Donald Trump’s authoritarian mindset treats government property as his own and considers Congress, not to mention previous administrations’ policy precedents, as nuisances at best. These days, however, federal courts are halting his imperious disregard for the rule of law. This week he suffered three more embarrassing defeats in federal court.
First, in keeping with his telltale authoritarian habit of ignoring, sidestepping, or outright violating unambiguous statutes regarding federal properties, Trump has been trying to thwart the FBI headquarters’ move to Maryland in violation of an ongoing, congressionally authorized relocation process. Just as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals recently slapped down his East Wing building project (and before that, a district court nixed his renaming of the Kennedy Center), U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland, this week held that Trump could not negate the decision of the General Services Administration’s action, pursuant to its statutory authority, to relocate the headquarters. Trump and embattled FBI director Kash Patel, in deciding to countermand the GSA’s site selection without going back to Congress, had acted “unlawfully,” Chuang held.
Maryland’s attorney general and governor took a victory lap, as the Associated Press reported:
“Maryland and Prince George’s County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. “By blocking the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, also a Democrat, said, “Now it is time to stop the games and get to work building the world-class FBI headquarters that our public servants deserve, where it belongs: in Prince George’s County, Maryland.”
As Brown put it, the case (in keeping with other recent humiliating Trump defeats) was really about separation of powers and defending the legislative branch’s powers, which Trump threatened to override. “[W]hen Congress makes a decision, the Trump administration does not get to ignore it because they do not like the outcome,” Brown said simply. He added, “Congress made a promise. The Trump Administration tried to break it. Now, the jobs, investment, and opportunity Marylanders deserve are within reach.” Trump vows to appeal, but for now his imperious move is on hold.
This was not Trump’s only court loss this week, nor even the only case in which a judge slammed the regime for capricious, arbitrary action. A White House that posits itself as the great defender of religion has been overtly hostile to groups other than white Christian Evangelicals (e.g., Muslims), blasphemous in its imagery of Trump, and disrespectful of places of religious worship.
In a case that came to the 4th Circuit, Trump tried to reverse a longstanding government policy limiting immigration raids at places of worship. The panel unanimously held in favor of litigants from Cooperative Baptists, Quakers, and Sikh congregations, whose houses of worship had been imperiled by indiscriminate, often violent immigration dragnet operations:
In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded a long-standing policy of limiting immigration enforcement actions at or near houses of worship. Among other things, DHS’s new policy removed guidelines requiring that immigration officers weigh various considerations before conducting enforcement actions at these sensitive locations. Instead, the new policy requires only that the officials use their discretion and “common sense” in deciding where to conduct immigration enforcement actions. . . .
The plaintiffs assert, among other things, that the new policy has and will continue to chill immigrant attendance at the plaintiffs’ worship services and other ministries. They further allege that this decline in attendance burdens their ability to worship communally and to minister to immigrant communities, both acts of which are fundamental to their religious exercise.
The 4th Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, issuing a preliminary injunction under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), finding many immigrants decided “not to attend the plaintiffs’ houses of worship because of the new policy. . . . [and that] the plaintiffs’ asserted injury of a decline in attendance at worship services and other activities is fairly traceable to the new policy.”
Despite the court’s restrained language, it highlighted the White House’s obvious contempt for diverse religious faiths for whom communal worship is vital:
DHS has made clear that it intends to target houses of worship in future immigration enforcement actions. As recounted above, a DHS spokesperson explained in January 2025 that the new policy expands the reach of law enforcement in sensitive locations so that “[c]riminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.” For the plaintiffs, who welcome immigrant worshipers and have locations in or near immigrant communities, DHS’s statement emphasizing the rationale for this policy change shows that the threat of immigration enforcement at their houses of worship is real and substantial.
This was not a close call. “[W]e easily conclude that the district court did not err in determining that the balance of equities and the public interest support granting the preliminary injunction.”
Third, in another defeat for the Trump regime’s gambit of trying to install U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation (following a similar defeat in the Third Circuit regarding Alina Habba), a 9th Circuit panel unanimously slapped down Trump’s attempt to leave in place interim U.S. attorney Sigal Chattah, a Trump flunky and election denier who “has reportedly sought to investigate a political adversary and benefit allies and pushed the FBI to investigate claims of noncitizens voting in the 2020 election,” the Nevada Independent reported.
In an opinion authored by Trump appointee Judge Eric D. Miller, the court held Attorney General Todd Blanche could not “make someone an Acting United States Attorney — bypassing the usual requirement that a U.S. Attorney be confirmed by the Senate — by designating that person as the first assistant to an already-vacant office of U.S. Attorney.” It refused to allow Blanche to make her a “de facto acting U.S. attorney by delegating all of the functions and duties of the U.S. attorney to someone else.” The court thereby preserved the Senate’s constitutional role, despite Trump and his puppet Blanche’s antics, which, as the New York Times reported, have fomented “a sense of chaos within the Justice Department, which has pivoted in some instances to a retribution campaign against President Trump’s perceived enemies” and severely damaged its prosecutorial record, with defeats ranging “from its immigration-related prosecutions to the recent abandonment of [the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool] vandalism case.”
Trump’s raging arrogance, contempt for Congress and due process, and willful disregard for Americans’ rights will not abate, nor will his spineless congressional allies defend their own institutional prerogatives. However, lower federal court judges have consistently defended the rule of law, the separation of powers, and due process against arbitrary actions by an unhinged president. We should be grateful for their undaunted and uncompromising stance in defense of our democracy that keeps tyranny at bay.
To the Democrats in Congress:
It was not that long ago that President Biden was vilified for normal aging. That he was aging was undeniable and the need for fresh eyes and legs was justified. The stamina, integrity and cognitive cohesiveness of a person with enough years of experience to incorporate those qualities into a vigorous and effective administration is essential for a functional presidency.
President Biden gave his all to his time in office and that office took all of it. With Trump, the compare and contrast is devastating, a man of vanishing comprehension, with more power than competence. He
is not cognitively intact. His physical health is observably failing. His emotional stability is not based in reality. He has moved way past the line established by the Democrats to question his acuity. If the criticism of the Democrats was that we waited too long, then how long is too long for there to be a reckoning of Trump’s vast and ever deepening deficits.
Trump is stuck in an endless cycle of fear and retribution now, retribution tomorrow, retribution forever. He must be right and for him to be right everyone else must be wrong. These are not the actions of a well man; his demeanor is not one of health or competence and he has the nuclear codes. Every mistake is not his fault, every obsession is his reality and every decent into further perversion of his authority is inevitable. He is trapped in his severely compromised state and he is dangerous.
We the People Do Not Consent.
I am grateful for these lower court judges and their rulings, but as long as Trump's attitude is that "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission" - re: moving on construction of the ballroom at superspeed, etc. - it's not enough. We also need a DOJ and a Supreme Court to enforce the law. (And a Congress with a spine....)