Ed. Note: A weekly roundup of just a few items from Howard Bashman's How Appealing blog, the Web's first blog devoted to appellate litigation. Check out these stories and more at How Appealing. "A Year Inside Kash Patel's F.B.I.: Forty-five current and former employees on the changes they say are undermining the agency and making America less safe." Emily Bazelon and Rachel Poser have this article online at The New York Times Magazine.
The court says Trump is entitled to this power under the "Unitary Executive Theory," a fringe theory that was made up by Republican academics to justify dismantling the regulatory state and that has been adopted by Supreme Court Republicans over the past few years. The theory reimagines every independent agency created by Congress as part of Trump's personal fiefdom. Based on this view, the Supreme Court has allowed Trump to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board (see Trump v. Wilcox);
The Supreme Court on Wednesday is scheduled to hear arguments over President Donald Trump's attempts to fire a sitting Federal Reserve board member. Lisa Cook, whom Trump tried to remove in August, has asked the high court to ensure she can keep her job. She's argued that the "cause" Trump cited, which involves allegations of mortgage irregularities, is a pretext. The efforts to fire her are based on politics, not economic data or job performance, her lawyers say.
Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
* Supreme Court heard challenges to laws targeting trans athletes and the argument went about as you'd expect. [ Balls and Strikes] * Senior federal prosecutors resign in response to the Justice Department's efforts to paper over the murder of Renee Good. [ CBS News] * Tom Goldstein trial could feature celebrity witnesses. [ Law360] * School voids exam - that students already took - after similarities to past exams came out. [ Legal Cheek] * Supreme Court tariff decision looms large. Don't plan on that $2000 rebate check that Trump promised and promptly forgot about. [ Reuters]
* Maduro's legal team anchored by Julian Assange's lawyer. [ NY Law Journal] * Meanwhile, the DOJ just dropped its claims that Maduro ran the "Cartel de los Soles" after acknowledging that it's not even a real group. Exactly the sort of airtight prosecution you'd expect to see before killing 40-80 people to make an arrest. [ NY Times] * Chamber of Commerce will get an expedited appeal on challenge to Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee. [ Law360]
There were a lot of decisions in 2025 that immiserated huge amounts of people and made the world materially worse. But my pick is not one of those. Instead, I need to talk about NIH v. American Public Health Association. Yes, it has to do with slashing research grants, which does materially harm a lot of people. But more profoundly for me, this case is emblematic of every single level of destruction and mayhem coming out of the Supreme Court-all the arrogance bundled into one.
