in the Muslim monarchies of the Middle
East, where standard operating procedure for a new monarch on the death of his
father was to strangle all his brothers. Yes, it's
awful. But it has been happening for a very long
time. And it's not going to change quickly, no matter how outraged
we pretend to be. MONICA SHOWALTER
WHAT WILL TRUMP AND HIS PARASITIC FAMILY DO FOR MONEY???
JUST ASK THE SAUDIS!
JOHN DEAN: Not so far. This has been right by the letter of
the special counsel’s charter. He’s released the document. What I’m
looking for is relief and understanding that there’s no witting or unwitting
likelihood that the President is an agent of Russia. That’s when I’ll feel
comfortable, and no evidence even hints at that. We don’t have that yet. We’re
still in the process of unfolding the report to look at it. And its, as I say,
if [Attornery General William Barr] honors his word, we’ll know more soon.
Morning Joe: Trump Is ‘Owned by Putin,’ Head of ‘Criminal
Organization’
Listen to
the Article!
Following a discussion of President
Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, on Thursday, MSNBC’s Morning
Joe went far beyond standard criticism of the controversial foreign
policy move and wildly claimed it was proof that Trump was “owned by Putin” and
heading up a “criminal organization” that had been “laundering money” for the
Russian autocrat for decades.
As the 6:00 a.m. ET hour segment
about Syria was wrapping up and co-host Mika Brzezinski was starting to go to a
commercial break, left-wing pundit Donny Deutsch interrupted to squeeze in an
unfounded conspiratorial rant in which he accused the President of multiple
crimes: “Let’s not forget it. This is all about failed casinos. He is
owned by Putin because he’s been laundering money, Russian money for the last
20, 30 years. He’s owned by him. That’s what this is.”
Brzezinski voiced her agreement with
irresponsible and unsubstantiated attack: “Oh, my lord....Yeah.”
Deutsch continued his tirade
unchallenged:
You talk to any banker in New York,
any business person in New York, any real estate person in New York, we
have a president that’s selling out our military, that’s costing lives because
he is owned by our geopolitical enemy because he’s been laundering money for
him as a criminal organization for the last 30 years. That will come out in
time.
Co-host Joe Scarborough seemed to offer
a small dose of sanity in response: “That is – that is speculation and only
speculation right now.” However, he quickly added: “I will say that it is
speculation among New York bankers who have loaned Donald Trump money in the
past and who have been following his business career for 30, 40 years.”
Brzezinski chimed in: “Who know a lot.”
Scarborough then launched into his
own conspiracy theory:
But I think we all will be absolutely
fascinated when we finally figure out what Vladimir Putin has on Donald Trump and why Donald Trump has
surrendered the Middle East, helped ISIS, helped Iran, helped Russia, helped
Turkey, helped all of our enemies and betrayed all of our allies. You
know, a lot of people think that it’s – he has compromising pictures or something
happened in a hotel in Russia years ago. No. It goes back to money. It’s always
about money.
He concluded the unhinged discussion
by asserting: “And this president is selling not only America, but its
most important allies, down the river for money he wants to make either while
in office or when he leaves office, period, end of story.”
It’s never enough for the liberal
media to simply express a policy disagreement with Trump and say that the U.S.
abandoning its Kurdish allies in northern Syria would have a negative outcome.
Instead, journalists and pundits must always try to outdo each other to make
the most outrageous declarations imaginable to prove their bona fides as
members of the resistance.
Here is a full transcript of the
October 24 exchange:
6:48 AM ET
DONNY DEUTSCH: Make no mistake,
because it’s easy to forget. Let’s not forget it. This is all about failed
casinos. He is owned by Putin...
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