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    A Reckless Judicial Nomination Puts the Senate to the Test

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    Republicans in the Senate may be on the verge of their most consequential capitulation to President Trump so far — and I am not talking about the deficit-busting “big, beautiful bill.”On Wednesday, when the eyes of the nation were still fixed on the Middle East, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Trump’s nomination of Emil Bove to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers cases from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands.Bove’s nomination is yet another sign that Trump’s second term is beginning (yes, it’s still only the beginning) very differently from his first. Just as he wants sycophants and yes men staffing his administration, he’s now moving toward staffing the judiciary with the same kind of person: judges who will do whatever it takes to curry favor with a president who values fealty above all.By now, Americans are accustomed to the devolution of Trump’s team. Serious people populated the highest levels of the executive branch at the start of Trump’s first term, but now some of the most important positions in American government are held by cranks like Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth.But as bad as those men are, their influence is ultimately limited — first by Trump himself, who feels completely free to overrule and disregard any decision they make for the sake of his own interests and whims, and second by time itself. Trump’s political appointees won’t be in American government for long, and while they can inflict lasting damage during their short tenures, the next president can replace them and at least start the process of repair.Emil Bove, however, would be a problem for a very long time. At 44 years old, he’s been nominated for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. That means he’d long outlast Trump in the halls of American power, and if past performance is any measure of future results, we should prepare for a judge who would do what he deems necessary to accomplish his political objectives — law and morality be damned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Orders Abrego Garcia Released on Smuggling Charges Before Trial

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      The order to release Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from criminal custody as he awaits trial was a rebuke to the Trump administration. But he is likely to remain in immigration custody.In a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department, a federal judge said on Sunday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia should be freed from criminal custody as he awaits trial on smuggling charges after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador and return to the United States.In a scathing order, the judge, Barbara D. Holmes, ruled that Mr. Abrego Garcia was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. The decision undermined repeated claims by President Trump and some of his top aides who have described the Salvadoran immigrant as a violent gang member, even a terrorist.But the decision by Judge Holmes, filed in Federal District Court in Nashville, was likely to be a short-lived victory for Mr. Abrego Garcia and his defense team. The judge acknowledged that he would probably remain in the custody of immigration officials, as his charges of smuggling undocumented immigrants across the United States moved through the courts.Judge Holmes’s ruling was the first judicial evaluation of the charges filed against Mr. Abrego Garcia since he was suddenly brought back to U.S. soil last month after prosecutors indicted him in Nashville. The decision to get him out of Salvadoran custody came as the Justice Department was under mounting pressure in a separate civil case. The judge in that case has threatened to hold administration officials in contempt for their serial evasions and delays in complying with her order to free him from El Salvador.Federal prosecutors immediately asked Judge Holmes to put the decision to free Mr. Abrego Garcia on hold, even as his lawyers hailed it.“We are pleased by the court’s thoughtful analysis and its express recognition that Mr. Abrego Garcia is entitled both to due process and the presumption of innocence, both of which our government has worked quite hard to deny him,” Sean Hecker, one of the defense lawyers, said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mahmoud Khalil Returns to New York After Months in Detention

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      The Trump administration remains committed to deporting Mr. Khalil, a Columbia graduate and leading figure in the pro-Palestinian protest movement.Mahmoud Khalil walked through a nondescript door into a Newark airport lobby on Saturday, his wife to his left, a congresswoman to his right and a stroller in front of him. His fist was raised and he could not stop smiling.Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, had spent more than three months detained by the Trump administration, which said he had enabled the spread of antisemitism and had sought to deport him.But his lawyers had denied the accusations of antisemitism and had protested his detention as unconstitutional retaliation for free speech. On Friday, a judge ordered him released on bail.After spending the evening driving from Jena, La., to a Houston airport, Mr. Khalil returned to the East Coast, his plane landing shortly before 1 p.m. on Saturday at Newark Liberty International Airport. He was expected to head to his home in New York City.When Mr. Khalil emerged at the Newark airport with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, he was quickly surrounded by roughly 50 supporters, reporters, lawyers and relatives.Mr. Khalil briefly addressed the crowd, saying he would immediately resume his outspoken work on behalf of Palestinian rights, speech he said that should be celebrated rather than punished. Asked about a message for the Trump administration, he said “just the fact that I am here sends a message.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Sides With Teenager in School Disability Discrimination Case

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      Disability rights groups had followed the case closely, warning that arguments by the school district could threaten broader protections for people with disabilities.The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a teenage girl with epilepsy and her parents who had sued a Minnesota school district, claiming that her school had failed to provide reasonable accommodations, which made it difficult for her to receive instruction.The case hinged on what standard of proof was required to show discrimination by public schools in education-related disability lawsuits.In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court held that the student and her family needed to show only that the school system had acted with “deliberate indifference” to her educational needs when they sued.That is the same standard that applies when people sue other institutions for discrimination based on disability.The school district argued that a higher standard — a stringent requirement that the institution had acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment” — should apply. Had the district prevailed, the new standard might have applied broadly to all kinds disability rights claims filed under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.That argument had unnerved some disability rights groups, which had cautioned that a ruling for the school could make it much harder for Americans with disabilities to successfully bring court challenges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Defense Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia Ask Judge to Release Him Pretrial

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      The request came as lawyers in Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s separate civil case were poised to ask a different judge to hold the Trump administration in contempt for sidestepping one of her orders.Defense lawyers for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant who was recently brought back to the United States to face a federal indictment after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, said in court papers on Wednesday that he should remain free from custody as he awaits trial.The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Nashville, amounted to the opening salvo of efforts by the defense lawyers to challenge the charges that were filed last week against Mr. Abrego Garcia.“With no legal process whatsoever, the United States government illegally detained and deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and shipped him to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador, one of the most violent, inhumane prisons in the world,” the lawyers wrote.“The government now asks this court to detain him further,” they went on, asking Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., who is handling the criminal case, to deny the request. Judge Crenshaw is set to hold a hearing on Friday to arraign Mr. Abrego Garcia and to hear arguments about whether to detain him before the trial.Mr. Abrego Garcia, a metalworker who was living in Maryland when he was arrested on March 12 and summarily deported three days later to El Salvador, had for weeks been trying through lawyers representing him in a separate civil case to enforce a court order instructing the Trump administration to take active measures toward securing his freedom.But after the administration repeatedly sought to sidestep and delay complying with that order, the Justice Department abruptly changed course. Top department officials announced on Friday that Mr. Abrego Garcia had been brought back to the United States to stand trial on charges of taking part in a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle thousands of undocumented immigrants across the country as a member of the violent street gang MS-13.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump, Bashing the Federalist Society, Asserts Autonomy on Judge Picks

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      The president has grown increasingly angry at court rulings blocking parts of his agenda, including by judges he appointed.President Trump appears to be declaring independence from outside constraints on how he nominates judges, signaling that he is looking for loyalists who will uphold his agenda and denouncing the conservative legal network that helped him remake the federal judiciary in his first term.Late Thursday, after a ruling struck down his tariffs on most imported goods, Mr. Trump attacked the Federalist Society, leaders of which heavily influenced his selection of judges during his first presidency.“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” Mr. Trump asserted on social media. “This is something that cannot be forgotten!”Hours earlier Thursday, the Justice Department severely undercut the traditional role of the American Bar Association in vetting judicial nominees. A day before, Mr. Trump picked a loyalist who has no deep ties to the conservative legal movement for a life-tenured appeals court seat, explaining that his pick could be counted on to rule in ways aligned with his agenda.Together, the moves suggest that Mr. Trump may be pivoting toward greater personal involvement and a more idiosyncratic process for selecting future nominees. Such a shift would fit with his second-term pattern of steamrolling the guardrails that sometimes constrained how he exercised power during his first presidency.But it could also give pause to judges who may be weighing taking senior status, giving Mr. Trump an opportunity to fill their seats. Conservatives have been eyeing in particular the seats of the Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, who will turn 77 next month, and Samuel A. Alito, 75.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration, for Now, to End Biden-Era Migrant Program

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      The Trump administration had asked the court to allow it to end deportation protections for more than 500,000 people facing dire humanitarian crises in their home countries.The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration, for now, to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian program intended to give temporary residency to more than 500,000 immigrants from countries facing war and political turmoil.The court’s order was unsigned and provided no reasoning, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, saying the majority had not given enough consideration to “the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”The ruling, which exposes some migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti to possible deportation, is the latest in a series of emergency orders by the justices in recent weeks responding to a flurry of applications asking the court to weigh in on the administration’s attempts to unwind Biden-era immigration policies.Friday’s ruling focused on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s expansion of a legal mechanism for immigration called humanitarian parole, in which migrants from countries facing instability are allowed to enter the United States and quickly secure work authorization, provided they have a private sponsor to take responsibility for them.Earlier this month, the justices allowed the Trump administration to remove deportation protections from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who had been allowed to remain in the United States under a program known as Temporary Protected Status.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Court Tariffs Ruling Upends Trump’s Trade Strategy

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      The administration immediately petitioned a court to allow the United States to continue imposing stiff tariffs.One day after a federal court declared many of his tariffs to be illegal, President Trump and his top aides on Thursday rushed to resuscitate the centerpiece of the administration’s trade agenda, seeking to restore their ability to use the threat of eye-watering import taxes to force other nations into submission.Shortly after the ruling, the administration petitioned a court to allow it to continue imposing its tariffs, reflecting a persistent fear throughout the White House that a defeat could severely undercut its capacity to wage a global trade war.Since taking office, Mr. Trump had relied on a federal emergency powers law as a form of political leverage, hoping to use sky-high duties — or just the mere threat of them — to force other governments to make trade concessions to the United States.But the little-known and highly specialized U.S. Court of International Trade dealt an early yet significant blow to that strategy late Wednesday. The bipartisan panel of judges, one of whom had been appointed by Mr. Trump, ruled that the law did not grant the president “unbounded authority” to impose tariffs on nearly every country, as Mr. Trump had sought.The Trump administration quickly petitioned the court to pause any enforcement of its order as it pursues an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. If judges ultimately grant the requested stay, Mr. Trump could, for now, maintain many of the tariffs he has imposed on China, Canada and Mexico and preserve the threat of “reciprocal” rates, which he announced on most nations and then suspended in early April.“I’m sure, when we appeal, this decision will be overturned,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an appearance Thursday on Fox Business.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Marshals’ Data Shows Spike in Threats Against Federal Judges

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      Data gathered by the law enforcement agency responsible for judicial security showed 162 judges faced threats between March 1 and April 14.Threats against federal judges have risen drastically since President Trump took office, according to internal data compiled by the U.S. Marshals Service.In the five-month period leading up to March 1 of this year, 80 individual judges had received threats, the data shows.Then, over the next six weeks, an additional 162 judges received threats, a dramatic increase. That spike in threats coincided with a flood of harsh rhetoric — often from Mr. Trump himself — criticizing judges who have ruled against the administration and, in some cases, calling on Congress to impeach them.Many judges have already spoken out, worrying about the possibility of violence and urging political leaders to tone things down.Since mid-April, the pace of the threats has slowed slightly, the data shows. Between April 14 and May 27, it shows 35 additional individual judges received threats. Still, the total number of judges threatened this fiscal year — 277 — represents roughly a third of the judiciary.The threat data was not released publicly but was provided to The New York Times by Judge Esther Salas of Federal District Court for New Jersey, who said she obtained it from the Marshals Service, which is tasked by law with overseeing security for the judiciary.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More