Dorf on Law

Suddenly, knowing some things about the Federal Reserve is very important.  The latest gyrations in the financial markets were caused by Donald Trump's rediscovery of Fed Chair Jerome Powell as a political target.  Trump's previous Fed-related rhetoric had generally followed the timeworn pattern set by most presidents: Blame the Fed for whatever bad thing was happening, make noises about how the Fed should stop being so obtuse, and then move on. Not this time.  Now, Trump is openly talking about firing Powell, which is plainly illegal and is terrible in every substantive way as well.  At some point, I will write at length about those substantive matters, but today's discussion is about a narrow slice of this story, which is how Trump's top economist is aiding and abetting Trump's economically destructive impulses.  I wrote on April 10 about Trump's two highest profile economists, Peter Navarro (the anti-trade trade advisor) and Kevin Hassett.  Hassett's jo...

Just before 1 AM on the morning of Saturday, April 19, the Supreme Court issued an order directing the U.S. government not to remove (i.e., send to El Salvador) any member of a group of Venezuelans currently detained in Texas pending the Court's further order. The Court acted early Saturday morning because it appeared that the Trump administration was about to violate the limits on removals set forth in its  April 7 per curiam opinion . That opinion made clear that if the government wishes to remove the Venezuelans, it must provide them with notice of that intention "a reasonable time" before doing so "and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs." The Venezuelans in detention had received papers in English (which many do not read or speak) notifying them of imminent removal. Nowhere did these notices state that a hearing via habeas was an option. The ACLU promptly sued, and when the distr...

As John Oliver says at the top of each episode of Last Week Tonight , it has been a busy week. So busy, in fact, that for today's essay, I'm going to do a lightning round of observations on three of the major developments in just the last couple of days. 1. Contempt Let's start with Judge Boasberg's opinion in J.G.G. v. Trump , which "concludes that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt" for its willful failure to comply with his orders to halt and reverse flights carrying Venezuelans to El Salvador. Contempt sanctions run against individuals, not the government as a whole, however, and so Judge Boasberg is now trying to pry from the government information about who exactly made what decisions. Will that work? Assuming the proper defendants can be identified--which could require cooperation from the government that may not be forthcoming--there's good news and bad news. The good news is that in a criminal contempt proceeding, a ...

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump threatened to revoke Harvard's tax exempt status, posting on Truth Social: Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Put aside the absurd suggestion that Harvard is pushing "sickness" (in scare quotes even in Trump's original for no apparent reason) that is inspired by or in support of terrorism. What ground would Trump or his administration have for this action. In other words, . . . wait, can he actually do that? Professor Buchanan is the resident tax law expert here at Dorf on Law , but he is off this week. Ordinarily, I would just leave the issue for him to address when he returns next week, but given the pace of our stranger-than-fiction reality, by then we will no doubt have moved on to discussing an even more insane proposal from the Trump administration, like whether the president can, by execut...

[N.B.   My latest Verdict column,  Fighting the Last (Trade) War: Trump Ignores the Coming AI Revolution , was published yesterday. It explains that even in the unlikely event that President Trump's tariffs--or even more rational tariffs--boost U.S. domestic manufacturing, they will not lead to very substantial increases in domestic manufacturing employment, due to automation. Meanwhile, I describe how the prospect of imminent AGI (artificial general intelligence) would lead a responsible presidential administration to focus on preparing for an enormous resulting economic disruption. Trump's 19th-century version of industrial policy is thus extremely poorly suited to our times. I urge interested readers to click on the link above. For today's essay here, however, I turn to a different subject.] Harvard Had No Choice ( cross-posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education ) Harvard University's rejection of the Trump administration's April 11 demand letter (styled as a ...

The Trump regime has chosen defiance over compliance with the federal court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the inhumane El Salvadoran prison to which he was mistakenly sent. Yesterday, during an Oval Office meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele, both stated that Abrego Garcia would not be coming back. There was no indication whatsoever that Trump had asked Bukele for Abrego Garcia's return and that Bukele had then said no. If that had happened, the DOJ could perhaps plausibly argue in court that it had done what it could to rectify its mistake but had failed. However, Trump appeared perfectly content with--and for all we know may have actively sought--Bukele's decision to keep Abrego Garcia. Meanwhile, Trump regime immigration hardliner Stephen Miller declared , without any evidence, that the regime had not made a mistake by sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 administrative judge's ruling forbi...

On Thursday night last week, after the Supreme Court issued its order in Noem v. Abrego Garcia  but before Judge Xinis responded by clarifying what exactly she expected of the Trump administration, I published a thread on BlueSky that, in retrospect, may have been too optimistic. Unrolled (that is to say, as a single text rather than multiple entries), here's what I wrote: I'm seeing a lot of criticism of the SCOTUS order in the Abrego Garcia case. Why, people ask, does the Court suggest that the district court may have exceeded its authority? I don't like the prospect of further delay, but I think the Court's order gets it about right. Let me explain. First, there doesn't need to be further delay. Judge Xinis could clarify her order in hours or even minutes. Second, SCOTUS is correct to suggest that a federal judge cannot order the executive to "effectuate" the return of a US citizen from a foreign sovereign if "effectuate" means "guarante...

On Wednesday night, the House of Representatives passed the No Rogue Rulings Act (NORRA) of 2025 on a party-line vote: 219 in favor and 213 against. All but one Republican voted for NORRA, and all Democrats voted against it. Below I'll further describe and analyze the bill, but first I want to say a word about the partisan nature of the vote. NORRA restricts the ability of federal district courts to issue what are sometimes called "nationwide" or "universal" injunctions. Such injunctions are controversial when issued against the government because a single district judge invalidates the action of either all of Congress or the executive branch, not just with respect to the party-plaintiff(s) but with respect to everyone. However, under ordinary rules of claim and issue preclusion, only parties to a case (or those in privity, i.e., some close relationship with a party) can benefit from a court judgment. To be sure, the modern approach allows some non-parties to b...

The current administration's economic advisors are truly fascinating, but in the worst possible way.  Notably, however, they were for the most part highly educated at elite institutions (horrors!) and would seem at least superficially to have expertise in the subjects on which they are working.  This makes them unlike many of the other political appointees in the executive branch, which has been filled with obviously unqualified charlatans and cranks -- think Health and Human Services, the FBI, Homeland Security, and so forth. Very much like their laughably ill-equipped colleagues, however, the top economists are cringe-inducingly willing to say and do anything to please the big boss, including things that are not even necessary to defend his bad decisions. I will get into some details momentarily, but this makes the economists more like the Marco Rubio types in the administration -- not exactly the same, however, because Rubio has never demonstrated any true expertise or ins...

N.B.  Repeating its pattern of illegally cutting funds to universities without following ANY of the statutorily mandated steps, yesterday the Trump administration announced a "freeze" of $1 billion to Cornell and $790 million to Northwestern. Other than the fact that this particular iteration of the policy hits home for me, I have nothing new to say about it beyond what I've already written with respect to Columbia and other universities (e.g., here , here , and here ). Hence, I'll proceed on a different topic for today.  The following essay appeared originally  on  Balkinization   as part of its  Symposium on Legal Pathways Beyond  Dobbs . Enumerating a Post- Dobbs  Pathway For the foreseeable future, constitutional lawyers seeking progressive results from the federal courts will need to practice what  I have called  “ideological jujitsu—turning opponents’ strengths against them.” Nowhere is that more clear than in seeking to develop ar...