Injustice for All is a weekly sequence about how the Trump administration is making an attempt to weaponize the justice system—and the people who find themselves combating again.
Final week was … loads, legally talking. Whereas a lot of the Trump administration’s efforts have shifted to making an attempt to get courts to agree that President Donald Trump can deploy troops from crimson states to convey blue cities to heel, there are nonetheless many different horrible developments.
We’ve received a throwback to Elon Musk’s idiotic actions, the Fifth Circuit is probably going going to resolve it’s completely groovy to pressure faith into the classroom, James Comey’s lawyer is taking a web page from Trump’s playbook, and the Supreme Court docket seems primed to strike down conversion remedy bans—as a result of why not harm trans children extra. Oh and final—however by no means least—is the Division of Justice’s meme antics undermining its personal case in opposition to Luigi Mangione.
Musk and the Trump administration FAFO
Properly, effectively, effectively. If it isn’t the results of Musk’s personal actions.
The New York Instances lately prevailed in its Freedom of Info Act lawsuit over the Trump administration’s refusal to supply a listing of Musk’s safety clearances when he was a authorities contractor previous to 2025. Now the administration must cough it up.
Elon Musk stands beside President Donald Trump.
They tried to say that it might violate Musk’s privateness, however the court docket famous that Musk bragged publicly of his “top secret clearance” in 2024, making it not likely all that personal to start with.
The Instances didn’t request further info—like Musk’s utility for clearances or any investigative supplies—however the authorities nonetheless claimed that it couldn’t present the shape as a result of it might present whether or not clearances had been topic to any circumstances, even when the circumstances themselves had been redacted.
That is the place Musk’s boasts about his ketamine use, his cringe-worthy blunt rotation with Joe Rogan, and his chats with Vladimir Putin got here again to chunk him.
To grant a safety clearance, the Protection Counterintelligence and Safety Company should evaluate international influences and drug use. The court docket mentioned that, whereas Musk has not publicly mentioned any circumstances, he has publicly addressed his drug use and contacts with international leaders. And for the reason that DCSA is meant to think about these issues, the general public has an curiosity within the DCSA’s efficiency of its duties.
You’ll be able to count on the Trump administration to proceed combating this as a result of it might probably crack open the door for FOIA requests about Musk’s clearances on the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity—they usually desperately don’t need that.
The Fifth Circuit will hold listening to Ten Commandment circumstances till they get the specified end result
In one other horrible growth, the Fifth Circuit has ordered a full court docket evaluate of the three-judge panel resolution in Roake v. Brumley—and it’s not an exaggeration to say that we should always all be fearful.
Each the Louisiana decrease court docket and the three-judge panel dominated that the regulation requiring public colleges to completely show the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional, as a result of it so clearly is.
The truth that they agreed to a evaluate and requested new briefs and oral arguments is an indication that there’s an urge for food to reverse it. This is able to imply getting a choice on the books holding that the federal government can pressure the show of the Ten Commandments—however solely the Protestant model chosen by the state.
Subsequent cease would be the Supreme Court docket as a result of, very like they did with abortion, states are going to maintain passing objectively unconstitutional legal guidelines, shoving them as much as the Supreme Court docket to bless them. Terrific system we’ve got right here.
Illegal appointments giveth, however they could additionally taketh away
One of many challenges James Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, has mentioned he’ll elevate—and file a movement to dismiss the case—is an illegal appointment declare.
Former FBI Director James Comey
Mainly, that may be that Lindsey Halligan, put in as interim U.S. lawyer within the Japanese District of Virginia for the only goal of indicting Trump’s enemies, just isn’t legally allowed to be in her function. Her predecessor, Erik Siebert, served the restrict of 120 days within the interim place, permitting the federal judges to nominate him.
The problem is whether or not that created a brand new emptiness or not. If it didn’t, then that 120-day interim use is gone without end, which is why the court docket dominated that Alina Habba isn’t legally in her function in New Jersey. In that case, the Trump administration argued that the 120-day clock begins over with every interim appointment, however that may make the 120-day interim restrict completely ineffective.
There could be a kind of grimly hilarious symmetry if the Comey prosecution falls aside as a result of a choose decides that Halligan was not correctly in her function. Trump hit a stroke of luck when his all-time favourite lower-court choose Aileen Cannon dominated, wildly incorrectly, that Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed and threw out your entire categorised paperwork case.
What’s good for the goose, and so on.
SCOTUS suggestions its hand, and it’s not nice
Tuesday’s oral argument in Chiles v. Salazar made it clear that the Supreme Court docket goes to strike down Colorado’s ban on conversion remedy for minors. Doing so would additionally knock out related legal guidelines all through nearly half of the nation.
There’s no credible argument for conversion remedy, which tries to pressure minors to be heterosexual and cisgender. Main well being care organizations have denounced it, and other people pressured to endure it report excessive ranges of post-traumatic stress dysfunction and despair.
The appropriate-wing argument in Chiles is that it violates the free speech of therapists if they will’t compel youngsters to take heed to how their identification is dangerous and improper.
It’s an absolute sham of a lawsuit, with no proof that the plaintiff ever supposed to supply conversion remedy or obtained any complaints. Her lawyer, with the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ group Alliance Defending Freedom, instructed the court docket that Chiles was the topic of “anonymous complaints” that they declined to supply.
That is simply one other case the place the plaintiff is nothing however a straw man standing in to get the specified conservative end result—which is to guard the free speech of bigots on the expense of the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ children.
Trump and the DOJ are going to tweet Luigi Mangione proper out of jail
The DOJ is in bother over how hyped it’s to speak about Mangione’s guilt whereas within the midst of prosecuting him, with the general public affairs deputy director posting on X interviews of Trump saying that Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me.”
Luigi Mangione is seen in a courtroom carrying a bulletproof vest.
That is just about a textbook instance of prejudicial pretrial statements, which aren’t allowed, as just about each DOJ prosecutor is aware of. However the DOJ is being steered by folks whose foremost pursuits are creating cool meme content material and hurting folks, so they may not be so acquainted.
When the court docket ordered the Trump administration to elucidate what occurred right here, they mentioned that, since the one that made the submit wasn’t a part of the prosecution crew, they weren’t violating the rule.
That is nonsense, after all, as it might principally imply that the DOJ may pop off with these statements any time so long as the precise prosecutor on the case isn’t the one to say it.
However this isn’t the primary time that the attention-hungry, meme-driven administration bumped into bother with Mangione, who’s now transferring to dam the DOJ from looking for the loss of life penalty due to the extremely televised perp stroll they made him do.
